105 



rule affords but little guidance in working the mine. Trials by 

 means of drifts are frequently disappointing. Occasionally some 

 enlargement inside the drift will lead to workings being carried on 

 in a direction which brings them to some old drift that has been 

 abandoned, and would, if carried a few feet further, have discovered 

 a valuable bed of ore. 



It should be remarked that as the mine is worked towards the 

 south, the superincumbent mass of Yoredale shale increases, and 

 the limestone dips at the same rate. The ore from one end to 

 the other of this mine . apparently maintains the same relative 

 depth in the limestone, and it is only the increasing thickness of 

 the shale that causes the ore to be worked at an increasing depth. 



The progress and development of the iron ore district of Low 

 Furness is interesting and instructive. Up to the year 1840 the 

 production of iron ore in the whole district did not exceed 30,000 

 tons, and this was raised in the most primitive manner by a machine 

 called a horse-gin. The miners were raised and lowered in buckets. 

 There were no pumps in the whole district, and, in fact, water being 

 reached, put a stop to further operations. 



In the years 1840 and 1841 an effort was made to get a tramway 

 from the mines to the port of Barrow. The miners appealed to 

 the Duke of Buccleuch, who was then the only mineral owner 

 whose mines were in operation. This assistance was refused, and 

 the origin of the Furness Railway Company was due to pure 

 chance. In consequence of a scheme having been propounded to 

 connect Preston with Carlisle by a railway across Morecambe Bay 

 and Duddon Sands, prior to the formation of the Lancaster and 

 Carlisle Railway, the Duke of Buccleuch, the Duke of Devonshire 

 (then Earl of Burlington), and the Earl of Lonsdale, employed the 

 celebrated engineer, Mr. James Walker, to survey the district, with 

 the object of ascertaining — first, the advantages or disadvantages 

 that might accrue to their respective properties in consequence of 

 the formation of such railway; and, secondly, to ascertain whether 

 in their joint interests any enclosure of the Duddon Sands could be 

 made with advantage. It so happened that the writer of this 

 paper was a personal friend of Mr. James Walker, and talked to 



