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the floor. There is a loud noise of boiling, but no sign of commotion in the water, which is a peculiarity of the slag; if it were lead pouring in, the boiling would be furious. The slag falls to the bottom of the cistern in a form which curiously enough resembles nothing so much as small coal, and in this state is waste, accumulating rapidly, and troublesome and expensive to get rid of.

In another large room, facing a range of furnaces, I saw broad heaps of something red lying on the floor. It was red-lead; a powder much used by painters, and in the mechanical arts. The colour is produced solely by the process of manufacture. The lead is roasted in a furnace at a temperature below the melting point, until it becomes coarsely granulated and of a yellowish green colour. This grain-metal is then ground by mill-stones, of which several pairs are erected along the middle of the floor, and undergoes thereby a curious change; for the appearance of the heavy stream of powder while running from the stones is precisely that of paste. This pale powder is thrown into another furnace, where, by the combined action of air and fire, its colour deepens into red, and as marketable red-lead it is drawn forth.

What with furnaces and continual extension and repair of buildings, the consumption of bricks is enormous, so much so, that the firm find it profitable to manufacture their own supplies at a brickfield about half a mile from the works.

The sheet-lead rolling machinery was not working; a sight thereof was, however, sufficient to show me the simple nature of the operation. A thick heavy slab of lead is laid on a broad flat iron bed, which rests on numerous small rollers, and runs easily to and fro,

carrying with it the slab, which at every advance and retreat passes between two large, ponderous rollers. By these its thickness is each time diminished, and its length and breadth proportionately increased, and in time sheets are produced of any required thinness or dimensions.

Next to the separation of the silver I took most pleasure in watching the making of lead pipes. I had once seen a pipe made by drawing a thick stumpy tube through smaller and smaller holes, until it was as small or long as desired; but here a different and much more interesting process is brought into play. We are in a small room at a corner of the works opening on the wharf. At one side is a brick furnace, containing a pot of melted lead; in front of it, firmly fixed in the solid ground, stands an iron cylinder, apparently four feet in height and one foot in diameter; and within a stride of this ranges the apparatus of a force-pump, from which two rods pass through the floor over our heads. We ascend to this floor—which, by the way, has a large gap at one corner-and see a sort of table with two handles, the ends of the rodsprojecting from the top; in a line with the cylinder a large reel turned by a winch; and high aloft a crane and chain-tackle. We take our stand against the rail that faces the gap, and witness the operations. The furnace-man draws the tap, out runs a stream of melted lead along a spout, and fills the cylinder. Quick! the stream is cut off, and a pause takes place, during which the four or five men move to their several stations. The pause is to give time to the lead in the cylinder "to set," that is, to begin to solidify. Then, at the right moment a man gives a pull at the two handles, and immediately we hear the pump working with a

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sound as if very much in earnest; and not without reason, for it is forcing a plunger down upon the lead. Solidifying lead is a tough antagonist; but the pump labours on, and soon there appears rising from the centre of the cylinder a smooth, bright leaden pipe, such as is used for the water-service in houses. Upup-up it rises, within reach of the man at the winch, who, seizing the end, brings it to the reel, and winds. it on as fast as it grows, and until the cylinder is empty. The plunger has reached the bottom, and forced all the lead up through the narrow collar at the top; and in this way coils of lead pipe are produced twenty-one yards in length.

I grasped the pipe as it passed gliding before me, but found it still too hot for an unaccustomed hand. The heat facilitates the coiling, but the largest size that can be coiled without flattening is an inch and three quarters in diameter. Above that size the pipe is made straight, rising perpendicular from the cylinder to the crane, by which it is held while sawn off in twelve feet lengths; and the process is the same for two, four, or six-inch pipes, the different diameters being determined by the different mandrils fitted as required into the head of the cylinder. Snugly packed in straw-bands, the coils and lengths are then ready for shipment.

While retracing my steps to the entrance, I could not help thinking about the prodigious quantities of lead which one hundred and fifty men working day after day must produce annually in this one establishment alone. It is, however, but one out of many, for the quantity of lead produced every year in the United Kingdom amounts to nearly seventy thousand tons. The tall chimney smokes vehemently, mostly sulphur

fumes, notwithstanding the use of condensers. These are cleaned out about once a month; the chimney is swept for its metalliferous deposit once a year.

I left the works grateful for interesting sights, increased knowledge, and cordial and intelligent guidance; and went down to the river.

On the River again-Walker, a Pandemonium-Shoving into the SmokeThe Pitman's Chant-Trade and Traders-Wallsend-Cohorts and Coal-Busy Staithes-Sights of Ships-Willington Quay-George and Robert Stephenson-Northumberland Dock-Hudson and Weser— Jarrow Slake-A Venerable Relic-Throng of Ships-North Shields— A queer Street-The Sea, the Sea, the Open Sea !-Busy Movement on the River-Thames and Tyne-The Durham Coal-field-Mighty Trade in Coal-Captain's Fare-South Shields-A Comfortable Sight -Jarrow Docks-Clang, Crash, and Uproar-From Scraps to BarsA Spell of Purgatory-From Noise to Quiet-Venerable Bede: his Church, Convent, and Chair-Scramble up the Tower-Antiquaries to the Rescue !-A Strange Landscape-Growing Hills-Good-tempered Clergyman-The Ferry-Tees Water not Tyne Water-A Queer Walk -Hospitality at Tynemouth-The Cliffs-The Self-hoaxed Contractor -Lighthouse and Priory-Ugly Governor's House.

To me there appeared no difference between steamtug and passenger boat; but the ferryman knew better, and let two or three of the wheezy paddlers pass before he rowed me off into the stream to catch "the packet,” as he chose to call it. More music on board; a bagpiper and fifer who played The Keel Row delightfully. Presently we approach the Walker Iron Works, where a hundred black furnaces are blazing and roaring, and a horrid din prevails of thumping and smiting, and furious plunges, while men seem to be flitting to and fro, now in the dusk, now in the fierce fiery glare, and overwhelming clouds of smoke hide the sky with awful darkness. Looking on the scene one might almost fancy it a Pandemonium. "In gloomy weather," said the steersman, "when the wind blows the smoke across