96 FOSSILIFEROUS HAEMATITE NODULES IN LEICESTERSHIRE. 
getting their things up bright; though I understand that the 
grey agates and burnishers of steel have in late years taken 
the place of the haematite ones, owing to the former being 
less expensive; still, for certain purposes, the latter are found 
to be indispensable. 
Whether any “ ironstone jewellery” is made from these 
particular haematites I cannot say. English ores, I believe, 
are si lipped to Germany, where they are cut by water-power, 
and sent back to England and sold by our jewellers under 
this name. At any rate this nodular ore is equal in quality 
and brilliancy to that which I have seen in the shops in 
Hamburg, London, and elsewhere. The ore is made up into 
lockets, seals, scarf-pins, ear-rings, and so forth. The value 
of the stones described in this notice depends of course upon 
size and soundness ; a faultless lump weighing say from 12 to 
15 ounces is worth from 15s. to 20s., but such as these are 
exceedingly rare ; 2 ounce pieces are about the average, and 
are worth from 9d. to Is. 6d. wholesale price. 
With reference to the production of burnishers in the 
rough, years ago they were obtained in large quantities by 
systematic working—by underground mining and in open- 
casts. These workings were chiefly, if not entirely, carried 
on at Measham, in Derbyshire, which village is built upon 
the Permian beds. The modus opemndi was somewhat as 
follows :—The site for the pits, &c., having been fixed, the 
ground was first marked out in plots of one hundred square 
yards each, for which a rent or royalty of £10 was paid to 
the landlord—equal to £484 per acre. Shallow pits, termed 
“ wallow pits,” were sunk to the burnisher-bearing bed. This 
occurred at from 10ft. to 20ft. deep, and usually about 
12in. in thickness. The ground was then “pottered out” 
(excavated) all round the pit, the hfematite being carefully 
picked out and the debris cast aside. One pit being exhausted 
of burnishers, another was put down beside it, the old one 
being filled up, and so on until the entire area was cleared. 
The stones were also obtained in the open-working system, 
and often occurred in patches or clusters rather than spread 
evenly through the mass. I cannot state what the yield per 
acre was, but that the business at one time was a very paying 
one is a fact. The selling price would be at the rate of 
between £100 and £200 per ton, but the stones were sold 
according to size and quality rather than by weight. Numbers 
of them have been picked from the beds of the streams in 
Measham, Packington, and Willesley. Also some valuable 
ones were formerly obtained clandestinely by men who went 
and grubbed them out of the ditches, &c., by night, with the 
