GEOLOGICAL NOTES FOR A VISIT TO ROTHLEY CRAG. 283 



perhaps in Europe) crops out in rugged mounds between the 

 covered-in quarry and the adjoining farm buildings, where it 

 reaches the Great Limestone, and is seen to contain large 

 angular fragments of shale (altered by the baking into hard 

 porcellanite) dragged by it from the rocks through which it 

 was injected from below. 



In the shale-cliff forming the right bank of the upper Hart- 

 burn, where that stream runs through a thick plantation a 

 short distance west of Rothley Crag, and north of the 

 Wansbeck Railway, quite a crowd of Chonetes valves can 

 always be found beautifully preserved, but very fragile, and 

 needing careful packing for removal. 



Notes of an Old Iron Smelting Furnace at Wheel Birks. 

 By David Richardson, Esq. 



No record or tradition exists respecting the Iron Smelting 

 Furnace at Wheel Birks. The oldest inhabitant in 1884, now 

 departed this life, knew nothing of it beyond the fact of its exis- 

 tence. The owner of the nearest dwelling at " The Bridges," 

 which had been built by his grandfather — Hornsby — and 

 occupied therefore by that family for three generations, could 

 remember no tradition respecting it. Even the owners of the 

 adjacent land, who have come and gone as transiently even 

 as the cottagers, have left no records about it, and yet there is 

 reason to suppose that it does not date further back than the 

 reign of Queen Elizabeth or King James. 



The compilers of the new History of Northumberland, 

 Vol. VI., have found record that in 1608 Wheel Birks was 

 tenanted by Cuthbert Richardson, Henry Fairnbarne, and 

 Henry Robson, the previous tenant being Wilham Thompson. 

 This William Thompson is mentioned as having a 21 years 

 lease dating from 1566, and he is named in rent rolls of 1570 

 and 1576; his "tenement" being nameless, whilst the rent of 

 13s. 4d, continues the same, and the acreage of 15 is once 



