hands of the legislature through a monopoly of the implements required for the production of their goods.

The subject having again been brought under the consideration of a Committee of the House of Commons, principally at the urgent instance of the members of our chief manufacturing towns, and a report having been made recommending the removal of all remaining restrictions, a clause to that effect was inserted in the Customs Duty Bill, 6 and 7 Victoria, c. 84, and machinery of all kinds may now be as freely exported as any other British manufacture. It is early yet to judge correctly of the consequences of this measure, which took effect from August, 1843. It has indeed, been followed by one result which could hardly have been anticipated. The French Government, which had offered as an excuse for augmenting the import duty upon linen yarn, our refusal to allow the exportation of flax-spinning machinery, and the consequent disadvantage at which French spinners were placed, have, now that the repeal is withdrawn, lent a favourable ear to the representations of their machine-makers, and have placed a heavy import duty upon the very article the withholding of which from them was represented as a grievance.

Considering the perfection to which this branch of manufacture has been brought in this country, the value of machinery exported under this system of restriction has been quite insignificant, so far, at least, as undisguised trade is concerned. The following table shows the declared value of the shipments of machinery and mill-work in each year from

1822 to 1849:

The increase in the amount during the last ten years of the series is caused mainly by greater shipments to Europe. Before that time, at least one-half of the value of the shipments was made up by the demands of our own colonies and dependencies. How far this condition of things has been altered will be seen by the following figures, which show the value of machinery shipped to foreign countries in Europe :

In the extraordinary state of progression that has attended the various branches of our staple manufactures, and of our mining operations, the system of prohibition as affecting the exportation of machinery has not produced so much effect as might have been expected upon the prosperity of our machinists. Their trade has partaken of the general extension, but certainly not to the degree that would have attended it under a different system. At the present moment, our engineers and millwrights may be said to have as much work upon their hands as the number of their workmen enables them to undertake, and skilled artisans, such as they must employ, are not to be formed without a long course of instruction.

It would fill many large volumes to describe the numerous inventions which during the present century have imparted facility to our manufacturing processes, and given perfection to the articles made. It will not be expected, therefore, that any enumeration of those inventions should be attempted in these pages. A description of all the improvements which have been made in steam-machinery alone, since the beginning of this century, would lead to investigations that could be profitably entered upon only in a treatise on mechanics.

CHAPTER VI.

MINING.

Early celebrity of the mines of England - Iron-Quantity made at different periods from 1740 to 1848-Tin-Produce of Cornish mines from 1750-Increase since 1814 -Imports and exports of foreign tin-British tin exported-Value of tin-plates exported-Copper-Produce of Cornish mines from 1771 to 1786, and 1796 to 1848Total produce of English mines from 1820 to 1834-Value of tin and copper raised in Cornwall at different periods during the present century-Lead-Concealment practised by mine-owners as to the quantity of metal produced-Coal-Advantage of steam-engine in coal-mining-Davy's safety-lamp-Its effect in increasing the product of coal-minesShipments from Newcastle and Sunderland in each year from 1801 to 1849-Shipments from Stockton and Seaham-Prices of Coal at Newcastle and Sunderland in each of those years-Prices in London from 1813 to 1850-Quantity of Coals shipped from various parts of the kingdom from 1819 to 1849-Produce of inland collieries-Salt-Quantity annually produced-Reduction and repeal of Excise-duty on salt-Quantity annually consumed since 1801-Quantity exported from 1827 to 1849-Increased consumption since repeal of duty.

FROM the very earliest period to which record or even tradition can reach, this country has been celebrated for its mineral treasures. It is not intended to carry back our inquiries to the time when the Phoenicians. traded to "the tin islands of Britain," described by Herodotus under the name of Cassiterides, or to discuss whether the rings and money of iron which Cæsar states to have been in the possession of the Britons, at the time of the Roman invasion, were really the produce of this country, or whether, as some persons have supposed, they were acquired in barter for tin. Our inquiry into the progress of mining as a source of national wealth must necessarily be limited to a period comparatively recent, and to statements of the results.

No statement has ever been made which pretends to perfect accuracy in regard to our production of iron.

The quantity made in England and Wales in 1740 was estimated at 17,350 tons, the produce of fifty-nine furnaces, in which only charcoal was used. Between that time and 1788 the plan of smelting iron-ore by means of coke was introduced, and in the latter year there were in England, Wales, and Scotland, eighty-five furnaces, producing annually 68,300 tons of iron, of which quantity 55,200 tons were smelted with coke. In 1796, in consequence of a tax projected by Mr. Pitt, upon coals at the pit, but which was not imposed, a careful inquiry was made as to the condition and extent of the iron-works that would have been

affected by such a measure. On this occasion it appeared that there

were

In 1802 it was further estimated that forty additional furnaces were in use in England and Wales, and seven in Scotland-the total annual production of iron amounting to 170,000 tons in the year. In 1806 a Bill was introduced into the House of Commons by the Minister for imposing a duty of 27. per ton upon all pig-iron made in the kingdom. This Bill was afterwards withdrawn, but the attempt occasioned inquiries to be set on foot respecting the quantity of metal produced, and it was stated then to amount to 250,000 tons annually.

The following estimate, beginning with 1823, is said to have been made with great care by the manager of one of our largest iron smelting establishments. The tables already given of the consumption of foreign iron, and the exportation of that of home manufacture, when coupled with the undoubted fact that this metal is used in the kingdom to a continually growing extent, and that it is now used for purposes to which it was never before applied, sufficiently attest the increasing productiveness of our iron-works::

The quantities contained in this table agree with the evidence given before the Committee on Import Duties in 1840, by Sir John Guest, the proprietor of the Dowlais iron-works in Glamorganshire. According to Sir John Guest, the manufacture remained stationary between 1823 and 1831, when it again began to advance, and in 1835 there were good grounds for estimating the quantity made at a million of tons. In the following year the estimate was 1,200,000 tons, and in 1840 it reached 1,500,000 tons. A statement was prepared in October of that year by one of our most intelligent iron-masters,* giving the number of furnaces in blast and out of blast, and the number of tons of iron made at each work in Great Britain. It was there shown that the annual product, exclusive of Ireland, amounted to 1,396,400 tons; the number of furnaces in blast was 402, of which number 162 employed the process of blasting with hot air. The manufacture was in this statement distributed as

Mr. Jessop, of Butterley, in Derbyshire.

follows among the various divisions of the kingdom, and an estimate was offered of the quantity of coal used in the manufacture, viz. :—

The commercial depression, which continued for about four years after Mr. Jessop's statement was compiled, led our iron-masters to diminish the scale of their operations in order thereby to lessen their losses. A statement was drawn up in 1842, under the direction of an association of the Yorkshire and Derbyshire iron-masters, showing the quantity of iron made during the first six months of that year, in Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Shropshire, South Wales, and Scotland, as under:—

equal to 1,046,428 tons per annum. The quantity made in the above divisions of the kingdom, in 1840, according to Mr. Jessop, was 1,343,400 tons, showing a diminished production at the rate of 296,972 tons, or more than 22 per cent.

The number of furnaces in and out of blast, and the quantity of iron made in different parts of Great Britain, in each of the years 1847 and 1848, is here given upon what is considered good authority: