Ochreous Stains



Patches of iron oxide from chalybeate springs stain the generally browner mud at regular intervals along the littoral. John Ruskin, referring to another chalybeate spring in Tunbridge Wells in Kent, felt that the purest form of iron was its oxide, and that nature would eventually return even the polished steel of the finest engineering achievements of his time, back to dusty rust*. Through a process of washing and refining, I have captured a few grams of the lightest and finest reddish particles as a token of mortality, of change and a remembrance of the work of a Victorian writer.

*A Lecture Delivered at Tunbridge Wells, February, 1858: http://www.readbookonline.net/read/2781/12001/