286 NOTES OF AN OLD lEON SMELTING 



feet diameter with leathern bellows : buildings, roads, and 

 accessories — all must have taken a longer time in preparation 

 than was occupied in operating the works, when at last all 

 was completed. No bricks nor mortar were used, or frag- 

 ments would have remained. Some coal they had, but birch 

 charcoal was the fuel used. The ore was the nodular iron- 

 stone of the district, which accompanies the coal seams lowest 

 in these strata, and obtainable in many neighbouring places. 

 Although fragments of limestone are among the remains 

 (necessary as a flux), mortar for building, either of the furnace 

 or of old Wheel Birks farmhouse, had not been employed ; 

 yellow clay puddle, and not even very much of that, being 

 used as a substitute. The works had not been abandoned in 

 haste ; on the contrary everything of value had been carried 

 away : not a tool, worn-out spade, shovel, hammer, or trowel, 

 had been left ; iron had indeed been dear in those days, nearly 

 as valuable then as copper is now to us. 



We may conclude then that this enterprise, like others since, 

 was commercially a failure, and was abandoned ; fell soon to 

 ruin and was forgotten ; a much more recent adventure in iron 

 smelting than this, and on a greater scale, was even in our 

 own time begun, and even more suddenly ended, at Brink- 

 burn, on the Coquet. This late effort is not even mentioned 

 in the History of Northumberland ; though an account of that 

 failure would have added to the interest of this latest volume, 



That molten iron was produced at this old furnace is proved 

 by a piece of a few pounds weight found during the excavation. 

 Some heavy lumps of half molten iron and slag were got also 

 from the inside of the furnace. That the charcoal used was 

 chiefly of birch wood is evident from numerous fragments un- 

 earthed, with pieces of birch bark, which from its natural 

 oil does not soon decay. The bottom of the interior of the 

 furnace for a depth of 3 or 4 feet was found full of clean red 

 sand ; and who had filled this sand into it, where it had been 

 obtained, and what could have been the object of doing it, 

 were moot questions during the excavation, until the explana- 

 tion became evident that this stone-built furnace, after being 



