a oe at ee 
ahs RNP a 
ON THE MANUFACTURE OF IRON. 735 
it was discovered inland on a line of railway, at that time recently opened, 
that any large quantity of this lias ironstone was consigned to the iron- 
masters of the Tyne. It is stated that the discovery of this bed is due to a 
Mr. Wilson, then a partner in the Tyne Iron Company’s Works, who pointed 
out its position at Grosmont, about five miles from Whitby, in 1836. The 
seam, being 44 feet thick, was cheaply worked, sent down the railway, and 
shipped at all seasons for the Tyne, where it would at that time cost about 
9s. per ton. It is probable that ultimately as much as 80,000 to 100,000 
tons of it were annually smelted in the north-country furnaces. 
Much surprise has been expressed at the time which elapsed between 
this discovery in 1836 and the period when the importance of the bed of 
ironstone became so immensely increased by the large quantity of ore 
extracted from mines opened in it since 1850. This is not so difficult of 
explanation as might at first appear. The Whitby ironstone, as it was then 
generally called, was known over a distance of coast not far short of ten miles ; 
and its character to the west, five miles inland, had been also sufficiently 
explored. Over the whole of this area its yield of metal had been uniform, 
viz. about 25 per cent. No doubt the owners of the blast-furnaces which 
had been built on the Tyne for smelting local ores were too glad to obtain 
a cheaper stone elsewhere, particularly when hot blast increased the con- 
sumption of their furnaces, already indifferently supplied, and competition 
with Scotland ran down the price of iron. Whitby harbour, for these firms, 
was more convenient than the Tees, because vessels coming down in ballast 
more easily ran into the former than up the somewhat intricate navigation 
of the river, and there was no reason to suppose that a seam of ironstone 
which had so uniformly maintained a low percentage over fifteen miles of 
country should, in this respect, as well as in others, change so rapidly in the 
next dozen miles. That the introduction of the stone from Whitby did not 
confer any great advantage on the Tyne smelters is proved by the fact, that 
for fourteen years after its discovery only two furnaces, and those built 
under somewhat peculiar circumstances, were added to the five in blast pre- 
vious to the importation of this ore. The fact was that, with the exception of 
one or two years, the Tyne never could compete in selling “ mine” iron 
against the market price of the Glasgow makers. No practical man, there- 
fore, was likely to be led into the expenditure of capital by a year or two’s 
prosperity, with the knowledge of the superiority conferred on his Scotch 
competitors by their fields of black-band. Between the years 1840 and 
1850, the cost of ironstone on the ton of iron was never, at the Birtley Iron 
Company’s Works, less than 26s. 3d., and this only when the trade was in 
an exceedingly depressed condition ; 30s., and as high as 34s., was the more 
ordinary figure. The average selling price of iron at Glasgow over eleven 
years was within 6d. of the cost at the Birtley Iron Works, and to obtain this 
the owners must have charged the coal from their own pits at less than 2s. 
per ton laid down at the furnaces. During five years of the eleven, iron 
was cheaper at Glasgow than the cost at Birtley even with the coal supplied 
at 1s. 6d., or thereabouts, per ton. In 1845, both the owners of the Walker 
and of the Tyne Iron Works sought to mend their position by looking for 
royalties of black-band in Scotland, and, in consequence, there was brought 
for some time a considerable quantity of that mineral to the river Tyne. 
Matters were in this state when Messrs. Bolekow and Vaughan, who, in 
1840, had built a rolling mill at Middlesbro’, added at Witton Park, in 1846, 
the process of smelting to their operations. They were induced to do so by 
an offer of ironstone to be supplied from the coal-field near Bishop Auckland. 
