nor of Pactolus and Hermus in Lydia, and Tagus in Spain, whereof all the old Poets are full; it is certain, that in our very times severall rivers in Germanie, as the Elbe, Schwarts, Sala, and others, do carry gold, and have it mixed with their sands; out of the which by the industry of man, it is collected.

Sect. 3. Three sorts of Iron-mines in Ireland: and first of the first sort, Bog-mine.

But to let alone uncertain conjectures, and to content ourselves with the Mines that are already discovered, we will in order speak of them, and begin with the Iron-mines. Of them there are three sorts in Ireland, for in some places the Oar of the Iron is drawn out of Moores and Bogs, in others it is hewen out of Rocks, and in others it is digged out of Mountains: of which three sorts the first is called Bog-mine, the other Rock-mine, and the third with severall names White-mine, Pin-mine, and Shel-mine.

The first sort, as we have said, and as the name it self doth shew, is found in low and boggie places, out of the which it is raised with very little charge, as little charge, as lying not deep at all, commonly on the superficies of the earth, and about a foot in thickness. This Oar is very rich of metall, and that very good and tough, nevertheless in the melting it must be mingled with some of the Mine or Oar of some of the other sorts: for else it is too harsh, and keeping the furnace too hot, it melteth too suddenly, and stoppeth the mouth of the furnace, or, to use workmens own expression choaketh the furnace. Whilest this Oar is new, it is of a yellowish colour, and the substance of it somewhat like unto clay, but if you let it lye any long time in the open air, it groweth not only very dry, as the clay useth to do, but moldereth and dissolveth of it self, and falleth quite to dust or sand, and that of a blackish or black-brown colour.

Sect. 4. Of the second sort of Iron-mine, called Rock-mine. The second sort, that which is taken out of Rocks, being

a hard and meer stony substance, of a dark and rustie colour, doth not lye scattered in severall places, but is a piece of the

very rock, of the which it is hewn: which rock being covered over with earth, is within equallie every where of the same substance; so as the whole Rock, and every parcell thereof, is Oar of Iron. This mine, as well as the former, is raised with little trouble, for the Iron-rock being full of joints, is with pick-axes easily divided and broken into pieces of what bigness one will: which by reason of the same joints, whereof they are full every where, may easily be broke into other lesser pieces; as that is necessary, before they be put into the furnace.

This Mine or Oar is not altogether so rich as the Bog-mine, and yeeldeth very brittle iron, hardly fit for any thing else, but to make plow-shares of it (from whence the name of coltshare Iron is given unto it) and therefore is seldom melted alone, but mixed with the first or the third sort.

Of this kind hitherto there hath but two Mines been discovered in Ireland, the one in Munster, neer the town of Tallo, by the Earl of Cork his Iron works; the other in Leinster, in Kings-county, in a place called Desert land, belonging to one Serjeant Major Piggot, which rock is of so great a compass, that before this rebellion it furnished divers great Iron-works, and could have furnished many more, without any notable diminution; seeing the deepest pits that had been yet made in it, were not above two yards deep. The land, under which this rock lyeth, is very good and fruitfull, as much as any other land thereabouts, the mold being generally two feet and two and a half, and in many places three feet deep.

Sect. 5. Of the third sort of Iron-mine.

The third sort of Iron-mine is digged out of the mountains, in severall parts of the Kingdome; in Ulster, in the County of Fermanagh, upon Lough Earn; in the County of Cavan, in a place called Douballie, in a drie mountain; and in the County of Nether-Tirone, by the side of the rivelet Lishan, not far from Lough Neaugh; at the foot of the mountains Slew-galen mentioned by us upon another occasion, in the beginning

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beginning of this chapter: in Leinster, in Kings-county, hard by Mountmelick; and in Queenes-county, two miles from Monrath: in Connaught; in Tomound or the County of Clare, six miles from Limmerick; in the County of Roscomen, by the side of Lough Allen; and in the County of Letrim, on the East-side of the said Lough, where the mountains are so full of this metall, that thereof it hath got in Irish the name of Slew Neren, that is, Mountains of Iron: and in the Province of Munster also in sundrie places.

This sort is of a whitish or gray colour, like that of ashes; and one needs not take much pains for to find it out, for the mountains which do contain it within themselves, do commonly shew it of their own accord, so as one may see the veins thereof at the very outside in the sides of the mountains, being not very broad, but of great length, and commonly divers in one place, five or six ridges the one above the other, with ridges of earth between them.

These Veins or Ridges are vulgarly called Pins, from whence the Mine hath the name of Pin-mine; being also called White-mine, because of its whitish colour; and Shellmine, for the following reason: for this stuff or Oar being neither loose or soft as earth or clay, neither firm and hard as stone, is of a middle substance between both, somewhat like unto Slate, composed of shells or scales, the which do lye one upon another, and may be separated and taken asunder very easily, without any great force or trouble. This stuff is digged out of the ground in lumps of the bigness of a man's head, bigger, or less, according as the Vein affordeth opportunitie. Within every one of these lumps, when the Mine is very rich and of the best sort (for all the Oar of this kind is not of equall goodness, some yeelding more and better Iron than other) lieth a small kernell which hath the name of Hony-comb given to it, because it is full of little holes, in the same manner as that substance whereof it borroweth its appellation.

The Iron comming of this Oar is not brittle, as that of the Rock-mine, but tough, and in many places as good as any Spanish Iron.

Sect. 6. Iron-works erected by the English.

The English having discovered these Mines, endeavoured to improve same, and to make profit of them, and consequently severall Iron-works were erected by them in sundrie parts of the land, as namely by the Earl of Cork in divers places in Munster; by Sir Charles Coot in the Counties of Roscomen and Letrim, in Connaught, and in Leinster by Monrath, in Queenes-county; by the Earl of London-derry at Ballonakill, in the sayd county; by the Lord Chancelour Sir Adam Loftus, Viscount of Ely, at Mountmelik, in Kings-county; by Sir John Dunbar in Fermanagh, in Ulster; and another in the same county, by the side of Lough-Earn, by Sir Leonard Bleverhassett; in the county of Tomond, in Connaught, by some London-Merchants; besides some other Works in other places, whose first erectors have not come to my knowledge.

In imitation of these have also been erected divers Ironworks in sundrie parts of the sea coast of Ulster and Munster, by persons, who having no Mines upon or near their own Lands, had the Oar brought unto them by sea out of England; the which they found better cheap than if they had caused it to be fetched by land from some of the Mines within the land. And all this by English, whose industrie herein the Irish have been so far from imitating, as since the beginning of this Rebellion they have broke down and quite demolished almost all the fore-mentioned Iron-works, as well those of the one as of the other sort.

CHAP. XVII.

Of the Iron-works; their fashion, charges of erecting and maintaining them, and profit comming of them: With an exact description of the Manner of melting the Iron in them.

THE

Sect. 1. The fashion of the Iron-works.

HE fashion of Iron-works, of whose erection we have spoke in the end of the foregoing Chapter, is such as followeth. At the end of a great Barn standeth a huge furnace, being of the height of a pike and a half, or more, and four-square in figure, but after the manner of a Mault-kiln, that is narrow below, and by degrees growing wider towards the top, so as the compass of the mouth or the top is of many fathoms. This mouth is not covered, but open all over; so that the flame, when the furnace is kindled, rising through the same without any hindrance, may be seen a great way off in the night, and in the midst of the darkness maketh a terrible shew to travellers, who do not know what it is.

These Ovens are not kindled with wood, nor with sea-coal, but meerly with char-coal, whereof therefore they consume a huge quantity: For the Furnace being once kindled, is never suffered to go out, but is continually kept a burning from the one end of the year to the other: and the proportion of the coals to the Oar is very great: For the mine would not melt without an exceeding hot fire; the which that it may be the more quick and violent, it is continually blowing day and night without ceasing by two vast pair of bellows, the which resting upon main peeces of timber, and with their pipes placed into one of the sides of the Furnace, are perpetually kept in action by the means of a great Wheel, which being driven about by a little brook or water-course, maketh them rise and fall by turns, so that whilst the one pair of bellows doth swell and fill it self with wind, the other doth blow the same forth into the Furnace.