PROGRESS TO THE MINES. J. 29 



better proof against tlie sudden changes of weather, to which this climate is 

 unhappily subject. 



25th. After saying some very civil things to Mrs. Chiswc'I, for my hand- 

 some entertainment, I mounted my horse, and Mr. Chiswell his phaeton, in 

 order to go to the mines at Fredericksville. We could converse very little 

 by the way, by i-eason of our different voitures. The road was very straight 

 and level the whole journey, which was twenty-five miles, the last ten 

 whereof I rode in tlie chair, and my friend on my horse, to ease ourselves by 

 that variety of motion. About a mile before we got to Fredericksville, we 

 forded over the north branch of Pamunky, about sixty yards over. Neither 

 this nor the south branch run up near so high as the mountains, but many miles 

 below them spread out into a kind of morass, like Chickahominy. When we 

 approached the mines, there opened to our view a large space of cleared 

 ground, whose wood had been cut down for coaling. We arrived here about 

 two o'clock, and Mr. Chiswell had been so provident as to bring a cold 

 venison pasty, with which we appeased our appetites, without the impatience 

 of waiting. When our tongues were at leisure for discourse, my friend told 

 me there was one Mr. Harrison, in England, who is so universal a dealer in 

 all sorts of iron, that he could gov^ern the market just as he pleased. That 

 it was by his artful management that our iron from the plantations sold 

 for less than that made in England, though it was generally reckoned much 

 better. That ours would hardly fetch six pounds a ton, when their's fetched 

 seven or eight, purely to serve that man's interest. Then he explained the 

 sev^eral charges upon our sow iron, after it was put on board the ships. That 

 in the first place it paid seven shillings and sixpence a ton for freight, being 

 just so much clear gain to the ships, which carry it as ballast, or wedge it in 

 among the hogsheads. When it gets home, it pays three shillings and nine- 

 pence custom. These articles together make no more than eleven shillings 

 and fhree pence, and yet the merchants, by their great skill in multiplying 

 charges, swell the account up to near thirty shillings a ton by that time it 

 gets out of their hands, and they are continually adding more and more, as 

 they serve us in our accounts of tobacco. He told me a strange thing about 

 steel, that the making of the best remains at this day a profound secret in 

 the breast of a very few, and therefore is in danger of being lost, as the art 

 of staining of glass, and many others, have been. He could only tell me they 

 used beech wood in the making of it in Europe, and burn it a considerable 

 time in powder of charcoal ; but the mystery lies in the liquor they quench 

 it in. After dinner we took a walk to the furnace, which is elegantly built of 

 brick, though the hearth be of fire-stone. There we saw the founder, Mr. 

 Derham, who is paid four shillings for every ton of sow iron that he runs, 

 which is a shilling cheaper than the last workman had. This operator looked 

 a little melancholy, because he had nothing to do, the furnace having been 

 cold ever since May, for want of corn to support the cattle. This was how- 

 ever no neglect of Mr. Chiswell, because all the persons he had contracted 

 with had basely disappointed him. But having received a small supply, they 

 intended to blow very soon. With that view they began to heat the furnace, 

 which is six weeks before it comes to that intense heat required to run the 

 metal in perfection. Neverthless, they commonly begin to blow when the 

 fire has been kindled a week or ten days. Close by the furnace stood a 

 very spacious house full of charcoal, holding at least four hundred loads, 

 which will be burnt out in three months. The company has contracted with 

 Mr. Harry Willis to fall the wood, and then maul it and' cut it into pieces of 

 four feet in length, and bring it to the pits where it is to be coaled. All this 

 he has undertaken to do for two shillings a cord, which must be four feel 

 broad, four feet high, and eight feet long. Being thus carried to the pits, the 



