Excerpt from The Iron Trade of Great Britain The principal British iron-producing districts are Cleveland, in North Yorkshire, yielding nearly five and a half million tons annually; Lincolnshire, Northampton shire, and Leicestershire, together yielding four and a quarter million tons; and Cumberland and North Lanca shire, with an output Of over one and a half million tons. The Cleveland ore occurs in the form Of a bed about ten feet thick in the Middle Lias, and is worked by true underground mining; it contains on an average about 30 per cent. Of metal. The bed of brown iron ore in Lincolnshire, Northampton shire, and Leicestershire, forms part Of the Inferior Oolite, and the workings are mainly open. The percentage Of iron on an average is about 31. In Cumberland and Lancashire the ore is a red hematite which occurs in the form Of huge irregular masses in the Carboniferous Lime stone; this is the richest Ore Of the country, yielding more than 50 per cent. Of metal. So far as British plants are concerned, the total number Of pig-iron works in operation in Great Britain is 123, and these works have about 570 blast furnaces, of which the number in Operation at any one time varies from 340 to 350. The total output of pig iron during recent years has varied from about eight million tons to about nine and a half million tons. A year; the consumption of iron ore ranges from about nineteen to twenty-two million tons; and the coal consumed varies from sixteen to eighteen million tons. The quantity Of iron ore actually raised in the United Kingdom ranges from twelve and a half to fifteen million tons, and the imports range from six to seven and a half million tons. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.