In Shropshire, North Wales, Cornwall, Isle of Man, and the Pennine Chain are situate the chief lead mining areas of the kingdom. Lead mining in general had not of late years —until the r nr faun — horn __ very profitably conducted in the United Kingdom. Though far from being exhausted, ex cept in few instances, the min eral veins are not of such a character as to allow of their being as cheaply exploited as the richer deposits of Spain, Australia and some other ex tensive lead-producing coun tries. As these more bounti ful districts become ex hausted, one is justified in as suming that British lead min ing will be more extensively developed.
Fig. 1 shows diagrammati cally the fluctuations in the prices of copper, lead and zinc in the London market for each year since 1873 to 1913 inclu sive.
The iron ore deposits of Great Britain" are of two kinds, viz., stratified iron ore — the mines of which come under the control of the Coal Mines Regulation Act and the °mass° and °veined° deposits of haematite which come within the jurisdiction of the Metalliferous Mines Act. Cumberland and North Lancashire which yield an out put of nearly one and a half million tons, are the source of the famous red haematite which chiefly occurs in the form of huge irregular masses in the carboniferous lime stone and is the richest iron ore of the country. yielding on the average over 50 per cent of metal. Working one of these masses is prob ably the most extensive iron mine in the world — Hodbarrow mine." The other principal iron producing districts are Cleveland (N. York shire), which accounts for nearly six million tons annually; Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Leicestershire together supplying nearly six and a half million tons, the total production be ing nearly 16 million tons annually, valued at over four and a half millions sterling." The Cleveland clay ironstone (carbonate of iron) is chiefly worked from a bed about 10 feet thick, in the Middle Lias, containing an the average about 30 per cent of iron. The ore from Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Lei cestershire is derived from open workings in a bed of brown iron ore in the Inferior vows, and averages • about 33 per cent of metal. The Scottish ore and that from North Staffordshire is largely worked from the Black Band, ironstones (car bonate of iron) in conjunc tion with the coal in the col lieries of those districts and varies considerably in rich ness of metal." Fig. 2 is a
graphic representation of the fluctuations in the price of coal and iron (London mar ket) for each year since 1873 up to and including 1913.
A description of British mining would be incomplete without some reference to the production of slates," as in no country are there yielded slates of a quality equal to those of North Wales. The mines proper are mostly in Merionethshire, whereas the quarries are worked in Carnarvonshire, the P quarry, near Bangor, ry ng the largest open working in the world, the underground workings of the Oakley Slate Quarry Company Ltd., at Festiniog, Menonetiishire, being the most extensive slate mine. The output of finished prod ucts from the individual mines and quarries consti tutes only a part of what is drawn from the workings, it being calculated that there is a loss of about two-thirds in the «dressing) (cutting and shaping) of the slates.
No description is given in this review of the production of buildina and other stones.
Was the largest producer of coal in the world (see Fig. 3) ; it now stands second. the United States having outstripped it in the race for supremacy in this respect.
When coal first came to be worked in this country as a merchantable article, authorities are not agreed. It may have been worked in a desultory and uncertain fashion in very remote times, but the first substantial mention of coal mining is that contained in the records of Holy rood and Newbattle Abbeys," in which it is shown that coal was dug on the south shore of the Firth of Forth in Scotland about 1200 A.D. ; further, we know that coal was imported into London from Newcastle about 1257 A.D. Indeed, Novacastrians may justly claim the banks of the Tyne as the nursery of the coal trade, and to the present day the inhabitants have more than maintained their heritage of derived chiefly from quarries, as space does not permit of allusion to other than the more purely mining part of the subject.
The chief sources of the mineral wealth of the United Kingdom are the coal and iron de posits. Of the latter mention has already been made. The former far outweighs in import ance all other branches of mining classed to gether.