1870.J The Metallurgical Industry of Cleveland. 189 



The difficulties of shipment were so great, owing to the exposed 

 nature of the coast, that it was deemed very desirable to make a 

 careful examination of the geological structure of the Cleveland 

 Hills. It was in the year just mentioned that the search for the 

 mineral proved successful, and the discovery has been the most 

 eventful circumstance in the history of Cleveland. From the cir- 

 cumstance that the mineral was discovered there, it has since been 

 known by the name of the Cleveland ironstone. Claims have been 

 urged on the part of various persons as the discoverers of this 

 famous mineral, as it has already, within the short period of twenty 

 years, been largely concerned in effecting a great revolution in iron 

 metallurgy. It is not desirable to make any effort in this place to 

 settle those claims ; and, indeed, as the Whitby and Cleveland iron- 

 stone are one and the same mineral deposit, and as the mineral was 

 certainly known in the year 1822, when it was spoken of in Young 

 and Bird's ' Yorkshire Coast,' and more fully described by Phillips 

 in his ' Geology of Yorkshire,' published in 1835, it would practi- 

 cally be impossible to decide who was the discoverer of the mineral. 

 Referring to this subject in his paper " On the Cleveland Iron- 

 stone," read before the South Wales Institute of Engineers, in 

 August, 1869, Mr. Thomas Allison says, "Whoever was the first 

 discoverer, the German Ocean may, we think, with justice, be said 

 to have been the first miner, by undermining and denuding the Lias 

 cliffs of the Yorkshire coast, containing the main bed of ironstone, 

 strewing the sea-beach with large blocks of the ore, which, like 

 lobsters boiled, changed their colour to red by billowy and atmo- 

 spheric influence, while the" shaly part of the denuded cliffs was, by 

 the same causes, pulverized and washed away." 



The ironstone thus mined on the sea-coast was shipped in large 

 quantities to the ironworks on the Tyne and Wear for a number of 

 years before it was discovered inland. It is even stated that some 

 of it was sent to the Tyne as far back as the year 1811. This, 

 however, is certain, that John Yaughan was the first man to recog- 

 nize the great industrial value of the inland deposits of Cleveland 

 ironstone, and that to his practical knowledge is due not only the 

 tentative introduction of the ironstone in 1850-51, but the present 

 enormous development of the Cleveland iron trade, based, as it is, 

 on the utilization of those immense deposits of ore. 



After the employment by Mr. Yaughan of portions of the iron- 

 stone deposit of the Cleveland Hills, its enormous extent began to 

 dawn upon the minds of geologists and mining engineers ; and since 

 then its distribution, position, and extent have been most carefully 

 determined by Messrs. Marley, Bewick, Cockburn, Allison, and 

 others. It is stating the facts in a very prosaic way to say that 

 the Cleveland ironstone is deposited in such an enormous quantity 

 as to be practically inexhaustible, and that the mining operations 



