The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-05 00:00:00

THII, BRITISH ASSOCIATION.

o.—~ - —~—

1.4-rwciks.r.r.r, Friday.
The last supplementary day of the British Aeso-
elation meeting was celebrated yesterday by two
great excursions, one to the iron district of Cleve-
land or Middleeborongb, and one io the lead mines
of Mr. Beaumont, at Allenhead. Both trips neces-
sitated casly eising on the part of the intending
visitors., for the train for Allenhead left Newcastle
ne early as a quarter to 7, and even that for the
nearer and mere accessiole Yorkshire district
started punctually at 8 o'clock. But, notwithstand-
ing the comparative earliness of the start and the
miserable cold raw drizzle, which announced that
the day was most likely to prove unspeakably bad
and wretched as far as atmospheric influences were
concerned, there was a very large muster of visitors
for both trips. What the number would have been
in the face of such an inclement day had not all the
excursionists taken their tickets a week beforehand,
is not difficult to conjecture; but, the tickets having
been purchased, there was no option but to start or
lose the money—an alternative which naturally
seemed to all unpleasant, especially as there was
plenty of company in distress. Wiith this for their
consolation—and it is no slight one under such cir-
camstances—a large party left Newcastle for Cleve-
land, determined to be merry in spite of the weather.
The Cleveland iron district is one which will
exercise a most important influence on the manu-
facturing industry and wealth of this country.
The fact of the existence of the ironstone there
had been known for centuries—it was only ita value
as a metal yielding ore that been denied. The :leaps
of scoria found in the district show that the stone
was at one time worked, and it is stated that at Gros'•
moat oaks are now standing, the growth of centuries,
upon the heaps of refuse belonging to an ancient
work there. But, whatever its virtue or value in
former days, it was agreed on all hands that none
was to be found in the Cleveland ironstone of the
present degenerate day, not that the evident wealth
of the matrix did not attract attention or was not
essayed to be worked. Since 1829 there have been
almost innumerable attempts to get the iron compa-
nies to take the stone. A few did so, but did not
encourage its being brought to them again. The
great majority, however, refused to have anything
to do with it, geologists differed as to its merits,
and the iron trade was against it altogether. Some
pronounced it " limestone, not ironstone ;" another
called it" freestone stuff." Even the most friendly
advised speculators not to be at any expense about
the ore, while others threw off all disguise, and
declared that they were ashamed to see it lying on
their quays. Even as late as 1840 a scientific in-
quirer made an authorised examination of the stone,
and condemned it in the pithy words, " quality
hard, harsh, and very unlike good ironstone—coarse."
Ali this, too, was done in the face of an open quarry
in the district displaying the naked seam which has
eince been the source of so much wonder and so
much wealth, in the face, too, of all good geologists
and mining experts. But coal and iron prophets are
dangerous people to listen to in this district, and
fortunes had been lost before in the now great
Cleveland mines, A mere district then it would have
remained till this day had not a Mr. Vaughan in 1850
stumbled over a boulder of pure iron, which led him
to look for the ironstone, and then it was found
to be everywhere. Since that time the iron has
bean sent to every known part of the world, and it
is now admitted that this hitherto much despised
bed of ironstone is fine in quality and boundless in
quantity. The bed, in fact, extends from the Tees
to the Humber, and is 50 or 60 miles broad. This
discovery of the stone and the completion of the
railway into Middlesborough have made the Cleve-
land ironstone district one of the most important in
the kingdom, and there is no seeing the end to the
prosperity of Newcastle with its shrewd, energetic,
hard-working population, its boundless supplies of
coal, and now boundless masses of fine iron ore.
Before the party, yesterday reached Port Clarence
the weather cleared up fine and mild, and so re-
mained throughout the rest of the trip—the excur-
sionists in this respect possessing inestimable ad •
vantages over their unhappy friends who had gone
to Allenhead, and who were exposed on the hills to
the full fury of the downpour from morn till night.
On arriving at Port Clarence, the ironworks of
Messrs. L'ell Brothers were first visited. No less
than five smelting furnaces were here at work, all of
which were tapped at once, and poured their great
streams of fiery
.metal cut before the visitors.
From this time forth the whole party were never for
a moment out of sight of a furnace or even out of
its glare and smoke. :Middlesborough, on the south
side of the Tees, to which the party were taken
in steamers, was a mass of flame and smoke.
The total number of blast furnaces erected in the
north of England in the filet 45 years of the present
century is only 37, but since the iron of Cleveland
was worked 36 blast furnaces have been built in
and around Middlesborough alone. From this
great manufacturing centre, the very air of which
is a mere dilution of soot, and soot not much
diluted tither, the party were taken, on the
Stockton and Darlington Railway, to Saltburn,
passing en roue through such a succession of iron
works and iron factories as no other spot of the same
size probably in all the world can show the equal of.
At the Zetland hotel, at Saltburn, a handsome
lunch was provided for the visitors.
After this repast the company started for the
mines of Upleatham. The immense field of iron-
stone here is worked by Messrs. J. and J. W.Pease.
40G miners are employed, 2,000 tons of ironstone are
wrought out daily, and a ton and a half of gunpow-
der per week is used in blasting operations. The
Messrs. Pease pay royalty fees to the amount of
£12,000 per annum to the Earl of Zetland. The
principal entrance to the mine being at the head of
the incline the train stopped at the foot, and the
excursionists were conveyed thither in small wag-
gons. These novel means of conveyance were of new
construction, were quite clean, furnished with seats,
and were about 4ft. square. The ern.rine was of a
size suited to the narrow tramway. The journey to
the mouth of the mine was fortunately not a long
one, for the jolting of the waggons was by no means
alight. Arrived at the terminus, a platform on the
same small scale as the other appliances of the rail-
'fay had been constructed for the comfort of the
Passengers in alighting. A triumphal arch in
foliage and flowers was erected in front of the
entrance to the mine, but before the party started
Pease Zr ieenploration of the interior Mr. J. W.
ings on Pointed out the formation of the work-
arch a brilliant Plan.
Passing
under the triumphal
of a passage I: s.cene presented itself. On each side
of lamps
andeh7insag into the interior workings rows
in lines, compesea-eds of small candles, suspended
nation. The
road onelong vista of starry illumi-
romantic, but was feltstelf was by no means so
half nnately dry and tolerably
level. A distance cf
where
thee mile brought the party
to the workings,
operations are regularly
conducted. The stratum is thick, end is
worked by means of blasting,
pwards of an hour
was spent in these mines,
The U
train then rapidly
conveyed its freight to Middlesboroughirousvov,k's
.here the
g t he
company inspected the immense
Messrs. Bolchow and Vaughan. on entering
the
premises the visitors first viewed the apparatus
em-
ployed in raising the rock and brine from a new
salt bed into which the excavators struck ni
ing a well for supplying the works with water. The
salt is found at a depth of 1,300 ft. below the sur-
face, and the vein, as far as at present worked, is
112 ft. in thickness. It has not yet been wrought
as a source of profit, but may eventually prove a
valuable addition to the mineral wealth of this rich
district. It was not a little remarkele that in the
very midst of a cast workshop of this kind, with
red hot metal dragged and wheeled in all directions,
wheels revolving in all parts with astonishing
rapidity, no accident occurred to any of the 300
gentlemen and ladies who thronged the works and
witnessed all the labours of the operatives. After
an hour spent in the works a general movement
was made into the .Market-place, ewhere, in the new
buildings recently erected there, the dinner was to
be given to the Company. At the banquet Mr.
Brentall, the mayor, took the chair, and at the con-
clusion of the repast the usual loyal and patriotic
toasts were given, and then the healths of the vari-
ous chief members of the British. Association were
proposed sod drunk with all the honours. It was

past nine before the party alerted on their return
home, and nearly midnight before Newcastle was
reached, after a very fatiguing but exceedingly
pleasant and interesting day.
More than 200 ladies and gentlemen accepted
Mr. Beaumont's invitation to visit his extensive
lead mines at Alieniaead, and as the district
lies in a remote corner of the county of Northum-
berland 10 miles from a railway station, it was ne-
ces;ary to master at an unusually early hour. The
train carried the party as far as Irayd on-bridge, a
station a little to the west of Ileahane, on the Lan-
caster and Carlisle Railway, and here were waiting
a heterogeneous collection of omnibuses, wag-
gonettes, and drags, by the aid of which the rest of
the journey was to bo performed. The first eight
miles ran through a pleasant country of a mixed
agricultural and mining character, once part of the
estates of the unfortunate Earl of Derwentwater,
and now administered by the trustees of Greenwich
Iliospital, and it was not till the party arrived at
Allendale that the black barren moorlands were
reached which contain some of the richest and
most extensive veins of lead ore in the county. The
southern agriculturists accustomed to the smiling
crops of the Vale of Aylesbury or the pasture lands
of Lincolnshire, would turn up their noses at the
wide expanse of bracken and heather ; but under-
neath lie riches far exceeding any which the pro-
digal farming even of Mr. Mechi could, extract,
nr
ionmg
fLorm.
Beaumont's
e equal
at the
nthis most fertilean athsoanasd.
om p
valley of Weardale are extracted a fullrosdixutcheso.f the
lead which the United King
d
e
Allen-town, after discussing a substaßn.teaanlmannndtm,
toaset
welcome breakfast, provided by Mr.
ewxecnetr stinonviisstits
thseepwarnartuead t
nint into
whichtwaoll
the p
lead ore is ar ties. Som e
'lrought to be smelted. Few miners smelt their
osc ore, for the uncertainty of lead mining is such
that unless the proprietor has the command of
severe; veins the works might be idle for want of
material. Mr. Beaumont and the London Lead
Company are the principal exception to the rule.
It is said thett in some years ore has been raised
trom these mitres sufficient to furnish 10,000 tons of
metal_ Mr. Sop-with, the director of all the mining
operations here, explained with great clearness the
various processes through which the ore passes
before it reaches the martet, but the greatest at-
traction was the extraction of a large cake of silver
by Mr. Pattison's well-known desilvering process.
In this process the chief featn:a is that the lead
crystallizing first the silver is left liThind, squeezed
out as it were from the less valuable metal during
congelation. The crystals, still containing some
silver, are melted again a second and a third time.
In a paper which Mr. Pattison read before
the British Association some years ago ho calculated
that by his process at least 50,000 ounces of salver
were annually added to the produce of the country.
The rest of the party went down to visit the oleo:-
ing of the level adit, perhaps one of the greatest
mining engineering works in the county, which is
to be,driven from this point to Allenhead, a dis-
tance of rather more than seven miles. The rest of
the journey was made in one of the persistent driv-
ing showers which Mr. Sopwith assured the
dripping savans was the normal state of the
weather in the district. The usual rainfall here is
about 70 inches—more than twice the average of
the Eastern half of the kingdom. A halt was
made midway at one of the shafts which have been
driven down to assist in the excavation of the level,
and here Sir W. Armstrong, who accompanied the
party, explained the the powerful hydraulic
machinery by which the whole operations of the
mine are conducted. Everybody agreed, and the
appearance of the party was abundant proof, that
no neighbourhood could be better suited for the
employment of hydraulic power. When Allenhead
was reached the ladies of the party were so
thoroughly drenched that they gladly accepted Lady
Margaret Beaumont's offer of fires to dry them-
selves, and leave the gentlemen to explore alone the
workings of the mine, the crushing machinery,
and the other numerous objects of interest. At 3
o'clock an ample repast, which was called a luncheon,
but which in its amplitude and liberality deserved
a more ambitious name, consoled the party for the
shortcomings of the weather, and when Newcastle
was reached at half-past Sat night, everybody agreed
that the last was the most enjoyable day of the
British Association.
There was an excursion steamer also to South
Shields and the Marsden, but the rain spoilt all the
pleasure which the geologists anticipated from the
day. In crossing the bar of the Tyne—where there
is generally a heavy swell—Mr. Clifford illustrated
his admirable system of boat-lowering while the
steamer was going at full speed.