INDUSTRIES 



chalk hills of the North and South Downs. 

 'The ore mostly used was clay ironstone, 

 occurring in thin beds of nodules near the bottom 

 of the Wadhurst clay. There is a thin bed of 

 shelly ironstone beneath it, the lime in which 

 was probably used as a flux. A nodule of the 

 ore when broken is of a bluish-grey colour, but 

 bright steely specks can be seen in the fracture. 

 The outer side of the nodule is usually rusty 

 with iron-oxide.' 27 A more technical account of 

 the ore 28 says : 



The stone from which this iron was manufactured 

 seems principally to have been a spathose ore, or an 

 altered spathose ore, where the carbonate of iron has 

 been converted into a hydrated peroxide. The 

 percentage of this class of ore seems to be very good, 

 some of which, on being tried, produced as much as 

 50 per cent. ; a fair average would seem to range from 

 25 per cent, to 40 per cent. Other classes of ore 

 have also probably been used, for clay ironstone is 

 often found, although, so far as observed, generally 

 poor, and siliceous ores occur in other places. But 

 the spathose ore is certainly the most valuable ; indeed, 

 as far as one can judge, it seems the only stone 

 existing in sufficiently compact bodies to be worked to 

 profit. 



Mr. P. J. Martin, 29 also, speaking of the clay 

 country of the Weald, mentions 'a kind of 

 " bog-iron," frequently turned up by the plough, 

 and called iron rag. It is composed of clay, 

 gravel, and perhaps about 25 or 30 per cent, of 

 oxide of iron, and is a superficial and fragmentary 

 formation, a recent " pudding-stone." ' Arthur 

 Young, writing in 1792, gives a section of the 

 different varieties of ironstone found at Ash- 

 burnham : 30 



1. Small balls, provincially called the twelve foots, 



because so many feet distant from the first to 

 the last bed. 



2. Grey limestone ; what is used as a flux. 



3. Foxes. 



4. Riggit. 



5. Bulls. 



6. Caballa balls. 



7. Whiteburn ; what Tripoli, properly calcined and 



treated, is made of. 



8. Clouts. 



9. Pity. 



Several of the terms here used occur, but in a 

 different order, in a valuable, but imperfect, 

 eighteenth-century treatise, 'Of the Iron Mines 

 in the County of Sussex,' amongst the Sloane 

 manuscripts. 31 The interest of the details given 

 by this treatise, and apparently by it alone, justifies 

 its inclusion here : 



The principle indication of iron ore in this county 

 is the badness of the highways, for where they are 

 very deep and clayey the iron is not far off. The 



" Suss. Arch. Coll. xlvi, 6. 



w Ibid, from The Pick and Gad. 



Suss. Arch. Call, ii, 1 70. 



30 Ibid. 206. 



31 Sloane MS. 4020, fol. 189. 



mine itself lying in beds of Blew Marie, which is 

 admirable mendment for sandy light landes, tho it 

 does very well upon stifFer landes if it be not laid on in 

 too large a quantity. 



All the names and measures of our mine are 

 accounted and beginn from the lowest stratum of all 

 which they call Bottom, from which they count 

 upward to the surface, which Bottom lies from sixteen 

 to thirty foot deep from the surface. All the veines 

 run from East to West, tho very rarely they some- 

 times are North and South. The miners are very 

 often troubled with water, which they draine by 

 making Rock Pitts. . . . 



The admirable and exact order the stratums are 

 placed in and from which Nature seldom varyes (tho 

 very few places have all the stratums entire) is very 

 surprising. Wherever any particular stratum is want- 

 ing, there is generally an appearance of its going of 

 upon the stratum that lyes next to it either above or 

 below, and whatever is wanting in one stratum is 

 made up by the thickness of another so that there is 

 generally the same quantity of mine in each Pitt 

 when you are upon the middle of the vein. If the 

 stratums of the best sort of mine are thick there is very 

 little course mine. If the course on the contrary is 

 thick there is very little fine. 



The first stratum of mine is called Bottom. This 

 is a course indifferent sort of mine having very little 

 iron but it is useful to work with the richer mines, 

 because it is a sort of Limestone, which fluxes other 

 metall and keeps it alive and quick in the Furnace, 

 the best sign of its goodness is being of a Cherry Red 

 Colour and that only is good, the Iron Masters seldom 

 taking any other, it (is) sometimes two and even three 

 foot thick. 



The second stratum next to the Bottom is Bull and 

 lyes about a foot and a half above it, the Vein itself is 

 generally a foot thick. It is a Hard Hott mine, and 

 abounds with Iron which is hard to melt out of it, it 

 is reckoned among the course mines. If upon break- 

 ing it with a hammer it break blew and clear and bite 

 sharp to the teeth it is good. If otherwise it is bad, 

 vizt. sandy or soft it is good for nothing, and generally 

 no stone has iron which bites soft. The Bull that is 

 rocky on the underside the upper part of it is good. 

 If the Vein be above six or eight inches thick it is 

 generally nought. 



(io) 3 * Good Bull ready burned for the Furnace. 

 The charcoal fire in which all our mine is burnt 

 gently before it is put into the Furnace causes it to 

 run into the striae at the bottom of this stone which 

 the Hard mines never doe unless it be this sort of 

 mine, and of others that run into these striae the 

 Looking Glass Grinders make their Tripoli, they have 

 people att our Furnaces continually picking the mine 

 for that purpose, the Bull ought to be of a whitish 

 blew colour before it be burnt. 



In the place of this Bull sometimes lyes a sort of 

 mine called Pitty Rugg, it is but indifferent mine 

 unless it come up in great round pieces or Balls as 

 big as a man's head, and then is as good as any, 

 as is generally all mine that comes up in such round 

 pieces. 



In the place of this Bull sometimes lyes Colour, so 

 like the Cherry Coloured Bottom that it is hardly dis- 

 tinguished from it (and) of the same nature. 



" The number appears to refer to a specimen, 

 possibly in the collection of Sir Hans Sloane. 



243 



