186

pennant’s SECOND TOUR IN SCOTLAND,

gravel, about fifteen yards thick : the next is lime-ftone of twenty yards : the ftratuntof ore is rather uncertain in extent, but is from-ten to fifteen yards thick, and forty inextent; and fometimes two hundred tons have been taken up in a week. A cubicvard of ore weighs three tons and a half: the common produce of metal is one tonfrom thirty-five to forty hundred of ore ; but fome has been fqrich as to yield a ton ofiron from twenty feven hundred of the mineral.

The ore lies in vaft heaps about the mines, fo as to form perfect mountains ; is ofthat fpecies called by mineralogifts haematites and kidney-ore ; is red, very greafy, anddefiling. The iron race that inhabit the mining villages exhibit a ftrange appearance rmen, women and children are perfe&y dyed with it, and even innocent babes quicklyalfume the bloody complexion of the foil.

The ore is carried on board the {hips for 12s. per ton, each ton 2 1 hundred' ;- and theadventurers pay is. 6d. per ton farm for liberty of railing it. It is entirely fmeltedwith wood charcoal, but is got in fucli quantities that wood in thefe parts is fometimeswanting ; fo that charcoal is fometimes procured from the poor woods of Mull, and other.of the Hebrides . The port to thefe mines is Barrow, about five miles to the fouth welt.

Thefe mines have'been worked above four hundred years ago, as appears by the grantof William of Lancafter, Lord of Kendal, to the pi'iory of Gonifhed, in this neighbour-hood, of the mine of Plumpton, probably part of theprefent vein ; which he conveys“ libero introitu et exitu ad duos equos cum hominibus minam cariandam, &c. *”

The veftiges of the ancient workings are very frequent, and apparent enough, from,the vaft hollows in the earth wherever they have funk in.

From one of the banks have a great view of the lower Furnefs, as far as appears, awoodlefs traft, and the ifte of Walney, ftretching along the coaft, and forming to it afecure counterfcarp from the rage of the fea. At; the fouth end is Peel caftle, originallybuilt, and fupported by the abbey of Furnefs, and ga-rrifoned with fixty men, as a pro-tection againft the Scots.

The abbey lies oppofite, and the very ruins evince its former magnificence f. Itwas founded in 1127, by Stephen Earl of Moriton of Bologne, afterwards King ofEngland, or rather removed by him from Tulket in Aundirnefs. ,The monks wereoriginally of the order of Tironenfians, of the rule of St. Benedict , but afterwards-be-came Cift'ercians f.

The little Tarn, or water called Standing Tarn, is within fight; it is of confideraedepth, and abounds with pike, roach, and eels ; alfo with large trout; and is remark-able for having no vifible outlet, but difcharges its waters by fome fubterraneous paflage.

See, towards the North, at afmall diftance, the hill of Black-Coomb, in Cumberlandoften vifible from Flintfhire, and an infallible prefage to us of bad weather. I foundfrom the report of the inhabitants of thefe parts, that the appearance of our country isequally ominous to them, and equally unacceptable.

See Swartz-moor hall, near which Martin Styartz' and his Germans encamped in1487, with Lambert Simnel , in order to collect forces in thefe parts, before his attempttowreft the, crown from Henry VIL He was fupported by Sir Thomas Broughton, agentleman of this neighbourhood, who, efcaping afterwards from the battle of Stoke,like our Owen-Glendwr, lived many years (when he was fuppofed to have been {lain)in great obfcurity, fupported by his faithful'tenants in Weftmoreland..

* Dugdale, ii. 425.

4. Finely engraven among the views publilhedby the fociety- of Antiquaries.

t Dugdale, i. 704. An excellent and full account of this abbey has been lately publiihed, by Mr.Thomas Weft. '

13 A^d