Page:Walks in the Black Country and its green border-land.pdf/17

Rh done. To be sure, the nuggets they have yielded to the pick have been black and rough, and blackened and rough men have sent them to the surface And when they were landed by the noisy and uncouth machinery of the well and windlass, they made no sensation in the men who emptied the tubs, any more than if they were baskets of potatoes. But they yielded gold as bright and rich as ever was mined in Australia or California.

Nature did for the ironmasters of the Black Country all she could; indeed, everything except literally building the furnaces themselves. She brought together all that was needed to set and keep them in blast. The iron ore, coal, and lime—the very lining of the furnaces—were all deposited close at hand for the operation. Had either two of these elements been dissevered, as they are in some countries, the district would have lost much of its mineral wealth in its utilization. It is not a figure of speech but a geological fact, that in some, if not all, parts of this remarkable region, the coal and lime are packed together in alternate layers in almost the very proportion for the furnace requisite to give the proper flux to the melted iron. Thus Nature has not only put the requisite raw materials side by side, but she has actually mixed them in right proportions for use, and even supplied mechanical