What this blog is for

Partly, perhaps, to waste a bit more time -- but mostly because I am trying to write a book about the history of the cast-iron stove in the United States (and, to an extent, Canada) and in the course of that I come across all kinds of nice things that I know are too long for me ever to use, either at all or in full, so I thought "Nice Mr Google makes it possible for people to post stuff out there where anybody can see it, and also makes it easy for people to stumble over stuff even if they never knew it existed, so why not?"  If I make no use of this or get bored, nothing has been lost.