My hammer's head's flown from the haft,
No more Saint Mondays with the craft;
My nippers, pincers, stirrup, and rag,
And all my kit have got the bag,
My lapstone's broke, my colour's o'er,
My gum-glass froze, my paste's no more,
My heels sew'd on, my pegs are driven,-
I hope I'm on the road to heaven!"

Nent Valley-Geological Phenomena -Nent Head-Lead Works-A Busy Scene Furnaces and Pigs-Seven Miles under-ground-Clogs and Children-Bouse and Bouse-teams-Washing, Buddling, and Hotching -Slime Pits-Clever Separation-Wise or not-Morals among Miners —Not so bad as it seems-An Ill-word about Coal-mines-Ugly Facts -Kilhope Law-A long Chimney-Coalcleugh-R and H, a Case of Exasperation-Up for Hope-Carshield-Mr. Beaumont's Territory— The Pay-office-Hartleycleugh—Snow-poles-Longer Chimneys-Allentown-Reckoning without the Hosts-A Traveller in a fix— A Cheerful Reception-Catton-Langley Castle-Haydon Bridge— Another Cheerful Reception-What Roger North says-Hanging in the Good Old Times.

WISHING to see something of the mines and miners, I turned away from the Tyne, and was presently on the hill-top above the town, walking up the valley of the Nent, but at a considerable elevation above the stream; high enough to scan a great expanse of rolling summits, among which not a few mark the border of Northumberland. Now and then a heavy shower swept across, making the intervening sunshine appear the brighter, and freshening up the verdure of the fields and meads that lie in the hollows, and producing a variety of light and shade upon the landscape wherein the little sykes or gullies that furrow the hill sides. appear the darker.

We are here on the apex of the island, among the topmost upheavals of the limestone, sandstone, and slate strata which are the joy of the miner, for therein he finds rich veins and pockets of metal. Not without

tremendous throes were they uplifted to their present elevation; and here and there in a scar, or on the rugged flank of a watercourse, we may read somewhat of their history. In some places the metallic veins lay open to the daylight; and on one side of a valley the ends of rock-beds are seen corresponding to similar beds on the other side; and with other remarkable phenomena the limestone slopes away on the east and the west till it meets the coal strata, which in this latitude complete the slope and rush down beneath the sea on both sides of the island.

We pass Nent Hall, which, embosomed in trees, reminds us of an oasis, and, four miles from Alston, come to the village of Nent Head, which makes no secret of its vocation, for huge mounds of refuse, tramways, wagons, heaps of ore, implements scattered about, and a sturdy population proclaim that it lives by the mines. It belongs to the London Lead Company, who rebuilt it some years ago; hence it boasts a market-house crowned by a clock-tower, a Methodist chapel, and a good school-house, yet somewhat primitive withal. And is it not right that a village should harmonise with its environment? There are however no signs of poverty, but abundant signs of work; men and boys washing, sorting, and crushing ore, amid the splashing of water, the thumping of machinery, and clattering as of falling stones when the wagons from the mines drop their burden. From the heaps of ore at one end of the premises, to the slime-pits on the other, resolute industry prevails.

Higher up the hill stands the smelt-mill, where the ore is roasted and melted and cast into pigs of lead. The roasting is what a metallurgist calls a beautiful process: the ore is spread on the sole, or floor of a

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furnace, and is heated to a temperature at which it parts with its sulphur and takes up oxygen, but does not melt. In another furnace it is melted, and you see the molten stream flowing from the mouth into a pot. In another, the stubborn slag, or the dross and refuse, is treated by a roaring blast, becomes docile, yields every particle of lead, while splendid blue and green flames leap and play in the impetuous current. You see how even the sweepings of the chimney are converted into metal by the action of fire; how silver is separated from the baser metal; and not least astonishing among strange sights is the huge waterwheel, exceeding in circumference perhaps all that you have ever seen before, which drives the condensing apparatus.

The village is built on a hill slope, and here and there you see the galleries, or entrances to the mines, which penetrate the hills for miles, ramifying and honeycombing to such a depth that they reach the diggings from the other side, and, as I was told, it is possible to go all through seven miles underground, and come out in Weardale. One of the entrances was pointed out to me as Rampgill vein, from which seventy-two tons of ore have been dug every week for more than a hundred years. With such abundance as that to work upon, the 1200 men and boys may well be busy.

What a clattering of clogs there was when the school broke up, and the children swarmed out upon the street! They are not remarkable for beauty, but they are remarkable for cleanliness, and appear to be robust alike in heath and limb.

Let us take a walk through the works, and see by what process lead is produced, The ore as it comes

from the mines is in rough stony lumps, of all sizes, from the bigness of your head down to sand; some lumps are slaty in appearance, some like quartz; many are good specimens of the pale gray limestone from which they were torn, and the more they all sparkle with crystals of lead the better is their quality. Some look as if they were all lead, only brighter, so cunningly is the earth masked, and these, which are singularly heavy, the miners lovingly call "lazy lumps." The local term for ore is bouse; the wagons laden therewith run from the mines to the works, where each drops its burden into the bouse-teams; that is, into a range of open stalls, according to quality. Here the ore lies ready to hand; the washing-floors are close by on the same level, and the next operation is to break it up, wash it, and separate metal from stone.

A barrowful of ore is thrown on an iron grating upon which a stream of water is let to flow: the light earthy and gritty particles are thereby washed off, and carried into the "trunk-box" placed in connection with the grating. Meanwhile men and boys stand by with hammers, and pick the washed lumps. That which is only stone is at once thrown away; the metallic lumps are broken and sorted, and as much of the stone got rid of as possible, in readiness for the succeeding operations known on the spot as "buddling" and "hotching," which may be described as a kind of sifting with sieves suspended in water; an arrangement which facilitates the separation of the heavy from the light portions. You have only to agitate sieves and boxes with sufficient perseverance, and the ore will find its way to the bottom, and lie there as a distinct stratum, by its own gravity, and then separation from the refuse is easy.