Iron was manufactured with charcoal in England from the time of the Romans till the middle of the eighteenth century, when the timber of many counties had been entirely exhausted by the process. In 1558, in the reign of Elizabeth, it was enacted that "no timber of the breadth of one foot square at the stub, and growing within fourteen miles of the sea, or any part of the river Thames or Severn, or any other river, creek, or stream, by the which carriage is commonly used by boat or other vessel, to any part of the sea, shall be converted to coal, or fuel for making iron;" {125a} and, in 1581, a further Act was passed to prevent the destruction of timber. "For remedy whereof it was enacted that no new iron works should be erected within twenty-two miles of London nor within fourteen miles of the river Thames, nor in the several parts of Sussex near the sea therein named. This Act not to extend to the woods of Christopher Durrell, in the parish of Newdigate, within the weald of Surrey, which woods have been coppiced by him for the use of his iron works in those parts." At the same period, we find from a letter in the Stradling Correspondence, {125b} that, while iron was made in Surrey, Sussex, and Kent, where not a pound is now manufactured, in Glamorganshire, at present a great seat of iron manufacture, iron was so scarce that an anvil was leased out at the rent of 3s. 4d. a year, {126} a rent at which, taking the then value of money, a very tolerable anvil could now be purchased. When the woods of the kingdom began to be exhausted, attention was turned to pit coal, which had long been in use for fuel in the counties where it was plentifully found. A curious account of the first successful experiments is to be found, told in very quaint language, in the Metallum Martis of Dudley Dudley, son of Lord Edward Dudley (an ancestor of the late Earl Dudley and Ward, and of the present Lord Ward, who now enjoys the very estates referred to, and derives a princely income from the mineral treasures, the true value of which was discovered by his unfortunate ancestor), published in the reign of Charles II. This Mr. Dudley was an early victim of the patent laws, which, to this day, have proved to be for the benefit of lawyers and officials, and the tantalization of true inventors and discoverers. The following extracts contain his story, and enable us to compare the present with the then state of iron manufacture:--