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Pilkington states that the mines in the Wapentake of Wirksworth yielded 1306 tons of lead in 1782, those in the parish of Crich 200 tons. The Ashover mines he states had then produced 2011 tons annually for six years; and the Gregory mine alone in that parish, from 1758 to 1783, 1511 tons annually. The annual quantity produced from the High Peak mines he estimates at

2000 tons.

The annual produce of lead from the Derbyshire mines cannot be exactly ascertained, but may be estimated at an average of between 5000 and 6000 tons. The trade of late years has been generally thought on the decline, as the increase of depth renders the mines more difficult to be worked, as well as more expensive; yet, from the improvements that have been made in the art of smelting, and the more effectual methods employed to relieve the mines of water, by the driving of new levels, and the erection of some improved steam engines and other machinery, advantages have been obtained, which, to a certain extent, counterbalance the augmented expenses. In addition to the preceding account of the lead works, which has been altered and improved for our use by a gentleman of great experience in the mining affairs, from what he regards as an explicit and generally correct statement given in the "Beauties of England and Wales," we shall venture to draw up a short abstract from our own notes and observations. The mines of Derbyshire produce galina, sulphuret of lead, or blue lead ore crystallized in cubes; but square and hexagonal pyramids, and other forms of lead ore sometimes occur. The white lead ore of Derbyshire is comparatively a modern discovery: for centuries it was regarded as a useless spar,

The productive mines are stated to be in the parishes or chapelries of Ashover, Bonsall, Castleton, Crich, Cromford, Elton, Eyam, Great Longsdon, Monyash, Winster, Wirksworth and Yolgrave. The most productive is the Gang mine in Cromford, and the Bacchus and other mines in Crich. The lead raised from the Gregory mine from 1758 to 1806, when the concern was given up, produced a clear profit of £100,000. after expending upwards of £23,000. in making trials for the discovery of new veins, &c.

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and either left in the mines or buried in the hillocks, from which considerable quantities of white ore have since been extracted. It is a carbonate of lead, and is sometimes called wheatstone.The mines in Brassington, Great Hucklow, Tideswell, and Winster, produce a green ore of lead, but the yellow ores, although noticed by Mr. Mawe, are not of common occurrence in Derbyshire. There are very few, if indeed any, mineral veins in this county, that can be said to be of modern discovery. All veins have a communication with the surface in some part of their course, where they were in old times known and wrought, according to the common expression of the miners, by the old men. To encourage the search for ore, laws were framed, which conferred upon the miners peculiar privileges, of which we shall shortly have occasion to speak, and respecting which we have given some curious documents in the appendix (9). Under the sanction of these laws, which authorised any enterprising man to remove the soil and to commence his researches, even upon the land of his neighbour, very extensive discoveries were made. The veins of mineral ore were traced through the upper limestone rock, until they were lost under the cover of the shale. There it has belonged more particularly to modern miners, aided by the improvements in machinery and science, to pursue them, and to avail themselves of the increasing width and richness of the veins which repay them beneath the shale. It must not be understood that lead mines were not carried to considerable extent by the ancients, but many of those which have recently become the most productive, were left unworked for want of the means of penetrating into their widest and wealthiest cavities. In more modern periods, the veins of the lower limestone rocks, including even the fourth, have been traced from the naked surfaces of the limestone under the toadstone, which covers each of these rocks respectively.

Antiquity of the Lead Mines.-The lead ore so abundant in this county must have held a distinguished character among the natural products of Britain, in the earliest ages, and was undoubtedly one of the principal objects that induced the commercial people of Tyre and Carthage, as well as the travelling merchants who conducted a line of traffic from the confines of Italy and Greece to Belgium, to visit our shores. The rake veins, of which the treasures are now only to be obtained with labour, aided by improved machinery, from amid the recluse beds of limestone rock, were then perceptible amid the loose and crumbling schistus, that scarcely covered their wealthy orifices. It was to this state of the lead mines of Derbyshire that Pliny alludes, in the celebrated passage to which our learned Camden refers. "In Britain," says the great Roman naturalist, "in the very upper crust of the ground, lead is dug up in such plenty, that a law was made on purpose to stint them to a set quantity." To what extent the lead ore was sought after by the Britons themselves, or by the people who visited them for the purposes of trade, cannot now be ascertained; it must suffice us to have incontrovertible proof, that under the government of the Romans, the lead of this county had become a very important article of commerce. Blocks or pigs of lead have been discovered, having Latin inscriptions, and in the neighbourhood of the mines are to be traced the remains of Roman stations, houses and burial places.

Roman Pigs of Lead.—A Roman pig of lead, weighing 126 pounds, was found on Cromford moor near Matlock, in the year 1777, having the following inscription in raised letters on the top.

IMP. CAES. HADRIANI. AUG. MET. LVT.

A second was discovered near Matlock, in 1783. It weighed 84 pounds, and was 19 inches long at the top, and 22 at the bottom. Its width at the top was 3 inches, and at the bottom 41. The inscription appears to contain these letters.

L. ARVCONI. VERECVND. METAL. LVTVD.

Gibson's Translation of Camden, p. 494.

A third, with the inscription also in raised letters on the top, was found on Matlock moor in the year 1787. It weighed 173 pounds, and was 17 inches in length, in breadth at bottom 204.

TI. CL. TR. LVT. BR. EX. ARG.

These inscriptions have given rise to various conjectures, and accordingly, to a great display of erudition; but if we conceive, the LVT. and the LVTVD. to be contractions of LUTUDARUM, the name of a Roman station, next in order, according to Ravennas, to Derventio or Little Chester, and which is supposed to be Chesterfield, much of the difficulty will vanish. The first will then be found to have the name of the emperor Hadrian, connected with the name of the metallic district to which it is probable that Chesterfield was then, as Wirksworth has subsequently been considered, the regulating town. Hence this inscription would mean no more then that the block of lead upon which it was stamped belonged to the emperor Cæsar Hadrian Augustus, from the metallic district of Lutudarum.—The second would be under this interpretation stamped with the name of its owner, a proprietor of some mines, perhaps, or a merchant, Lucius Aruconus Verecundus, with the addition, as before, of the name of the mining district. The third appears to mean that the lead upon which it is found impressed, is part of the tribute due to Tiberius Claudius, from the mines (silver or lead) of the British Lutudæ or Lutudarum.-These interpretations are by far the most conformable to custom and common sense. The Rev. Mr. Pegge could not, we think, have considered the subject, when he conjectured the first of these inscriptions to mean "The sixth legion inscribes this to the memory of the emperor Hadrian." Such a mode of paying honour to the memory of an emperor was never before imagined, and we might as justly assert, that the king's mark, impressed upon goods seized under an exchequer process, has for its object the memory of our gracious monarch.

But whatever may be the strict interpretation of the inscriptions upon these blocks, they are, in themselves, indubitable evidence that the mines of Derbyshire were worked by the Romans, or more probably by the enslaved Britons, already acquainted with the rude processes of that era, under command of their conquerors. The Saxons, who succeeded the Romans in the conquest and dominion of Britain, did not neglect the treasures, so abundant in the centre of their acquisitions; and by their having called an important mine near Castleton, Odin, from the name of one of their divinities, to whom they may be supposed to have consecrated it, we have a proof, that previous to the introduction of christianity amongst them, they had directed their attention to the mineral wealth of the heptarchy. The mines in the neighbourhood of Wirksworth were wrought before the year 714; at which period that district belonged to the nunnery at Repton, over which Eadburga, the daughter of Adulph, king of the East Angles, presided as abbess. In that year the abbess sent to Croyland in Lincolnshire, for the interment of St. Guthlae, who was originally a monk of Repton, a sarcophagus of lead lined with linen (plumbeum lintheumque). This lead was obtained from the possessions of the old Saxon religious establishment at Repton, part of which were the mines near Wirksworth. In the year 835, Kenewara, then abbess of the same nunnery, made a grant to Humbert, the alderman, in which she surrenders that estate of mines, called Wircesworth, on condition that he gives annually as a rent to archbishop Ceolnoth, lead to the value of three hundred shillings, for the use of Christ's church, Canterbury. On the destruction of the religious houses by the Danes, in 874, it is probable that the lead mines became the property of the crown. The mines in the Peak and in the wapentake of Wirksworth, were undoubtedly regarded as the peculiar domain of the sovereign at a very early period, and as such they are, mentioned in Doomsday book.

The documents given in the Appendix will prove the jealousy with which the monarchs of England have ever regarded these mineral treasures. In the sixteenth year of the reign of Edward I. an inquisition was held at Ashbourn, in which it was proved that the right of all minerals was in the prerogative royal, and that the crown had a claim of dues from all who worked

the mines. Another inquisition was held at Ashbourn and at Wirksworth in the reigns of Edward VI. and Philip and Mary.-Queen Elizabeth, in the sixteenth year of her reign, granted all her mineral possessions in this county to a society or corporation, which was to consist of thirty-six shares, divisible into halves and quarter shares. Her grant and charter will be found in the Appendix.

At the time of the Norman survey, as we have already stated, the business of the lead mines was extensive. The castle of the Peak, which was probably built soon after the conquest, was, as appears by a survey made in the reign of Elizabeth, covered with lead. The Doomsday book mentions three mines at Wirksworth, and one in each of the manors of Crich, Ashford, Bakewell and Mettesford. The king's mine at Wirksworth was granted to Robert del Don by Edward I.: that of Crich, which had been granted by king John to Hubert Fitz Ralph was confirmed by Edward II. to Roger de Belers in 1325. The Devonshire family have long been lessees of the mines in the hundred of High Peak. The lease of those in the wapentake of Wirksworth was in the family of Rolles, and having been sold under a decree of chancery, is now vested in Richard Arkwright, esq. of Willersley castle.

The mineral laws consist of a body of regulations, framed upon ancient rights, customs and immunities. These particularly apply to the portion of the county called the King's-field, which contains the hundreds of the High Peak and the Wirksworth wapentake or Low Peak, with the exception of Griffe liberty near Hopton, some estates near Eyam and other places. These laws are considered to extend, with some modifications, to the mines at Crich, which are situate in the Morleston hundred.-There have been disputes, in which it has been insisted that the rights of mining do not attach to any lands or manor which did not originally appertain to the duchy of Lancaster, but it seems to be the opinion of the majority of the miners, that the whole of the mining districts are subject to these laws, or to some modification of them.

These laws or customs (a curious compendium of which will be found in the Appendix) originally authorised any man or set of men to enter at any time into any part of the King's-field, comprising the greater part of the mountain limestone district of Derbyshire, to dig or search for veins of ore without being accountable to the owners or occupiers of the soil, for any damage which they did to the surface, or even to the growing crops. At present, however, it is held, that unless a miner procures ore enough from any search he may make after a vein, to free the same, that is, to pay to the king or his farmer or lessee, a dish of ore, he is liable to the occupier for all damage he may have done him. Fortunately for the farmers of the present day, the searches were so repeated and universal in former times, that few persons think of digging or delving on the limestone surface in search of new veins of ore. In the King's-field there are several officers appointed called barmasters, and mineral courts are held, at which a jury of twenty-four miners decide all questions respecting the duties or cope payable to the king or his farmer, and to the working of the mines, by those to whom the barmaster has given possession. In certain cases, this court can enforce the payment of debts incurred in the course of mining transactions.

The Barmaster gives Possession.-There can be little doubt of these laws having been framed when the mines were worked entirely by manual labour. It appears from them, and from the customs still referred to in the mineral districts, that when a person had found a vein of ore, he made certain crosses on the ground as a mark of temporary possession. He then informed the barmaster, who received a measure or dish of ore, the first produce of the mine, as the condition of permitting him to proceed in working his meer, or measure of twenty-nine yards in length of the vein. On that occasion the barmaster took possession of the next adjoining fourteen and half yards, or the half meer of the vein for the king. If the vein appeared to be productive, other applications were made, and other meers or measures of twenty-nine yards were granted in suc

"It is particularly observed, that the three manors of Bakewell, Ashford and Hope, paid in the time of Edward the Confessor £30. and five cart loads of 50 sheets (of lead) but that in the time of the Conqueror it paid only £12. 6s.” -Mettesford is supposed to mean Matlock.

cession, it being a condition that each person or company possessing their meer or meers in partnership (called groove fellows) should immediately begin and continue to work, and that in case of intermission for three successive weeks, the barmaster might dispossess those to whom the mine had been assigned and give the works to others.

The Method of Working the Mines.—The first mines were made where the limestone is covered with a light soil. The ore or spar was thrown out by common hand instruments on each side of the vein. When they had thus sunk and thrown out the vein stuff as far as was practicable, a square frame was prepared, composed of four narrow planks of wood, laid across and pinned together at the corners, on which two others were erected, with holes or notches to receive the spindles of a turn-tree or rope barrel, for winding up ore in small tubs. This apparatus, called a stowse, being erected on each meer or mine, the sinking was further continued, and the heaps on the sides of these open works or open casts increased, until, in numerous instances, a perpendicular ditch of the vein, and many yards deep, was opened, with proportionally large heaps of rubbish on each side, for many hundred yards in length, with other similar veins and heaps, parallol to, or crossing them at various angles. Great numbers of the mines thus opened proved too poor in their produce of ore, to be sunk lower than the men could throw out the stuff, before the miners abandoned them; and others, after some progress had been made in deepening them by means of stowses. But, as in after times, other adventurers might appear, who would resume the work, the strictest laws were made and enforced by the mineral courts, for preventing the occupiers of the soil, or any other persons, from meddling with the dangerous ditches, or throwing in the heaps of barren white spar and rubbish which the miners had left on the land. Some shallow mines, opened apparently in the very earliest periods of mining in Derbyshire, still remain, and, until within a few years past, most, if not all, of the veins which had been tried to a few yards in depth and abandoned, remained in this state or altered only by the treading of cattle, and the natural mouldering of the sides, except where roads, and the fence walls dividing properties, crossed them. As the mines which proved richer in ore increased in depth, instead of continuing to draw the vein stuff to the surface, the miners constructed floors or stages of wood across the mine, called bunnings, just above their heads, and on these they threw the refuse; and as the work thus proceeded, the shaft under the stowse was lined with either timber or stone, and a regular hill was at length formed, called the mine hillock.

The

In process of time, the mines increased in depth, and reached the water in the strata. labour and expense then exceeded the value of the ore, and many valuable mines were abandoned. Horse-gins were then contrived, and soughs were driven for draining off the water. The mines or meers became consolidated, or the property of them united; and being connected below, the ore and vein-stuff was carried to particular shafts, and on the hillocks, coes or small buildings were erected, for stowing ore and tools, with sheds for the accommodation of the ore-dressers. The mining laws, which had previously required a working stowse, and its actual use, at least once in three weeks, became relaxed, and small models of stowses, made of thin laths of wood, provided by the barmaster, came in use, as the means of keeping possession of all the meers but one, in a consolidated mine. This custom is rigidly enforced even at the present day, so that a mine on which large steam engines, powerful horse-gins, and other expensive apparatus have been long used, is not held to be legally occupied, unless one of these pigmy memorials of the primitive mode of drawing ore, is constantly kept "in sight of all men," as the law expresses it, on or within a certain distance of the drawing shaft, and others on the meers of ground or lengths of twenty-nine yards.

The Ancient Laws injurious to Improvement. These ancient mineral laws, framed in times very different from the present, have become in numerous instances injurious to the progress of improvement. If a known vein, whether productive or not, crosses the paddock or garden of a farmer, or the park of a gentleman in the King's field, it must be taken of the barmaster by the payment of a dish of ore: sham stowses, and even a real stowse must be erected, and periodical attempts, however slight and colourable they may be, must be made to work the vein. Unless this is done, any other person, by application to the barmaster, may dispossess him of such vein,