Using a Medical Endoscope to Peek at the Past

A not too well-known Union general did something unusual following the Civil War. General Montgomery C. Meigs fought in the war, but he is most known for his architect work later. What he did was create a massive time capsule with one of his structures. In the 18801’s, for the US Pension Building in Washington DC, he designed and built it using hollow cast-iron columns. He had the hollow columns filled with newspapers, catalogs, etc. from the day.
The well-built edifice now serves as the National Building Museum. At one point in the 1960’s one of the columns was vandalized. Someone drilled a finger size hole in one of the columns. In 1995, the new medical endoscope which is used all the time in modern-day surgeries, was sent into the inside of the column through the small hole and view hundreds of paper artifacts.
To see what else is inside the other columns will have to wait a while, maybe another century when the building lapses its usefulness. [maxbutton id=”6″ url=”http://localhost:8888/curt ” text=”Read More Blogs” ]