15 



depth of from eight to ten or twelve feet below the surface^ 

 This price would fall to £100 or £70 if the depth of the bed was 

 fourteen or eighteen feet, in which case the labour and cost of 

 procuring them would be much increased. 



The deeper the vein, the better in general the nodules in 

 quality and value; there is also less labour in washing them 

 clean, there not being so much silt and gravel mixed up with 

 them as when they lie shallower. 



The work is done sometimes by the day, but more generally 

 by the piece. — A body of forty or fifty labourers will appoint a 

 ganger and an accountant from the cleverest among themselves, 

 and take the work, digging and washing at so much ; for fleet 

 digging, as the term is there, or shallcvj, — (eight to ten or twelve 

 feet below the surface) — at 14s. to 18s. per ton; — over that 

 depth (seventeen to twenty feet) — at 20s. to 26s. per ton. 

 Beyond twenty feet the digging is seldom attempted, the market 

 value, now about 30s. to 33s. per ton, not being sufficiently high 

 to remunerate. At one spot, however, near Cambridge, the 

 digging goes down to twenty-two feet, where the nodules are of a 

 very unusual size, being as large as the fist. 



The process of getting these nodules is exactly that of 

 '•■ double trenching " on a large scale. The men begin an acre 

 by digging a trench of the requisite depth and harrowing away 

 the material to the further extremity of the land, where they 

 mean to finish. After the nodules have been obtained from the 

 bottom of this trench, a second is dug parallel to it, the material 

 from which serves to fill up the first ; then a third is dug, the 

 material from this filling up the second ; and so on to the end, 

 the last trench being filled up with the material harrowed from 

 the spot where the digging commenced. In each case, the top 

 soil, after removal, is carefully packed up in ridges, to be replaced 

 at the top of the trenches when filled up again, as agreed upon 

 with the landlords. 



The trenches vary in length from tliirty to fifty yards, The 



