The metal was formerly so scarce in their country that in the times of the Edwards the Scotch were accustomed to make predatory incursions into England for the sake of the iron they could carry off. Now they not only manufacture sufficient for their own use, but actually export above half-a-million tons. The Cleveland district, formerly unknown in metallurgy, is now the seat of a vast industry, keeping more than a hundred furnaces in blast. The head-quarters of this new iron-country are established at Middlesborough, on whose site there existed but one house in 1829, but which in 1861 had grown into a town of 24,000 inhabitants, and still increases at the rate of 1,000 a year. Branch railways bring the stone here for smelting from all the neighbouring quarries, and the dense cloud of smoke that hangs over the place serves as a land-mark, not only from the high ground of Yorkshire, but even from some parts of Westmoreland. But Middlesborough, ‘the youngest child of England’s enterprise’ as it has been called by Mr. Gladstone, is by no means one of the loveliest of her offspring. Scarcely a blade of grass and not a single tree relieves the dull monotony of its dreary streets of small houses, darkened by perpetual smoke, which, as the wind sways it, affords, at rare intervals, glimpses of distant hills or of the Tees, serving only to make the prison of a town more gloomy. Mines and furnaces have also been established in other parts of the district—in Rhosdale, at Grosmont near Whitby, and elsewhere—and not a year passes without the opening of new veins and the rising of new smoke-clouds amid the lovely dales of north- western Yorkshire. The iron which eventually finds its way to Middlesborough is sent thence to every part of the world. Its quality is essentially inferior to that derived from the coal-measures; but for ordinary purposes, and for mixing with the finer classes, it is of great value. Looking to the future, we cannot doubt that the Middlesborough district is destined to have no rival in any part of the world, for even now its works compete in magnitude with those of our old iron fields. A material which had hitherto been thrown away was also, by the agency of the hot blast, made available for the purposes of the iron master. The ‘tap cinder,’ or refuse of the puddling furnace, which is not to be confounded with the cinder of the blast furnace, contains a considerable percentage of metal, and when thrown again into the furnace greatly increases the yield, though it proportionally deteriorates the quality of the iron. The results of all these successive discoveries and innovations, aided by the facilities of transport afforded by canals and railroads, are truly astonishing.