I6I 
THE CLEVELAND IRONSTONE. 
J. J. BURTON, F.G.S. 
‘ CLEVELAND Ironstone’ is a term very loosely used and under- 
stood. When one hears the expression ‘the discovery of 
Cleveland Ironstone.’ it is generally applied to the Ironstone 
which has had or is having a commercial use, but in dealing 
with the subject from a geological, rather than from an 
industrial point of view, the whole aspect of the question is 
changed, as seams too thin to be worked profitably, or too 
poor in quality to be worth smelting, are as interesting and im- 
portant, and present problems as difficult of solution, as the 
main seam which is the one principally worked for iron-making 
purposes. Indeed, to obtain a clear view of the subject, the 
geologist must dismiss from his mind all questions of commercial 
value, and apply himself to a study of the whole series of Iron- 
stone deposits over the Cleveland area and beyond, whether 
the deposits are formed in the Lias or the Oolitic formations, 
as they are all so closely interlinked that to ignore any portion 
of the deposits may lead to very erroneous conclusions. 
We must therefore enquire what and where deposits exist ; 
how they came there, and from whence the ferruginous material 
was obtained. 
Before we deal with these aspects of the question however, 
brief reference should be made to one or two matters of human 
rather than scientific interest. 
The discovery of the main seam is usually associated with” 
the names of Bolckow and Vaughan, and the date about the 
year 1850; but this, like many other popular beliefs, is a 
myth, although to that firm belongs the credit of being the 
first to use it on a large scale. It is however recorded by the 
late Sir Lowthian Bell that Ironstone from Robin Hoods Bay 
was sent to the Tyne between 1745 and 1800, and that soon 
after 1800 Ironstone was obtained from the beach between 
Scarborough and Saltburn and used by the Tyne Iron Company. 
In 1811, Wm. Ward Jackson sent six or eight cartloads from 
the Normanby Estate to the Tyne; and thence forward every 
few years there are numerous records of the existence of the 
main seam on the coast, and also inland. Although the 
early users of the stone do not seem to have made any mention of 
the fact, they must have been well aware that the stone they 
gathered from the beach at the foot of the cliffs must have come 
out of the cliffs themselves. It is probable, however, that 
mining the stone was not then practised because the profit 
on the gathered and transported stone left too little margin 
for any more costly method of procuring the supply. My own 
opinion is that the discovery and use does not commence 
within the last century and a half, but dates back 2000 years or 
more if we do not confine our survey to the main seam only, 
1913 April r. 
