258 Mr. J. Phillips on Ancient Metallurgy and Mining 



supplied sheet and pipe lead for our baths and coffins at York, 

 as well as tribute to the imperial treasury ; the mines of Mid- 

 dleton and Youlgreave (Aldgroove), from which the Lutudce 

 sent not only lead, but ' exargentate ' (that is to say refined) 

 lead from which the silver had been removed, use to this day 

 the pig of the same weight of 1^ cwt., of similar shape and 

 similar mark to that of 1800 years antiquity*. And just as 

 at the present day, the countryman whose galloway is tired 

 drops the leaden load by the way side, for another day's work, 

 so in the days of Rome, the Brigantian lead was thrown down 

 from the tired caballus by the side of the ancient mining road, 

 on Matlock Moor in Derbyshire, and Dacre Pasture in York- 

 shire. 



This fact of the discovery of the Roman lead, 7iot at the 

 mines, but at a distance of some miles from them on a track 

 leading towards a Roman or rather a Pre-Roman station, is of 

 much importance in archaeology. For thus we arrive, in the 

 first pJHCe, at the conviction of the existence of very ancient 

 mining roads not of Roman work, nor probably of Roman 

 but of earlier date, leading toward Cataractonium, Isurium, 

 Eburacum, Mancunium, Derventio, or rather to the Brigan- 

 tian towns or centres of trade, on which the Romans following 

 their wont in Africa, Spain, and Gaul, fixed their attention 

 and established their war camps and their colonies. The 

 politic lords of the world broke up no national industry, set 

 no legionaries to supplant the native miners, but stationing a 

 few cohorts on the ancient roads, in or close to the mining 

 district, as at Hope and Bainbridge, to control a rude popu- 

 lation, received regularly the fruits of the industry which they 

 might direct, but did not personally share. Viewed in this 

 light, how complete appears the grasp of the Roman treasury 

 on the mining fields of Britain ! The Fossway from the 

 Ocrynian promontory crosses the Mendip Hills — the road 

 from Mancunium to Bremetonacum traverses the Calamine 

 district of Bowland — the road from Derventio or Tutbury to 

 Mancunium runs along the west of the great Derbyshire field, 

 and the legionary path from Carlisle to York goes right across 

 the metalliferous country of Yorkshire and Durham. 



We may even ask, with some confidence, whether the line 

 of the Hadrian wall, which cuts off from the north all the 

 richest mines of the Derwent, the Allen, and the Tyne, but 

 abandons the mossy dales of bleak Northumbria, was not 



• The modern pig is made near to — of a fodder or 176^ lbs. Three 

 Roman pigs found near Matlock in 1777, 1783, 1787, weighed 173, 126, 

 and 84 lbs., these being as 1, %, and \ of the modern pig. 



