_Ransome’s Patent Stone Works._--These works, situated at Blackwall Lane, East Greenwich, were established at Ipswich in 1844, and removed to this locality in January, 1866. In 1871 the present company was incorporated in extension of the preceding firm. Mr. Frederick Ransome, the inventor of the processes, is a member of the well-known Ipswich family, and was in early life connected with the Orwell Works firm of Ransomes and Sims. It was while there, and noticing a workman engaged in dressing a millstone, that he conceived the idea of producing artificial stone, capable of being moulded to any form, and to be a perfect imitation, both in appearance and substance, of the blocks taken from our best quarries. At the commencement Mr. Ransome had, as I have said, his stoneworks at Ipswich. For ten years the difficulties he had to encounter were very great, but he persevered, and, though often discouraged, toiled and experimented on scientific principles until he succeeded in making not only perfectly equable and homogeneous grindstones, with keen cutting powers, and that need no dressing, but also ornamental and decorative stonework of ornate character, which has been well introduced in the Brighton Aquarium, London Docks, Albert Bridge, the Indian Court, Whitehall, St. Thomas’s Hospital, &c., the University of Calcutta and other buildings in India, and for ornamental buildings in France, Belgium, Holland, Egypt, Turkey, China (where a splendid fountain of Ransome stone adorns the public gardens at Hong Kong), and other countries. The demand for this artificial stone becoming much extended, the inventions were taken up by a company, and extensive works were erected at East Greenwich, to which the business was transferred, Mr. Ransome continuing with the company as managing director. The works are of great extent, and occupy a space of about four acres, that was formerly a dreary waste, on the banks of the Thames. They are connected with the river by a tramway and a jetty, supplied with a powerful derrick. The works consist of a large covered building, with a dividing wall across the centre, in which there are two openings for the tramways that are laid from one end to the other, and on which the work is conveyed from one point to another as the different processes require.