518 president's address. 



the course of the operations, all the nodules picked out as they 

 are come to, the debris being thrown behind, and the unworked 

 face of the bed standing like a little precipice of thirty feet high. 



Armstrong & Co. are not, however, the first workers of this 

 ironstone ; for more than thirty years ago, I visited this place 

 (which is characteristically named the " Steel") and found large 

 collections of the nodules, which had been dug out and carefully 

 stored in heaps at some distant period, looking like rusted can- 

 non balls among the grass. Mr. Mundle to-day pointed out 

 some of the old pits by which the ironstone had probably been 

 worked ; they were to be seen in section where the perpendi- 

 cular face of the shale bed happened to cut through them, as 

 pits of nine or ten feet in diameter, penetrating from top to 

 bottom of the bed ; and after being used, they had been filled 

 up by the debris of the shale : no doubt they had led to tun- 

 nelled workings below, as the remains of oak props and tim- 

 bering is found occasionally by the present miners. Our party 

 was told that these old workings are attributed to the Romans ; 

 but, on questioning Mr. Mundle, found that not a single Eoman 

 coin, carved stone, or metal implement, with the exception of a 

 small iron pick or axe, had been found during Armstong & Co.'s 

 very extensive workings. 



Portions of charcoal are found near the mines, which indicate 

 that the ironstone had been smelted on the spot, with the char- 

 coal of trees, then abounding in the neighbourhood. A band 

 of coarse limestone, seven or eight inches thick, runs through 

 the shale bed rather above the middle, which is one mass of 

 fossils ; the nodules of ironstone also frequently contain shells ; 

 on rare occasions the Lingula Scotica. Our party to-day found 

 several very nice fossils. 



The hill party, after leaving the mines, bent their way over 

 the high ground eastward to Risingham, where the rudely 

 carved Roman figure, called Robert of Risingham, cut on the 

 side of a portion of rock partially covered with herbage, was 

 pointed out by some of our friends who had been there before, 

 and without whose guidance it could scarcely have been found. 

 Thence through the Roman station of Habitaneiim, and so to 



