Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1818 edition. Excerpt: ... the county of Cavan and part of Leitrim. A road of easy ascent has been made to Aughacashiel colliery; and, if it were kept in repair, carts or drays, each holding a ton of coal, might be loaded there, and drawn with great facility down the hill. If, as already observed, the coal be found to encrease to two feet in thickness, it might be sold at eight shillings a ton, and at this rate an ample market would be found in the neighbouring country, extending to the town of Cavan. The stratification of the four divisions of the Connaught coal district have thus been described. Each of them contains workable beds of bituminous coal; but that found in the southern and western divisions is greatly superior in quality, and more widely extended than the coal of the northern and eastern divisions. OF THE IRON WORKS. The number and richness of the beds of clay ironstone, that occur in all parts of the Connaught coal district, appear at a very early period to have attracted the attention of Irish speculators; and works on a very small scale, called Bloomeries, were carried on in various parts of the adjoining country, as long as any wood remained to supply them with charcoal. At that time no coal had been discovered, and if it had, the process of making, iron from pit coal was then, though partially known, not practised even in England. The iron works of Drumshambo were the last that continued to work: they were given up about the year 1765. These works were situated at the southern extremity of Lough Allen, in the county of Leitrim, a quarter of a mile west of the village of Drumshambo. The works were built upon a limestone rock, but about a quarter of a mile from the commencement of the coal country. The situation was particularly favourable for...
