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Cleveland. The pretty crystalline variety, called spathic carbonate, 

 was from the Brendon Hills, in Sotaerset. It was of great value 

 for making spiegel-eisen. Lastly, the nodules, stuck in places in 

 the soft shales of the Yorkshire coast, as if a vessel out at sea had 

 fired them, instead of cannon balls, were also a carbonate of iron. 

 Next they came to the beautiful red hematite of Cumberland and 

 North Lancashire. Of this pure and valuable ore one million tons 

 were now raised annually in the Cumberland district alone. The 

 map before them would show them how the hollows and veins in 

 which it was discovered were scattered over the mountain limestone. 

 Much of the ore was in a state of fine division, and the kidney-shaped, 

 fibrous, and crystalline masses were scattered through the softer 

 earth. It was almost a pure sesquioxide of iron, containing 90 to 

 98 per cent, of the oxide, or 66 per cent, of the metal. The glittering 

 particles of micaceous iron were the same substance in the 

 crystalline form. There was a mass of the crystals from the lava 

 of Vesuvius, another from a vein of Norwegian quartz, and another 

 was of the well-known resplendent crystals of the Isle of Elba. They 

 now came to the brown hematite. The ore was more generally 

 diffused than the red. The basis of it, however, was the same, the 

 difference being principally in the proportions in which the 

 sesquioxide was united with water. The Forest of Dean supplied, 

 perhaps, the largest quantity of this ore worked in England. It 

 was also found in Cornwall. Such a specimen as that before them 

 contained about 86 per cent, of the oxide. The oolites of North- 

 hamptonshire furnished also large quantities of brown hematite. 

 The botryoidal mass, the thin shining plates, and the glittering 

 prisms, were the same substance in a state of ci'ystallization. These 

 last contained some II per cent, of water. Thirdly, and lastly, they 

 came to those neai-ly black, or steel grey, ores which, like ii'on itself, 

 attracted the magnet and deflected the needle, hence called magnetic 

 oi'es. These often contained large quantities of titanic acid. Great 

 Britain was very poor in these ores, Sweden and Norway very rich. 

 They were imported in large quantities into England. The best 

 iron in the world was, perhaps, made from them. They sometimes 

 contained 72 per cent, of metallic iron. 



They now came to the next important part of the subject — in 

 what manner were those ores of iron deposited in the rocks of the 

 earth. The vast masses of iron ore in the world occurred in rocks 



