66 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
shire, at a few inches below the surface, it spreads out in 
a bed of peroxide of iron, varying from six to twelve feet in 
thickness. At Scunthorpe this is largely worked, and also near 
Kirton-in-Lindsey. A formation similar in character, and pro- 
bably the same in geological conditions, is seen at Peterborough 
and at Stamford. It then spreads over Northamptonshire and 
the adjoining counties, where it is worked extensively. At 
Westbury, and at Seend, in Wiltshire, immense deposits of 
iron ore again occur, and at both of those places blast-furnaces 
have been built, which make iron entirely from the ores of each 
locality. 
Such is a very rapid sketch of the more important sources 
of our large supply ; in addition to which we imported, in 1860, 
23,112 tons of foreign ore. Iron and coal are the great sup- 
porters of British power. On these our manufacturing 
capability depends ; and as this power of production places us 
now as the first of commercial nations, we must, as the power 
weakens, recede in the scale. The following table shows the 
present rate of exhaustion going on in our coal-fields and our 
iron deposits : — 
TABLE OF IRON-PRODUCING POWER IN 1860. 
Name of County 
or Country. 
Iron Ore 
Pig-Iron 
No. of 
Furnaces 
Coals 
Raised. 
Produced. 
Works. 
in Blast. 
Produced. 
TONS. 
TONS. 
TONS. 
| 12,500 | 
69,093 
340,921 
8 
19 
7 
37 
| 18,244,708 
1,727,019 
346,765 
23 
50 
9,284,000 
520,829 
81,250 
4 
8 
11,350,000 
468,781 
87,950 
5 
8 
1,171,052 
370,500 
125,850 
16 
23 
5,670,000 
165,500 
145,200 
13 
26 
850,500 
1,523,929 
616,450 
7,595 
80 
133| 
7,648,300 
95,664 
2 
3 
— 
90,466 
26,458 
4 
4 
4,350,900 
76,201 
21,875 
2 
4 
— 
24,101 
1,960 
2 
1 
942,000 
85,097 
49,360 
8 
8 
1,750,000 
630,705 
969,025 
49 
147 
6,254,813 
2,150,000 
937,000 
33 
131 
10,900,500 
23,953 


— 
_ 
3,836 
— 
— 
— 
10,500 
6,119 
— 
— 
— 
— 
19,500 
— 
— 
— 
— 
5,833 
— 
— 
— 
— 
16,892 
— 
— 
— 
— 
1,671 
— 
— 
— 
— 
106 
— 
119,425 
Northumberland. . 
Durham 
Yorkshire 
Lancashire 
Cumberland 
Derbyshire, &c. . . . 
Shropshire 
Staffordshire 
N orthamptonshire 
Gloucestershire 
Wiltshire 
Somersetshire 
North Wales... 
South Wales ... 
Scotland 
Cornwall 
Devonshire 
Hampshire 
Warwickshire 
Oxfordshire . . 
Lincolnshire .. 
Isle of Man . . 
Ireland 
