Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/240

Rh 228 ENGLAND [IRON. Manufac 1 lure of iron by charcoal Iron ore lies widely distributed all over England and Wales, and though at present mainly raised in the northern and western counties, and all the districts which contain coal, the union with which alone gives it industrial value, the geological strata containing it are equally to be found in the south and elsewhere. The earliest use of the iron ore in England, before the important discovery of the manufacture of pig iron by coal was known, was almost ex clusively in the southern counties, more particularly in Sussex. &quot; I have heard,&quot; says John Nordeu, the topo grapher, in his Survey of Middlesex, published in the latter part of the 17th century, &quot;that there are, or recently were, in Sussex neere 140 hammers and furnaces for iron.&quot; William Camden, writing about the same time, adds that Sussex &quot; is full of iron mines in sundry places, where, for the making and founding thereof, there bs furnaces on every side, and a huge deal of wood is yearly burnt.&quot; Other writers refer to the burning of &quot; cole,&quot; that is, charcoal, in the iron manufacture of the south of England. The old iron manufacture came to an end towards the middle of the 18th century, with the destruction of the once plentiful woods and forests of England. However, the pro duction of iron in the country was still estimated in 1740 at 17,350 tons, made in 59 &quot;hammers and furnaces,&quot; being less than half the number mentioned by John Norden as existing in Sussex. Within the next few years the trade sank still lower, and was on the point of being extinguished, when at last the efforts of a number of enterprising men to make use of &quot; pit coal &quot; for making iron were crowned with success. Like most discoveries, this great one, destined to give a new course to the industrial and commercial history of England, was not the work of one man, but resulted from the labours of many ; still an important share of it fell to the Darbys, father and son, the first of whom established, in 1709, with the help of skilled Dutch work men, the celebrated Colebrookdale ironworks, in Shropshire. The father did not reap the benefits of his great enterprise, but the son was fully rewarded. He sat &quot; watching the filling of his furnace for six days and nights uninterruptedly, and was falling into a deep sleep, when he saw the molten iron running forth.&quot; In December 1756, the Colebrook dale iron works were &quot; at the top pinnacle of prosperity, making twenty or twenty-two tons per week, and sold off as fast as made, at profit enough.&quot; At the date here given, the total production of pig iron in England was probably about 225,000 tons a year, but from that time it rose with extraordinary rapidity. It is estimated that 68,300 tons were produced in the United Kingdom in 1788, which amount had increased to 125,079 tons in 1796, and to 258,206 tons in 1806, a doubling in ten years. The production had again doubled in 1825, when it was 581,000 tons ; and once more in 1839, in which year it had risen to 1,240,000 tons. In 1848, the total amount of pig iron produced was estimated to be over two millions of tons ; and in 1854, the first year for which trustworthy statistics were gathered by the mining record office, the production surpassed three millions. The following table exhibits the quantities and value of pig iron produced in the United Kingdom in every third year from 1855 to 1876 : Years. Quantities. Value. Ton?,

1855 3,218,154 8,045,385 1858 3,456,064 8,640,160 1861 3,712,390 9,280,975 1864 4,767,951 11,919,877 1867 4,761,023 11,902,557 1870 5,963,515 14,908,787 1873 6,566,451 18,057,739 1876 6,555,997 16,062,192 The pig iron produced in the United Kingdom in the year 1876 came from 17,813,818 tons of iron, of which amount 16,841,583 tons were raised at home, and the re mainder, 972,235 tons, imported from foreign countries, principally from Italy, Spain, and Portugal. The following statement shows the amount of pig iron I produced, and the quantity of coal used in its manufacture, a in each of the divisions of Great Britain in the year 1876 : Pig Iron. Coal England Tons. 4,664,153 Tons. 10,871,706 Wales 788,844 1,676,675 Scotland. . . . 1,103,000 3,050,000 Total Great Britain ... 6,555,997 15,598,381 It will be seen that the quantity of coal used in the manufacture of pig iron represented nearly one-eighth of the total coal produce of the year 1876. The following table exhibits the number of furnaces in j blast, and the quantities of pig iron made, in the various i counties of England and Wales, in the year 1876 : Counties. Furnaces. in Blast, Pig Iron made. ENGLAND. Northumberland Number. 1 Tons. Durham 50A 823,172 Yorkshire North Riding.. 75 1,261,013 Do West Ridinf 34 235,451 Derbyshire 35 300,719 Lancashire. 30 552,984 Cumberland , 27 436,887 16 106,711 North Staffordshire 25 213,569 South do. . 65 465,946 Northamptonshire 11 84,916 16 125,198 5 28,105 Wiltshire 2 Hampshire 29,470 1 Total for England 3934 4,664,153 NORTH WALES. 3 Flintshire &amp;lt; 1 1 32,723 SOUTH WALES, 6 20,421 Glamorganshire 28 321,754 Monmouthshire,. , 35 413,946 Total for Wales 73 788,844 England and Wales 466| 2 5,452,997 The iron manufacture was not in a prosperous condition in the year 1876. The total number of existing furnaces in England and Wales was 771, so that more than 200 were standing idle. The total number of existing furnaces in England was 626, and in Wales 145, showing that the depression of trade was greatest in Wales, exactly one-half of the furnaces standing idle. The total number of active ironworks amounted to 1 59 in England, and 24 in Wales, at the end of 1876. Lead. In comparison with coal and iron, all the other mineral products of the country are of small importance. Of these minor products, the highest on the list, as to value, is lead ore, raised in the United Kingdom to the value of 1,218,078 in 1876, and producing lead valued at 1,270,415. The quantities of lead ore raised in the year amounted to 79,096 tons, and the metallic produce to