1S4 



DISCOVERY 



tinguished from the " Middle Chalk " in North Lin- 

 colnshire, by means of certain fossils which it contains 

 but which do not occur in the lower two divisions. It 

 consists of a hard white chalk, So feet or so in thickness, 

 with numerous thin layers of flint. 



Fig. I shows a general view of part of one of the two 



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Fig. 2.— view showing METHOD OF WORKING AND EFFECT 

 OF WEATHERING ON CHAI^K. 



great quarries at Melton Ross situate on the main line 

 between Sheffield and Grimsby, which passes between 

 them on a high natural embankment of chalk that has 

 not been quarried. These quarries, each 175 yards 

 long by 100 yards wide and 50 feet deep, have been 

 worked for many years for whiting, and lime for 

 building and agricultural purposes, but the bulk of the 

 output is used for fluxing steel in furnaces. 



The chalk, or " Limestone " as it is called locally, 

 is won simply by pick and shovel, and occasionally by 

 blasting. It is quarried out in steps or ledges as shown 



in Figs. I and 2. For making whiting, which is chemic- 

 ally pure chalk, there are pan-mills to grind to a paste 

 the pure white beds of chalk which occur in certain 

 parts of the quarry. The slurry or liquor from the 

 pan -mills is run off into settling-pits, from which the 

 paste is dug out by hand and placed in lumps on shelves 

 in long open sheds where it is dried by the air. A 

 certain waste -product is removed from the slurry before 

 it enters the settling-pits. This product is coarse in 

 grain and cannot be used in the manufacture of whiting, 

 although its chemical composition is identical with 

 that of whiting. 



The process is quite simple ; but good raw material 

 such as is to be foimd in the " Middle Chalk " is in- 

 dispensable. 



The manufacture of lime, and of the purer variety 

 of lime for steel-smelting, is also carried out in brick 

 kilns in one of the quarries. The process consists of 

 burning the chalk (calcium carbonate) into lime 

 (calcium oxide) — the latter, like cement, having the 

 property of forming another hard chemical compound 

 when mixed with water. 



The flint quarried is ground for poultry grit. 



Fig. 2 shows the manner in which chalk disintegrates 

 when exposed to the atmosphere for some time, the 

 lines of stratification being almost obliterated. This 

 is seen in the top right-hand comer of the photograph, 

 where there is an old trial-hole which was put down to 

 test the nature of the chalk before opening up the 

 quarry. The photograph shows the lines of stratifica- 

 tion of the freshly dug quarry contrasted with the 

 disintegrated chalk of the trial-hole put down two 

 years or so before the quarry was opened out. 



Fig. 3 shows a large pit one mile south of Ulceby 

 Church or two miles east of Melton Ross whiting works. 

 The character of the chalk here, belonging to the Upper 



Fig. 3.— GENERAI< view OF THE CHALK WITH FLINT '■ UPPER CHALK •' QUARRY AT ULCEBY, USED FOR THE CONSTRUCTION 



OF IMMINGHAM DOCK. 



