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fusible, and commands a higher price in the market than 
the Cleveland brands. This superiority appears to arise 
from the spathic nature of the iron-stone, and from the 
presence of manganese in considerable quantities inter- 
stratified with the ores, and which is mixed in the furnaces. 
The ore, with its accompanying strata, is very finely shown 
along the line of railway at Frodingham ; its thickness in 
different parts of the district varies from twelve to thirty 
feet. It is being smelted at three works in North Lincoln- 
shire, and it is also carried largely by rail to the Park Gate 
Iron Company’s furnaces near Rotherham, and other works 
in the Yorkshire and Derbyshire coal-fields. 
From North Lincolnshire the ironstone may be traced 
southwards along an indented line running parallel to the 
western margin of the great oolite into Northamptonshire. 
At the base of the oolite a series of yellowish sands occur — 
and, in these there are at intervals, beds of iron ore — sometimes 
extending for miles with considerable regularity, at other 
times thinning away rapidly. From these beds, the North- 
amptonshire iron is smelted. The furnaces and quarries are 
situated at Gayton and Blisworth, Blakesley, Maidford, and 
Litchborough, at which place they are more than usually 
ferruginous. At Duston, where it is extensively worked and 
smelted, it is more consolidated and is coarsely oolitic. The 
metal produced is similar to that of the Cleveland district in 
quality. Large quantities of this ironstone are sent by rail 
and canal into South Staffordshire, and even South Wales, 
where it is valued for mixing with the argillaceous carbonates 
of the coal measures. 
The Oxfordshire district is as yet almost unopened, but 
promises one day to be productive of iron on a large scale, 
similar in character to the Lincolnshire brand. In the neigh- 
bourhood of Banbury and Chipping Norton, the ore occupies 
considerable areas— sometimes in the form of tabulated hills, 
intersected by valleys of no great depth. It occurs here (as 
