The Great Wall of China


I was recently helping a friend's son from Virginia do a school project in the L.A. area. He sent my wife and I a paper cut out of a boy that was to be photographed around town in fun situations..  Killing two critters with one stone, I took the opportunity to survey all the new erosion.
The rains really pounded Southern Cal pretty good. There are remnants of mudslides, and things giving way all over town.  The soil is so sandy that water just has it's way with everything. Craters and channels are easily created by water flows. This all works in favor of bottle/relic hunters.
I ended up in Chinatown on the last leg of my photo journey. While making my way through town I noticed a big old wall had come down in a couple spots. I tried to eyeball for glass while passing by, but the traffic forced me past pretty quick. I almost kept going, but I thought "what the heck!" I looped around the block through some older homes and pulled up right next to the wall. I'd seen this wall before passing through here.

Upon jumping out, I could see some pieces of opalized glass here and there. That always gets the juices going! I scoped the whole first section of fallen wall. Nothing turned up so I headed for the next open section. There was a lot more dirt and debris on the ground in front of this spot.(all the stone/brick/block pieces were hauled off, I guess) I found a couple more pieces of opalized glass on the ground. After scanning the exposed dirt face I soon noticed the bottom corner of what looked to be a medicine bottle peeking out of the dirt. Bing!! I got more than I expected. I ran back to get my camera for the blow by blow.

 
I commenced to carve it out of the hardened sand thinking it was broken or cracked. The bottle stayed intact all the way up to the lip. I flipped it over with the lip still lodged in the sand and noticed the embossing. What a surprise! I chipped it the rest of the way out and got more of the dirt off.

C. F. HEINZEMAN
    PHARMACIST
222 NORTH MAIN ST.
LOS ANGELES, CAL   in slug plate

I checked out the rest of the area and dug out more, sandy dirt to no avail. At one point the dirt got that musty, old biodegrading materials smell so I thought more would come up. Nothing yet, but I'll put this spot on my regular rounds of places to check. The dirt is soft enough beyond the top layer that I may just try to probe it next time.
I have visions of those cool cobalt bottles with the Chinese characters embossed on them dancing through my head!

TIL THE NEXT TIME!
PATRICK