Iron Ores. 607 



and far less in the Lower Lias. I have seen pro- 

 spectuses of mining companies in the middle of Eng- 

 land, in which it was stated that all the ironstone 

 bands of Middlesborough are present in ground where 

 scarce an ounce of them exists. 



In older times, in the Weald of the south of England, 

 a considerable amount of iron ore used to be mined 

 and smelted with wood or charcoal, before the Coal- 

 measures were worked extensively, and when the Weald 

 was covered to a great extent with forest. Then the 

 chief part of our iron manufactures was carried on in 

 the south-east of England. Indeed, late in the last 

 century, there were still iron furnaces in the Weald of 

 Kent and Sussex. The last furnace is said to have 

 been at Ashburnham ; and here and there we may even 

 now see heaps of slags overgrown with grass, and the 

 old dams that supplied the water which drove the 

 water-wheels that worked the forges of Kent and 

 Sussex. It is said that cannon used in the fight 

 with the Spanish Armada came from this district ; 

 and the rails round St. Paul's and other churches of the 

 time of Sir Christopher Wren were forged from the 

 Wealden iron. 



I have already remarked that a large part of the 

 wealth which we owe to our Carboniferous minerals, 

 arises, not so much from the commercial value of the 

 coal and ironstone of the coalfields, as from the fact 

 that they form the means of working many different 

 branches of industry. To the vast power which steam 

 has given us, very much of our extraordinary pros- 

 perity as a nation is due. Yet were it not for our 

 coal-beds, the agency of steam would be almost 

 wholly denied to us. And hence it is that our great 

 manufacturing districts have sprung up either in, or in 



