328 The New Ivon-fields of England. | July, 
canal and rail into South Staffordshire, and even South Wales. The 
quantity of ore raised in 1864 was 335,787 tons, of the value of 
84,7617. The furnaces are situated at Wellingborough and Weedon. 
Having thus described the geological position of both the Oolitic 
and Liassic iron-stones, and also the special characters and districts 
where the former of these occurs, we shall now return to the 
consideration of the latter and more important source of supply 
from the New Iron-fields, and trace its course from Yorkshire in 
the north to Oxfordshire in the south. 
The Cleveland Hills, the cradle of the new iron trade, form a 
range of very picturesque hills, terminating northward in a line of 
escarpment, ranging along the valley of the Tees and in lofty cliffs 
hning the coast of the German Ocean from Saltburn to Whitby. 
Inland, the escarpment bends round to the southward, opposite 
Middlesborough, and stretches in an indented line to the banks of 
the Humber, near Hull. The northern portion of the hills is 
intersected by deep valleys, some entering from the coast, as those 
of Skelton Beck, Kilton Brook, Easington, and Rondsley Brooks. 
Others enter from the land side, as “those of Guisborough and 
Kildale. The summits of the ridges between these valleys are 
capped by Great Oolite, below which is the Upper Lias shale, 
forming the upper slopes down to the Marlstone, or iron-stone bed, 
which juts out along the flanks of the valleys about half-way from 
the bottom. The importance of these valleys in laying bare the 
outcrop of the iron-stone, and allowing it to be extensively worked 
without the labour and cost of mining, will be readily appreciated. 
Already, numerous tramways and branch lines connecting the 
mines with the North Yorkshire, Cleveland, and Stockton aud Darling- 
ton Railways, as well as with special smelting-furnaces, have been 
constructed. Like the Cotteswold Hills, in Gloucestershire, the 
Cleveland Hills may be regarded as an elevated table-land, so 
deeply indented and cut up by valleys, that its original form is 
almost obliterated, and it now presents the appearance of an assemblage 
of ridges and ramifying valleys, with little appearance of order or 
system in their arrangement. This, however, is only apparent, as 
the upper surface of the ridges corresponds to an imaginary plane 
sloping gently towards the south-east. The general vertical section 
of the formations as they occur near Saltburn is as follows :— 
Thickness in Feet. 
GREAT OOLITE .« . - Yellowish sandy Oolitic Freestone . 
Upper Lias ° Dark blue bituminous Shales 150 
Mippte Lis, or Marrstonr 1. Nodular Iron-stone, with a thin band 
of Iron Pyrites ° f . 3 in. 
2. Solid greyish- -green Tronstene 5 . - Lote 
3. Sandy : and rusty Shales . wee 12 
4. Second bed of Iron-stone, resembling 
“ clay-band,”’ with 30 per cent. of Iron 3 
5. Sandy Shales and Sandstone. - 80 
Lower LIAs ° 5 . Blue Shales and Clay . ° ° = 
