1873-1874.] l 9 



at Red Bay. On the hills new pits are open, along the valleys 

 new railways are being laid down, and at the shore new piers are 

 being constructed. The beauty of the scenery has been invaded by 

 greasy fitters and an army of red-stained miners, and the romance 

 of the glens has been well nigh annihilated by the steady march of 

 practical utility. 



Interesting as all these works are, the wire tramway, from its 

 very novelty, attracts the first attention. This very ingenious mode 

 of transporting the produce of the mines is wholly different from 

 any ordinary tramway, the material being carried in the air by 

 buckets suspended from an endless wire rope, instead of along the 

 ground by rails. The tramway is made up of sections, each having 

 a separate loop of wire rope, revolving around a horizontal wheel 

 at each end, and carried over wheels on tressels placed along the 

 line at about the same distance apart as telegraph poles, the wire 

 rope being about the same distance above the ground as the 

 telegraph wire. The rope passes round a large wheel at one end, 

 and over small wheels — one at each side of the series of tressels — 

 and is kept continually revolving by steam power. The buckets 

 are suspended to this rope ; the full ones come down one side, and 

 the empty are carried back at the other side, as the rope revolves, 

 looking like a double line of telegraph poles, with buckets sus- 

 pended from the wires, and travelling along them at the rate of 

 about four miles an hour. Thus the wire tramway traverses the 

 county for a length of eight miles, accommodating itself to the 

 undulations of the surface, and transporting about 200 tons of ore 

 per day. Besides the tramway, a regular railway is being laid down 

 along the south side of Glenariff, and another railway is being 

 made from Glenravel to Ballymena. 



Mr. Powell, the engineer of the tramway, was very attentive to 

 the members of the Naturalists' Field Club during their visit, and 

 explained all the details of its working machinery. Mr. Fisher, too, 

 gave them every facility for seeing his iron mines, and his efficient 

 manager conducted the party through them. This courtesy was 

 not granted by the Antrim Iron Ore Company. The Club's 



