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minoral howovov is tlie ironstono, which ocpurs in two bods of 

 about ono foot to two foot in thickness, in isolated patches be- 

 tween Tunbridge Wolls and Ilastings. It was mined by sink- 

 ing shafts to about twonty foot in doptli, and then driving 

 tunnels radiating liorizontally into tlxo beds ; wlion the length of 

 these became inconvenient tlioy were filbvl in and fresh ones 

 opened. In this part of the country the old mill ponds used in 

 connection M-ith the requisite machinery for producing iron may 

 still be seen ; much of the old ironwork in tlio neiglibourjiood 

 was obtained in the district. To use a form not logically correct 

 some of the old tombstones in the churcjiyards are made of 

 iron. Eoman remains found under slag lieaps attest the tra- 

 dition that iron was smelted here from the earliest times, even it 

 is said before the Koman period. But the first direct historical 

 notice is tliat of a charter being granted to the people of Lewes 

 in Henry ITI.'s reign, to enable the inhnbitants to levy toll on 

 all carts laden with iron passing throuj;!! the gates of the town. 

 In Edward II.'s reign three thousand horse slio;?s were ordered 

 for the expedition against the Scots, terminating on the field of 

 Bannockburn. In Henry VIII. 's reign the first cast iron gun 

 ever made in this country is claimed as having been constructed 

 at Buxted on the borders of Kent, which perhaps excited as 

 much interest at the time as the manufacture of a modern 

 "Woolwich Infant" does now. It is somewhat remarkable 

 that the l)iggest iron guns that the world has ever seen are still 

 made in the same county. Historicalh' later the heavy iron 

 balustrades that once surrounded St. Paul's Catliedral were 

 made at Lanxberliurst, and cost eleven thousand pounds, but 

 when the Earl of Dudley began to manufacture iron with coal, 

 at Dudley, in Staffordshire, this industry of the south gradually 

 declined until the last iron furnace was blown out at Ashburidiam 

 in 1828. This iron was of a superior quality, as it was produced 

 from charcoal, furnished from the extensive forests that once 

 clothed the Weold, and from which is said to have been derived 

 the name of the AVeald, Wold, or AVoodland. In asceiulino- 

 order the highest formation of tlie Wealden is next encountered^ 

 namelj^, tlie Weald Clay, forming tlie wide valley between the 

 Hastings sands and the Lower Greensand range. It is litho- 

 logically most remarkable for containing beds of the marble 

 known as Petworth and Bethersdon marbles. Like the ironstone 

 it also occurs in patches, thinning outwards from the centre to 

 the edges, and is supposed to have been deposited in lakes that 

 once occupied hollows in the surface of clay. It is generally 

 coarser in its character than the Purbeck marble. Several door- 

 stops of cottages in Canterbury are made of this marble, as 

 well as some of the old altar slabs of the churches, which at the 

 Reformation were taken down and made into tombstones and 



