In the late 1870s or early 1880s, an iron thimble emerged from a piece of coal being burned in a stove in Colorado.

In 1912, a worker feeding coal into a furnace at a power plant in Thomas, Oklahoma split open a large piece of coal and found an iron pot inside. "This iron pot fell from the center," recalled the man, "leaving the impression or mould of the pot in the piece of coal. I traced the source of the coal, and found that it came from the Wilburton, Okla. mines."

In 1937, a woman in Pennsylvania discovered a large ceramic spoon or ladle while removing the ashes of a large chunk of coal she'd just burned in her stove. The Smithsonian Institution was unable to determine the
article's origin.

Coal isn't the only material where erratic artifacts have been found:

In 1844, quarry workers found a piece of gold thread embedded in rock at a depth of eight feet in Rutherford Mills, England.

In the year 1851, a piece of auriferous quartz from California split open when it
was dropped, reaving a slightly corroded cut iron nail that was "entirely straight and had a perfect head."

Another nail was discovered in a block of stone from Kingoodie Quarry in northern England.

In 1869, a piece of feldspar taken from a mine near Treasure City, Nevada was found to contain the oxidized remains of a tapered, uniformly threaded iron screw in its interior.

[ 09-05-2001: Message edited by: Pinhead ]