97 
ON THE IRON ORE DEPOSITS OF LINCOLNSHIRE. BY ROBERT 
HUNT, ESQ., F.R.S., KEEPER OF MINING RECORDS. 
In the spring of 1860, having paid a somewhat hasty 
visit to the Iron Ore deposits near Kirton-in-Lindsey, and 
examined the country at various points between that town 
and the village of Scunthorpe, I was induced to give a brief 
description of those ferruginous beds to the meeting of the 
Society, held at Wakefield. 
The following notes record my views on this Lincolnshire 
deposit, its relations to the iron-ore formations of the 
Cleveland and Whitby district, and to those discovered in 
Northamptonshire and the adjoining counties. 
The first deposit which I examined was about half a mile 
from the Railway station at Kirton-in-Lindsey. The portion 
exposed was situated on one side of a hollow, on each side of 
which the ground rose slightly. The iron ore was found 
about a foot below the cultivated surface : in some places, a 
few inches only of soil being removed, the iron-ore deposit 
was exposed. This was in a loose state of aggregation, the 
hardest masses being easily crushed, and by far the largest 
portion having the appearance of a very ferruginous earth. 
This deposit varied in depth, where I saw it, from two to 
four or five feet. I was, however, informed that in some 
places it acquired a somewhat greater thickness. I have 
frequently seen the ordinary soil of ploughed fields looking 
more ferruginous than this iron ore. Indeed, it was so 
unusual a thing to see men digging iron ore from the ground 
and shovelling it into carts, like so much loose earth, that it 
was difficult, at first, to believe this substance to be of any 
value to the manufacturer of pig iron. 
From this point I proceeded northward about ten miles 
towards Scunthorpe, examining the country to the eastward of 
Messingham. A geological map will show the reader that the 
Lias formations which commence in the north, near the 
