732 REPORT—1863. 
Whitehill Iron Works, and subsequently at Urpeth and its vicinity for 
the furnaces at Birtley. Another thinner band, only 2 inches in thick- 
ness, formed the roof of the Hutton Seam, near Birtley. From the fact that 
both these were extracted by simply bringing down the roof of the old coal- 
workings, it was expected to supply the furnaces there at a very cheap rate, 
and this might have been so had the quantity per acre been larger. As it 
was, the ironmasters had tu seek far and wide for supplies, and, in conse- 
quence, the cost of stone was ruinously high. The present partners in the 
Birtley Works have kindly placed in the writer’s hands their cost-book, and 
from it, after the furnaces had been in operation four or five years, the fol- 
lowing results are taken :— 
Tronstone used per ton. Cost on ton of iron. 
ewts. qrs. Ibs. 6. d. 
USSD Pivs..desseceteo sme 6 OMGIOM Saesesceocecsasees es 2 Sle 
IBRG hides letct asia! AF duly oi Bava tad, ter hich Lai OF 
ASA ed ik I ge pop 2 oe Pa: eee 
LOY acsnoteabecisas ts 67 Onsen lig 2 2 8% 
From their furnace-books this appears to have represented the calcined 
weight, and hence the yield of the raw stone must have been from 25 per 
cent., gradually falling to 22. At this time hot blast was in use at the 
Birtley Works, the system having been introduced there about 1831. Mr. 
George Clayton Atkinson, a partner of the Tyne Ivon Company, has 
obligingly given the following as their consumption for the year 1812, 
using stone of a similar kind to that described above ; indeed, a considerable 
quantity was purchased from the owners of the Birtley Iron Works, previous 
to the erection of the establishment at that place. The quantity used was 
8772 tons, which cost on an average 16s. 1d. per ton. During that year they 
produced 2547 tons 18 ewt. of iron, and, in addition to the above-mentioned 
ironstone, 284 tons of hematite were consumed. If the small quantity 
of this latter ore is assumed to give 50 per cent., the yield of the clay iron- 
stone would be something above 27 percent. The difference in the produce 
may have arisen from less perfect freedom from adhering shale in the Birtley 
furnace-workings—a supposition corroborated by the increased consumption 
there to the ton of iron in later years, when failing supplies would prevent 
proper ‘‘ weathering” of the ironstone. In 1812, the ironstone per ton of 
iron cost the Tyne Iron Company £2 18s. 10d. 
Near Wylam, according to Mr. Benjamin Thompson, who erected the 
works at that place, a mine was opened in 1836, out of which, from a section 
of 4 feet, four bands, measuring together 104 inches, were obtained. This 
cost, it was stated, 7s. 6d. per ton of 223 cwt., and yielded 30 per cent. of 
iron, Another working supplied nodules haying a percentage of 35 to 37, 
and costing 11s. 6d. per ton. The united produce, however, of both did not 
suffice to supply 150 tons weekly, and these mines were speedily abandoned 
when a less precarious mode of obtaining ironstone offered itself, although 
the cost of the latter would, at the period of its first introduction, have not 
been less than £2 on the ton of iron. 
At Shotley Bridge, on the western edge of our coal-field, and consequently 
low down in the series, is a deposit of ironstone, which has been far more 
extensively worked than any other seams found in our coal-measures. Ac- 
cording to a description by the late Mr. William Cargill, in a working having 
a section of about 7 feet in height, 12 to 15 inches of stone were obtained 
from six or seyen bands. The ironstone from it cost 7s. to 8s. per ton. At 
a depth of 44 fathoms below it, and lying above 20 inches of coal, is a bed 
of shale about 3 feet thick, containing 6 or 7 inches of ironstone. The total 
