The Sun.
London, England, 1852-04-09 00:00:00

of Durham, similar to those used in Belgium, which
was little used, owing to the deficiency of means of
transport. This country was by no means rich in the
micaceous iron ores of the northern countries of
Europe and the United States, which was considered
the finest class of iron ore known, although some of
them existed in Dartmoor and other parts of Devon,
but were worked to a very small extent. Of pure
white carbonate, the Sperms iron of the German
mineralogist, no specimen was exhibited in the Exhi-
bition, but it had since been found to exist in West
Somersetshire. The next class of ores, the discovery
of which marked a new epoch in the iron trade, and
which had occurred simultaneously with the develop-
ment of facilities of transport by railways, without
which they would have been comparatively worth-
less, were those which occupied a position at the base
of the oolitic formation, which commenced on the
east coast of this island from the south bank of the
river Tees to Scarborough, stretched through York-
shire, Lincolnshire, Rutlandshire, Northamptonshire,
Oxfordahire, and Dorsetshire to Lyme Regis, where
being turned aside by the granitic formations of
Devon, it was prolonged into France. It
was first worked at Middlesborough in the north,
where two or three years ago deposits of
iron were discovered by a workman, and the bed
of which was found to be 15 feet thick, and to contain
30 per cent. of iron, and could be raised at a less
cost than the blackbands of Scotland. Its
characterfrom
its was peculiar, being
uand in others of a brownish tinge ; and,
sin parts of a greenish
blue liar qualities, it could be produced at 30.
to
per ton. The existence of this oolitic for- 1
3 s.colour,6dp.
e per
a
mation in Northamptonshire was long known ; but it
was only till after the Exhibition that its real value
had been ascertained. The supply of this ironstone
for all practical purposes would be inexhaustible for a
long series of years, and was found to be most valu-
able for mixing with the argillaceous stones of South
Staffordshire, which could not otherwise have long
maintained its manufacture of pig iron. After de-
ironstones of the lias, and the slate formatious of
North Wales, and the green sand and Wealden clay
fsocrrmibaintigont,htehperloepcetrutrieers of the beds of argillaceous
alluded to the evident mi-
neral resources possessed by Ireland, which, although
unworked, contained every species of ore to which
he had directed attention. Adverting to the
improvements in the manufacture of iron, he stated
that the first great improvement and the base of all
subsequent advance, was the smelting, of iron by coal,
which was known in 1620, but not fully applied till
1740. The weekly production of iron from the first
coke furnaces was only 10 or 12 tons, in 1788 it was
17 to 18, in 1796 30 tons per furnace, in 1825 it was
42 tons per furnace, and in 1851 the average weekly
produce was upwards of 100 tons per furnace. In
South Wales, Scotland, and South Staffordshire,
there were furnaces capable of producing 200 tons
per week. Thus, in little more than a century, the
improvements had been so great, that two furnaces
now produced a larger quantity of iron than the en-
tire furnaces in blast in 1740, whilst the general
iron trade had so extended itself, that now several
single firms produced from four to fivefold the entire
make of the kingdom in 1740. This increase during
the last 25 years was owing to the system of heating
the blast previously to its being forced into the fur-
nace, which was first introduced in Scotland, raising
the quantity of iron
made there from 20,000 tons
in 1820, to 200,000 in 1830, or to 775,000 in the 12
following years ; and it was gradually intro-
duced all over England. The next improvement
was the application of waste gases to raising steam
and heating the blast. The result of these improve-
ments on prices and increased supply had been very
great. From 1804 to 1820, pig
iron averaged from
71. to 91. a ton, being protected by a duty of 61. 103.
on foreign
pig iron. In 1825, this duty was reduced
to 1/. 10s. From 1825 to 1847 the price fluctuated
from 21. 17s. 61 to 71. per ton, and from that year
to the present it bad ranged from 3/ 10s. to 2/. 12s.
61. Every reduction in price had been followed by
increased demand, and the removal of protection had
led to greater attention, both to economy of produc-
tion sad the quality of iron, which was to compete
with foreign iron ;end the result had been a gradual
lessening of the demand for expensive foreign iron,
from which steel was universally made, and thus
extending most materially the hardware and cutlery
trade of this kingdom. After glancing at the diffi-
culties and prejudices all these improvements had to
contend with, and the ignorance of the value of
ores, which had led to the neglect of important sources
of ore supply, and often postponed great discoveries,
and which were attributable to the absence of any
public collection of ores, and the non-existence of any
public means of instruction in mining and metallurgy,
the lecturer proceeded to eulogise the efforts which
had been made by the establishment of the Museum
of Practical Geology, and the efforts directed to this
end produced by the Exhibition and its promoters to
remedy this evil ; and, in a rapid review of the present
state of the iron trade, alluded to the number of per-
sons employed in all its departments, amounting to
not less than 650,000 to 700,000, who were well paid
and who were as a class intelligent, though from the
nature of their occupation less cultivated than it was
hoped they would soon be, and concluded by saying
it is impossible not to be struck with the vast and
almost inexhaustible supplies of iron which we pos-
sess, and with the wonderful fact that the extraordi-
nary demand which railways and other requirements
have produced should have led, not to an increased
price, but to the constant discovery of new and
cheaper sources of supply. In this respect the iron
trade illustrates most strikingly what appears to be a
general law—that the natural resources of the world
are invariably developed at the times when the pro-
gressm, and when that
progress is already such as to enable us of society most require the
to avail our-
new discoveries.
o;
fat first the stores
, and the iron ores
soTef
hl
fuel Thuswithtwhich
e theo u rir
forests greatest
oor e 1
nat
asa
odcovo
fananto tat aiongreee d
which cropped out at the surface of the ground, were
t;e
amply sufficient for our purposes; then came the
knowledge
le
the
ee vastof h
with this knowledge the steam-engine placed in our
ha
The modern system of railways next produced a de-
mand for iron of an unprecedented character; and
simultaneously with this demand
occurred the
t
stores the
power
r of
mineralsca fuel ogf our coal fields. with coal, and
introduction of the hot blast
The
the use of the
blackbands of Scotland.
'be more intimate
connexion of the old and the new world by
means of transatlantic steamers is followed by the
discovery of Californian and Australian gold ; giving
to the commercial and civilised world at large an ac-
tivity and a movement such
as it has never before
witnessed—causing streams of population to flow in
unprecedented numbers from the older countries of
Europe to comparatively new regions, and bidding
fair to make the vast and magnificent countries of
Central America and Australia the seats of great and
important empires. And these populations, not iso-
lated as the colonists of old—not struggling with long
periods of poverty and slow growth, but springing up
rapidly int o flourishing communities—all take with
them into their new homes the social wants and re-
, quirements of the older countries which they have
left. Iron steamers will be required to continue
. their connexion with those countries, and to carry
on the extensive commerce they will originate;
new lines of railroad will be necessitated, not
from towns to towns, but from state to state,
and even from ocean to ocean. And not only in
America are these mighty movements at work, but
elsewhere also. In India, with its 180,000,000 of
population, railroads must be laid down , the Govern-
ment of that country cannot be held without them ;
its natural resources cannot be developed without
them ; the rapidly extending requirements of our
cotton manufactures will necessitate them ; and every
line of railway that is laid dose will lead to the de-
, mand for ever-increasing quantitiesrl
of iron ; and
even in our own country the sanitary measures to
which such attention is now b •
2' directed will re-
, quire an extremely large andel°. - easing supply of
iron, bath for an abundant supplyincreasing
of
water to the
L dense populations of our man f in districts, and
also for the purposes of building,u LlC:Uwrhicgh
the rapidly-
increasing presperity
of ourclasses will no
working.
longer permit to be overlookedt• If the
as in the pas •
increase during the last 25 years has been so
great— ton
from 600,000 to 2,J00,000—there
is every reason to expect an equal increase
during the next 25 y ears act
the general require-
ments of society must devel op themselves in an equal
(if not in an accelerating) o.
ratio • ; and how to supply
these requirements another g t source of iron is
, disclosed to us; to the 2nireeaous and blackband
ironstones of our coal fielclar-1 d'tehe aeomatites of our
carboniferous limestones are addedan the oolitic ores,
with the rich per centage ef
iron they contain, and 1
the low cost et which they can
o be raised, and their
exhaustless supplies. Can thise constant progression
of means—this constant development of one resource
requires after another—as society it, be other than a
wise and most beneficent
its purpose the advancement of society to an even
higher and higher Point, and the attainment of that
amity among all the notions of the earth which must
ultimately prevail.—(Cheers.) Nor does it appear a
less wise and beneficent arrangement that these
stores of mineral wealth so needful for the
world's progress
should exist in climates
temperate as our own, which has produced the
strong and vigorous An 10. Saxon race to whom work
is less a toil than a paseion, amongst whom there are so
many who do
not shrink to devote their entire lives
to the development
and execution of some great en-
terprise. But if the Anglo-Saxon race has been given
so large a proportion of the mineral riches of the
world, it must not be forgotten that equal to the
power thus committed to their care is the responsibi-
lity thereto attached, and they must of necessity be
the guiders arid the promoters of the advancing civi-
lisation of the present ; seeing that the very basis of
that civilisation is to be found in the increased and
increasing power to adapt to the requirements of so.
ciety the great physical resources of the world, and .