Page:Walks in the Black Country and its green border-land.pdf/19

Rh from the district in the same way. And all the while, the furnaces roar and glow by night and day, and the great steam hammers thunder, and hammers from an ounce in weight to a ton, and every kind of machinery invented by man, are ringing, clicking, and whizzing as if tasked to intercept all this raw material of the mines and impress upon it all the labour and skill which human hands could give to it.

Within this arrondissement of the industries and ingenuities of nature and man, may be found in remarkable juxtaposition the best that either has produced. Coal, iron, salt, lime, fire-brick, and pottery clay are the raw materials that Nature has put into the works as her share of the capital. And man has brought his best working science, skill, and labour to make the most and best of this capital. If the district could be gauged, like a hogshead of sugar, from east to west, or by some implement that would bring out and disclose to view a sample of each mile's production, the variety would be a marvel of ingenuity and labour. That is, if you gauged frame and all; for The Black Country is beautifully framed by a Green Border-Land; and that border is rich and redolent with two beautiful wealths—the sweet life of Nature's happiest springs and summers, and the hive and romance of England's happiest industries. Plant, in imagination, one foot of your compass