caster road, and beyond a narrow slip of garden ground on the plain, spreads an extensive lake, well supplied with fish, and beautifully fringed on one side with young plantations, and bordered ou the other by a walk of gravel, for the accommodation of visitors. Here stands the Spa, or Well-House, a plain rustic building, assorting well with the prevailing character of the scenery. Belts of trees and shrubs, judiciously intermixed, promise a future shelter to the walk, and cut off the uninteresting monotony of the extended marsh, which stretches for several miles to the eastward of the lake, till it is lost in the light woods that edge the receding horizon.

Asa picture, the view from the door of the Well-House is peculiarly pleas ing. The Hotel, with its garden, shews itself to the greatest advantage; the road just offers to the eye a single glimpse, and the embowered cottages, stretching away to the left, and just perceptible amid the trees, which assume the form of a venerable wood, add a softness, a richness, and a delicacy to the landscape, already rendered fascinating by the beautiful expanse of water which forms the foreground. Elegant as this view is, as already described, its effect is much heightened when a gentle breeze gives an animation to the water, and the light bark filled with the elegantes of fashion, skims lightly on its surface.

Perhaps a more healthy situation cannot easily be found, nor is it often we meet with a more pleasing prospect than that from the windows of the Hotel. Yet this will improve, for trees require time to give them form and effect. In the course of twenty more years, Askerne will probably exhibit more of the picturesque than it does at present; its plantations will then have attained something of that richness of shade which renders them interesting, and which produces that elegance of embellishment which we cannot expect to find in infant nurseries.

Askerne water, like that of Harrogate, is sulphureous, and saline, and its good effects, in whatever that water is useful for, have been long established by the test of experience. Of its component parts, Mr Nicholson thus speaks in his Chemical Dictionary, article, "Water Mineral."

"Askeron, five miles from Doncaster, in Yorkshire.

"It is a strong sulphureous water, and is slightly impregnated with a purging salt.

"A gallon contains forty-eight grains of Sulphat of Magnesia, with a little Sea Salt, and a dram and a half of earth."

The rock, in which this well is situated, seems to be composed principally of Tufa or Tophus, similar to that found in Litton Dale, in Derbyshire. It is a light porous stone, soft when fresh dug, but hardens by exposure to the air, and has a striking metallic sound when thrown upon a stone, or struck with any hard substance. Numbers of pyrites, principally in a state of de composition, are also found in the soil.

Askerne, however, is but in its infancy. Much has already been done for it, and much more remains to be done. Independent of the sure improve ments which time will produce, it wants the hand of taste to give a finish to its beauties. To the visitor it would be more accommodating were its roads levelled, and its walks smoothed; and to the general eye, the planting of the long broad marsh, behind the well, with clumps of firs or poplars, would add an elegance to its feature which nothing else could produce. Many

nuisances too want removing, or at least hiding; for an invalid who wishes for the restoration of his health, ought not to be continually presented with objects that are disgusting; the litter of the stable, the process of the laundry, and sundry other et ceteras which may be better conceived than expressed, should never be brought under the observation of a stranger.

The amusements of visitors principally consist of angling in the lake; taking the air on horseback, and visiting the towns, villas, or seats, in the neighbourhood; employments calculated to preserve the health of the valetudinarian, or restore that of the afflicted. With objects of this kind, the vis einity abounds, for besides the market towns enumerated at the head of these remarks, we find the proud remains of Conisbro' Castle at about the distance of twelve miles, those of Tickhill about sixteen, and the venerable ruius of Roche Abbey within that of twenty miles. The neighbouring seats are, Campsall Hall, the Rev. Edward Frank,....2 miles Campamount, Gen. Sir John Binn,...

.2

.2

3

.4

4

.4

.4

.8

Sprotborough Hall, Sir J. Copley, Bart.....8

Cowick, Lord Downes,.

Thriberg New Hall, F. Foljambe, Esq.....13
Wentworth House, Earl Fitzwilliam,......14.

Wentworth Castle, formerly the Earl of Strafford's, 17 miles. Besides the hotel, Askerne contains an inn, and several lodging-houses, each dwelling the separate property of some individual; a constitution of things which will always act contrarily to its general improvement; for while each person is bound to consider no other interest than his own, he will enter into no arrangement for the accommodation of his neighbours: this however, may be good for the public, as it will prevent the evils of combination, and keep alive that spirit of competition which will ever prevent the imposition, for which other watering places are so generally notorious.

History of Trades and Manufactures.

CHAPTER I.

The Iron Trade, to the Period of the Roman Conquest.

N so extensive a County as that of York, and which may be fairly presumed to contain in epitome the whole of the island, the trades and manufactures must consequently be numerous. When all are equally useful, as tending to the support of that high commercial character which Britain has attained, and which it will ever be her true interest to preserve, it might seen

D

invidious to give any one manufacture a preference to another. For as " all are parts of one stupendous whole," each is entitled to our highest consideration as Patriots and as Britons. This history of the Yorkshire trades commences with that of Iron; because in its various ramifications, it gives employment to thousands of artificers, at the very southern extremity of the county, and spreads its influence for many miles around the contiguous country.

It may, perhaps, be possible to prove that the manufacture of iron was one of the first known to the original inhabitants of Britain, for we find express mention made in the most early records of our island, that our ancestors met their invading foes in chariots armed with hooks and scythes, that they stood in these chariots to cast their darts at the enemy, or quitted them at We do not indeed find any direct pleasure, to use their swords on foot. mention of these scythes or swords being made of iron; nay, it has indeed frequently been suggested, that they were of copper or brass, hardened by some mixture, to make them bear a proper edge; and as a confirmation of this opinion, it is stated, that the arms of the Romans were of the latter kind. To this it may be answered, that the Romans themselves allowed that the Britons made use of iron for money, a proof that it was in its metallic state, at least not wholly unknown to them.

It has also been asserted, that the iron they used for their money, and the metals they made use of for their weapons, were purchased of those merchants, who traded with the island; the reverse of this, was evidently the case, for the Phoenicians, the most ancient traders we read of, purchased their tin, their copper, and prohably other metals of the Britons; they therefore understood the method of melting ores, and the chains they wore as ornaments of their bodies, prove likewise that they practised the fabrication of iron.

It has also been objected, that a nation of savages, from their manners, and the various habits of their lives, could not possibly know how to reduce any metals from their ores, and particularly one so refractory as iron. We ought, however, to consider that Britain, anterior to the Roman conquest, could hardly be considered a nation of savages, for it was populous enough to bring into the field an army of 250,000 warriors, well trained and disciplined, and singularly expert in the management of their cars, and that, like their neighbours the Gauls, who had given the Romans the trouble of many regular sieges, the natives resided generally in cities; they too had their musical instruments of no rude form, for their Druids or Bards; knew how to fix their native pearls in edgings of gold, and could form various articles of the ivory they received in barter for their tin; add to this their knowledge of fa bricating their war-carriages, their traces, their bucklers, their arrows, their bows, and other implements of destruction, and we can no longer doubt of their being able to smelt iron.

Let us, however, trace the progress of these acquirements among the Britons, by allowing them once to have been (what we are certain they must have been) a nation of savages, or men without knowledge, and without instruction. Discoveries in science, or in the arts of life, are less the effect of judgement than of accident; and a process commenced for one purpose, has frequently, before its conclusion, enriched our knowledge with a discovery foreign to our thoughts, but which has afterwards proved of the greatest advantage; thus it is at the present day, and thus it ever must have been. To

apply this position; but this Bishop Watson has already done in his Chemical Essays, Vol. III. Page 260, article "Smelting," where he thus happily expresses himself:

"The earth, in a little time after the deluge, and long before it could have been peopled by the posterity of Noah, must have become covered with wood; the most obvious method of clearing a country of its wood, is setting it on fire; now in most mineral countries there are veins of metallic ores, which lie contiguous to the surface of the earth, and these having been fluxed whilst the woods growing over them were on fire, probably suggested to many nations the first idea of smelting ores,

-Pow'rful gold first rais'd his head,

And brass, and silver, and ignoble lead:
When shady woods, on lofty mountains grown,

Felt scorching fires; whether from thunder thrown,

Or else by man's design the flames arose,

Whatever 'twas that gave these flames their birth,

Which burnt the tow'ring trees and scorch'd the earth,

Hot streams of silver, gold, and lead, and brass,

As nature gave a hollow proper place,

Descended down, and form'd a glittering mass.'

"There is no natural absurdity in this notion of the poet; and indeed it is confirmed by the testimony of various ancient historians, who speak of silver and other metals being melted out of the earth, during the burning of the woods upon the Alps and the Pyrenees.

“A similar circumstance is said to have happened in Croatia, in the year 1762; a large mass of mixed metal, composed of copper, iron, tin, and silver, having been fluxed, during the conflagration of a wood, which was accidentally set on fire.

"The putting a quantity of ore upon a heap of wood, and setting the pile on fire, in conformity to the manner in which ores were melted during the burning of forests, was, it may be conjectured, the first rude process by which metals were extracted from their ores. But as the force of fire is greatly diminished when the flame is suffered to expand itself, and as the air acts more forcibly in exciting fire, when it rushes upon it with greater velocity, it is likely that the heap of wood and ore would soon be surrounded with a wall of stone, in which sufficient openings would be left for the entrance of the air, and thus a kind of furnace would be constructed.

"The Peruvians, we are told, had discovered the art of smelting, and refining silver, either by the simple application of fire, or where the ore was more stubborn, and impregnated with foreign substances, by placing it in small ovens, or furnaces on high grounds, so artificially constructed, that the draught of air performed the function of a bellows; a machine with which they were totally unacquainted."

That something like this has been practised in the neighbourhood of Sheffield; if we have not positive proof, we have, at least, much circumstantial evidence; for both on hills, and in vallies, and frequently by the sides of small rivers, are the remains of boles, some of them containing immense

quantities of iron slag, but without the trace of any building whatever. They are generally encrusted with a thick soil, often covered with decayed oaks and underwood, and exhibit every appearance of being the work of remote antiquity. One of these is very conspicuous on the left of the road from Blackburn Wheel to Grange Mill, and several are in the wood on the opposite side of the Holbrook.

An objection may here be urged, that allowing the iron ore to be reduced, the metal thus formed is not malleable but cast iron, and consequently incapable of being applied to any use whatever, by a people void of mechanic combinations, and without the aid of powerful machinery: this, however, needs no other answer, than the fact, that iron, malleable iron, preceded the use of all such machinery, for all the machines of which we have any knowledge, that are used for the making of iron malleable, are themselves made of iron, and it must be allowed, that the material was known before the uteusil could be formed.

It would, however, require no great stretch of knowledge, to be able to make a good iron of the metal already produced, by the action of a wood fire, on ita common ores. For finding it impossible to fashion by beating, (we will suppose with stones) their intractable product into any form, but what it had of itself assumed, might not these savages, if we must call them so, think it worth while to collect what fragments and small pieces they could together, and endeavour to melt them into one mass. They would in order to make them join the sooner, naturally agitate the fluid metal by stirring it with a piece of wood, and it, according to its own laws, by this motion of its particles, would give out its fusible part, (in chemical terms its carbonic acid gas) and presently become what they had not even dared to hope, a piece of infusible metal capable of being wrought by beating, or hammering, into any form required.

The writer of this article would not be understood to affirm, that this was actually the mode in which our forefathers produced this iron; all he wishes is, to form an hypothesis founded on the nature of the acquirements they then might have made, on the state of society at that time in Britain, and on the possibility of procuring, by that method, iron of a quality good enough to manufacture into the articles they wanted, and which, from the plentifulness of the ore, and the extent of their woods and their forests, would afford them a supply, for ages inexhaustible,

We may, therefore, fairly conclude, that in the infancy of the iron trade, the mode of working would be something in the following manner:

1. The ore, or iron-stone, would be laid in a hollow bed of burnt wood or ashes, in such a situation as to be exposed to the action of the wind, and then smelted, by keeping up, with a plentiful supply of fuel, the fiercest fire possible.

2. The lumps of metal picked up at the end of the operation, would again be placed in the same bed or furnace, and re-melted: the founder, from time to time, agitating the fluid mass with his stick.

3. When he could no longer stir it, it would be rolled from the fire upon a large stone, and then, while it retained its heat, be beat with o her stones or lumps of metal, which would drive out many of the particles which injured its cohesion.