17 



WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 13th, 1899. 



iDisoxjssioisr 



ON 



%l)t ^ssartation nf ^tembers for t\)t 

 Hnh^ 0f some Eneatplaint5 f ln^ncmena, 



OPENED BY 



Mr. henry DAVEY, Jun. 



WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 10th, 1900. 



Mr. J. LEWIS, F.S.A. 



THE lecture dealt with the flourishing iron trade of which 

 Kent and Sussex were at one time the centre. It called 

 up visions of a Weald, not dreaming away the years in a rural 

 beauty changing its aspect only with the changing seasons, but 

 belching forth fire and smoke from a score of great furnaces and 

 foundries, and so devastating the country side that special legisla- 

 tion had to be enacted to protect the trees from being all used 

 up to feed the flames. The lecture was illustrated by a number 

 of lantern slides. 



It seemed, said Mr. Lewis, hardly possible that rural Sussex 

 was at one time the seat of a great iron industry, and, considering 

 the extent to which that industry was carried on, it was singular 

 that, till 1844, no one had thought it necessary to investigate its 

 rise and fall. Speaking generally, the use of wrought iron 

 marked the stage in the evolution of races which followed what 

 we call the " bronze age," but the casting of iron, — the melting 

 of it in the furnace and the forming of it in moulds, — marked a 

 far greater advance in knowledge. The origin of the iron work- 

 ing in Sussex, however, seemed quite lost. 



