Life in the Bones- Bone Mills

The fact that manure made from bones revitalized the prospects of countless Victorian farms doesn’t prevent its manufacture from being a disgusting, filthy ordeal. While a few forward-thinking farms purchased bone-milling machines and dug sulfuric acid pits to process bones on their own, large industrial factories crank out most of England’s bone manure. England’s earliest bone mills started production in Yorkshire during the 1810s. By 1850, cargoes full of bones shipped from continental ports feed mills in every seaport in the southern English coast. In the metropolis, bone mills scavenge their raw materials from the surrounding population. The people of London alone consume over 10,000 tons of meat a day, producing a remarkable quantity of unwanted bones.

The eponymous bone mill (or bone crusher) is a machine with a series of large metal rollers covered in durable spiked teeth. Laborers pour bones down into the whirling cylinders to pulverize bones down to the desired size. Those that survive the process with too much mass fall into a compartment which is again dumped out over the cylinders.  Beneath the cylinders, an oscillating grill further collects and separates the fine bone dust from the chunks. Deafening and unnerving cracks, pops, and rumbles constantly fill the air, making verbal communication impossible during the machine’s operation. The toothed cylinders can be adjusted or replaced to produce pieces of varying sizes, such as inch, or half inch bone nuggets. Water wheels provide constant power for those mills with access to flowing water. For the rest, a hundred pounds of coal keeps the toothed rollers crushing all day.

Wagons and carts full of stinking skeletal heaps surround the mill building. First workers separate the useless refuse (such as stones, hoofs, horns, or simple garbage) from the precious but filthy bones. Certain of the remains collected by bone mills have more valuable uses than being crushed to powder. They pull out the femurs and other large bones and ship them to France for manufacturing hair combs, knife handles, toothbrushes, and more. Then they run the larger bones through the crusher with the least thoroughly toothed cylinders or chop them up with axes. This step speeds up the next part of the process by breaking up the largest fragments and scraping up the bone’s surface. Next, the bone boilers drop the broken pieces into massive lidded cauldrons full of foul-smelling, pitch-black, boiling water to remove any remaining meat and fat. Many mills sell their own soap and grease made from the cooled animal fat skimmed off the top of these cauldrons. After their removal from the water with a ladle or pitchfork, the cleaned bones dry in storage for days or months before again facing the metal teeth of the bone mill. This last pulverization breaks the bones down to the right sized nuggets or dust.

Bone dust is the most valuable but most time-consuming product of the mill. Wicked bone-boilers adulterate their dust with clumps of dried lime, crumbling plaster, potash left over from soap making, sawdust, old wood, or any other substance they can crush to powder. Some of these additives hinder plant growth; others (such as arsenic) could seriously endanger farmhands. Upstanding and enterprising bone-boilers enrich their bone dust further by dumping it into an iron tank and mixing it with sulfuric acid. This treatment increases the dust’s efficacy which further increases crop yields.

Adventure Ideas

As a collection center for dead remains, a plethora of carcasses pass through bone mills. Biologists, taxidermists and magicians pay the bone-boilers to keep an eye open for specific animals useful to their business and research.

I think we’ve just about reached peak grimy grotesque Victorian history. Next post, I’ll unleash a fun new monster inspired by Bone Mills ready to menace your players.