ON THE MANUFACTURE OF IRON. 737 
property that even these have of “ rusting” on exposure to air and moisture 
appears to have made known the existence of all at a very early period of 
our history. The labours of Hodgson, Wallace, and others leave little or 
no doubt that the smelting or reduction of iron ore was carried on to a con- 
siderable extent in this part of the country during its occupation by the 
Romans. Vast heaps of iron scoria may be seen on the moors in the 
parishes of Lanchester and Chester-le-Street, in the county of Durham, and 
in the valleys of the Reed and the Tyne, on the mountain limestone, in 
Northumberland. It is remarkable that none of these are very remote from 
one or other of the Roman stations which dre scattered over these two 
counties, The same observations respecting an early use are, to some ex- 
tent, applicable to the lias ironstone; and, no doubt, proper investigation 
would indicate a similar state of things wherever iron ores were near. the 
surface, and the state of society required the metal they contained. That 
furnaces, or “ bloomeries,’’ were continued or re-established in some of the 
same situations is proved by an inquisition of the death of Gilbert d’Um- 
fraville, Lord of Redesdale. In the catalogue of his possessions, a.p. 1245, 
there are mentioned, “ forgiee que reddunt ferrum, quod reddit per annum 
inj 1 ijs;” and that ironworks existed in the county of Durham in the early 
part of the 17th century appears from a curious tract written in 1629, 
entitled ‘“‘ A Relation of some Abuses committed against the Commonwealth, 
composed especially for the county of Durham.” The author, who signs his 
initials «‘ A. L.,” instances as the first abuse the great destruction of timber, 
chiefly for the sake of bark for the tanneries, but in one instance, at least, 
for smelting-operations. He says, “There is one man, whose dwelling- 
place is within twenty miles of the city of Durham, who has brought to the 
ground (to omit all underwood) above 30,000 oaks in his lifetime, and (if he 
live long enough) it is doubted that he will leave so much timber in the 
whole county as will repair one of our churches if it should fall, his iron 
and lead works do so fast consume the same.” 
Hitherto, of course, all these smelting-operations have reference to the 
small bloomery or hearth in which, with a little ore and some charcoal blown 
by the wind in exposed situations, or subsequently by rude bellows, a 
** bloom” of malleable iron was obtained*. 
The German colony of ironworkers at Shotley Bridge established them- 
selves at that place in the reign of William III. At some time or another 
afterwards a small high-blast furnace, five or six feet in the boshes, was 
erected there, the remains of which, according to information received, are 
still visible. Wallis, in his ‘ History of Northumberland,’ published in 1769, 
mentions an ironwork which existed some years previously at Lee Hall, near 
Bellingham, under the management of a Mr. Wood, “ who made a good deal 
of bar iron; but, charcoal becoming scarce, he removed to Lancashire, where 
he attempted (unsuccessfully) to make it with pit coal.” Although bar iron 
only is mentioned, there is no doubt, from the remains still existing, that 
* This simple mode of smelting, viz. the bloomery, is the one which appears to have 
been universally adopted in the first instance for obtaining iron. Captain Grant, who has 
recently returned from his expedition to the source of the Nile, found the inhabitants of 
the Land of the Moon gathering small nodules of ironstone from the sides of the hills, 
and smelting them on the bare ground in a charcoal fire. The blast was produced by two 
or four persons working each a small bellows formed of wood and goat-skins. At the end 
of the wooden bellows pipe was a short tube, or tuyére, of baked earthenware, which con- 
veyed the compressed air to the fire. The bloom resulting from the operation was beaten 
into a thin bar and then drawn out into wire, which was chiefly used for ornamental pur- 
poses.—Private Letter to the Writer. 
1 3B 
