of Chance Brothers and Co., Spon Lane, near Birmingham, are the only
works of the kind in the kingdom. The improvements since 1865 may be
noted under: (1) the optical agents, (2) the lamps and burners with the
illuminant or fuel used in them, (3) the mechanical appliances. The
six original orders of optical apparatus distinguished by their radii
and height are no longer the only types. There is the hyper-radial
first order lens, whose focal distance is 1,330 millimetres, and
diameter about 104¾ inches, the usual first order being about 72½
inches diameter, and there are several varieties below the 6th order
whose radius is 150 mm. Of these the Ship Light introduced by Messrs.
Chance with a focal distance of 125 mm., is the most important. Various
new arrangements of condensing lights where from one flame, certain
sea sectors are strongly illuminated by means of vertical prisms,
while other sectors are less intensely lighted, have been adopted
with signal success, as have also several special designs where a
coloured and a white beam of equal intensity are concerned. The new
lenses for port and harbour lights, and those used with the electric
arc on board vessels of war for search purposes, introduced by Messrs.
Chance, may be named. The present two most powerful lights in the
world are the Macquarie at Sydney Heads (a revolving electric light of
the first order) and the Tino near Spezia, a revolving electric light
of the second order. In both a single optical agent is employed, and
carbons from 15 to 25 mm. diameter. Another improvement is the ship
light lens designed to give adequate intensity and penetrating power
in a vessel’s signal lights, especially her side lights, whereby an
increased luminous range can be secured and the risk of collision
greatly lessened. The vertical angle subtended by lenticular refracting
apparatus has been increased from 45° and 47° to 80°, and even by the
use of dense flint glass to 92°. In this way the normal power of the
central or lens portion of a light, always two-thirds of the whole
power, has been so augmented that it is found advisable to dispense
with the prisms both upper and lower, and to depend on the refractors
alone. When higher degrees of intensity are needed, a second tier of
lenses can be superposed on the first, and a third and fourth added,
a separate flame being in the focus of each tier. This has been done
by Mr. Wigham, of Dublin, with gas flames, and by Sir James Douglas
with oil flames. The two great divisions of lighthouse apparatus into
fixed sections and revolving sections have been extended. Thus the old
fixed light, the revolving light with equally recurring single flashes,
the composite fixed and flashing light, always objectionable from its
unequal power, have been supplemented by the occulting light, and the
group flashing light which last was designed by Dr. John Hopkinson,
and first constructed by Messrs. Chance. In this arrangement the beams
are sent out in groups, each beam of the group being separated from
one another by a short interval of time, and each group by a longer
interval. The lights on a coast can thus be distinguished by their
single flash, double flash, or triple flash.[56]
ILLUMINANTS AND BURNERS.--Mineral oil has been introduced, and special
burners designed in order to burn it. The largest of the old colza
oil burners (known as Fresnel burners) has an intensity of 230 candle
units, or 23·6 candle units per square inch, while a similar burner
for paraffin has been reported as affording 415 candle units, or 44·3
units. The latest developed Trimley burner of Sir James Douglas, with
nine concentric wicks, gives 49·8 units. The oil used has a flashing
point of 154° F. The average cost of mineral oil is one-fourth that of
vegetable oil. Gas is also freely employed, and in the 108-jet burner
of Mr. Wigham it has attained a power of 2,433 candles, and in the
10-ring burner of Sir James Douglas, a power of 2,619 candles. Beyond
the highest reach of oil or gas burners, say 2,500 or 2,600 candles,
is the electric arc giving an intensity of beam of ten millions of
candles. At the other end of the scale is the duplex burner, which,
with the new Chance lenses, is available in the smallest apparatus for
a horizon of from seven to ten miles.
The Spon Lane Lighthouse Works have been extended greatly since the
last visit of the Association. The unique methods of grinding and
polishing the optical glass have not been materially changed, but the
number and variety of machines have been largely increased. In the
mechanical shops there is now a complete _outillage_ for turning,
drilling, shaping, screwing, &c., applicable to all the old designs and
processes, and also the newer branches introduced since 1865. There
are about 200 workpeople employed, many with consummate skill and
intelligence, as may be assumed from the precise and highly finished
work in which they are engaged.
At this date about 260 complete sea lights and about 300 complete
harbour lights have been sent out, together with about 200 smaller port
lights and about 370 of the recently designed ship lights.
Very striking specimens of optical science have been contributed by
Messrs. Chance, as exemplified in the list of dioptric lights they have
supplied around our own coasts, of which The Longships, the Wolf Rock,
the Flamborough Head, the Hartland Point, the Start Point, the South
Stack Rock, The Casquets, Bull Point, Anvil Point, the Eddystone, and
many others are examples.
Mr. Kenward will be glad to give further information to any member of
the Association who may take an interest in the subject.
=Locks and Lock Making.=--[J. C. TILDESLEY.]--(B. 77.) The price of
cheap padlocks is still lower. Iron padlocks of the cheapest class are
now being made in this district (Willenhall) and delivered free in
Bombay and Calcutta, at _fivepence halfpenny per dozen_!
In reference to the table (B. 89), the number of employers may be set
down as 100 less (that is 350) and at least 1,000 must be deducted from
the total number of workpeople, bringing it to about 3,950.
The production of locks in the district may now be computed at 25,000
dozens per week, as against 31,500 dozens per week, as estimated in
1865. The reductions being chiefly in the pad, cabinet, chest, and till
departments, which are being driven hard by America and continental
competition. On the other hand, door locks (rim, dead, mortice, and
drawback) are being made in larger quantities than ever, and are being
sold at prices which would have been regarded as fabulous twenty years
ago.
The average earnings of locksmiths are 15 to 20 per cent. less than
the figures given at (B. 89.) American competition in castings has,
so far as the lock trade is concerned, considerably diminished since
1865. By grinding English sand to the fineness of flour, and by the
adoption of Plaster of Paris moulds and improved methods of casting,
transatlantic supremacy over England no longer prevails. While in the
matter of cheap and clear castings they have maintained for their
productions the reputation for practical qualities which has so long
distinguished them. Artistic design and ornamentation have improved.
Germany is now the most formidable rival to the English lockmaker,
owing to the low wages and long hours endured by the German locksmiths.
The remedy for this state of affairs ought, in the interests both of
commerce and humanity to be found not in a retrograde movement on the
part of England to Germany, but in the uprising of the German workman,
to secure the same _status_ as that enjoyed by his English confrere.
=Magic Lantern Slide Painting.=--[H. H. STANTON.]--The old fashioned
method of tracing from a drawing or engraving though still used, has
given way to a great extent to the introduction of photography. Special
drawings are made, photographed on to glass, and subsequently painted.
Girls and also artists are employed in the work. Photographic slides
from various parts of the world come to Birmingham to be finished.
=Measuring Rules and Tapes.=--[JOHN RABONE.] (B. 628.) It is
noteworthy that in the “garret” at Heathfield Hall, near Birmingham,
where Watt amused himself during the latter years of his life with
his copying machines--the prototypes of those afterwards known as the
American and Enfield--is still to be seen an example of Watt’s early
work in London before he entered upon his remodelling of the steam
engine in connection with Matthew Boulton.
In one of the drawers there are preserved several of the old fashioned
tools, formerly, and still used in rule making by hand, and also
carefully wrapped up in paper by Watt himself, is a “brass sector with
a French joint,” which, unlike his compasses and other mathematical
instruments, has undergone no wear, and is as faultlessly clear and
perfect as it was on the day it left the maker’s hands. The only
assumption that can be made respecting it is that it is the identical
“brass sector with a French joint,” of which young Watt so glowingly
wrote to his father, now a hundred and thirty years ago; and if that
be so, it is the only known specimen of the great engineer’s work as a
rule maker.
Prior to the last meeting of the British Association in Birmingham, in
1865, machinery had been brought into the trade to but a small extent
compared with what has since been the case in the making and marking
of all kinds of rules. Accurately engine-divided, 2-feet folding steel
rules, retailed at a shilling each, are a new feature of the trade,
which is a boon to mechanics they never before had. The employment of
automatic machinery has quite revolutionised the trade, by bringing
larger capital into it, and increasing the number of workpeople
sixfold, at the same time enabling employers to pay higher wages than
they could possibly do when all depended upon unaided hand labour. The
trade has always been in comparatively few hands, three-fourths of the
names appearing in one directory as makers, being merely dealers, or
journeymen; in one case fifteen of the men so described being merely
journeymen of one employer. The bulk of the trade is now in the hands
of as few makers as might be counted on the fingers of one hand, but
competition is not rendered thereby less severe, but is rather more
excessive. During the past twenty years a great change has taken place
in many countries by the adoption of the metre as a standard measure.
Since 1870 all the numberless measures of little German towns, many
with both decimal and duo-decimal divisions, have been abolished, and
the use of the metre alone legalised. Other nations have followed the
example of Germany. Many of the rules made for export to such countries
as Russia, which have not legalised the metre, are marked with it in
addition to the local measures, thus preparing the way for its future
adoption. Its use has been legalised in Great Britain, though not
made compulsory, and many of the measures made for export to foreign
countries where English customs prevail are marked with both English
and metrical divisions.
=Military Arms Trade.=--[J. D. GOODMAN.]--(B. 381.) At the date of the
notice of the gun trade, published in the transactions of the meeting
of the British Association held in Birmingham in 1865, the British
forces were armed with muzzle-loading guns. The arm of the service was
that known as the “Enfield Rifle.” It was adopted by a committee of
military officers, appointed by Lord Hardinge, Master General of the
Ordnance, in 1853.
In 1865 the breech-loading system was receiving much attention.
The Wesley Richards’ Breech-loader had been for some time in use
in the service on an experimental scale, and had been tested in
the field, both in China and New Zealand. So far back as 1861, a
thousand breech-loaders, on Terry’s principle, had been issued to the
troops, but did not prove successful. Trial was also made of Sharp’s
American Breech-loading Rifle. The successful use of the Needlegun
Breech-loader, by the Prussians, in the Danish war of 1864, gave great
urgency to the enquiry.
In August, 1864, the English Government invited proposals for the
conversion of the Enfield rifle into a breechloader. Fifty different
systems were sent in, of which five only were ultimately selected for
trial. Four of these were capping and one was a non-capping arm--that
is, one in which the cartridge carries its own ignition. On 14th March,
1865, the Woolwich Committee issued their Report on the various systems
which had been submitted, in which after speaking of the obvious
disadvantages which a breechloader requiring a cap presents, when
contrasted with one adapted for a cartridge carrying its own ignition,
proceeds to say:--
“The Committee have now respectfully to submit their
observations on the whole question.
“The ultimate armament of the infantry with breech-loading
weapons is determined upon. It would be done at a comparatively
small cost by conversion, but it is now well known that the
calibre, twist, and form of rifling of the ‘Enfield’ is not
the most favourable for fine shooting, and it is quite certain
that no converted arms can possess the precision which will
be easily attained in a new breechloader of smaller gauge and
quicker twist. Nor will the soldier be able to carry that
increased quantity of ammunition, which is so desirable,
without a reduction of calibre.
“There are certain circumstances in which, notwithstanding
all the inconveniences which will attend the co-existence
of unaltered arms, converted arms, and new arms, with their
different ammunitions, it may still be desirable to proceed
with the conversion on the ground of its small cost, and of
the less time in which the arms can be turned out; but the
Committee do not feel in a position at present to recommend
such a measure.”
In the end, the economical view prevailed, and it was determined to
convert the Enfield rifles to the Snider system. The effect of this
decision was to postpone to 1871, when the Martini rifle was adopted,
the advantages recognised in the Woolwich Report, which would be
obtained by a smaller bore, quicker twist, and a different form of
rifling.
In July, 1866, the Birmingham Small Arms Company was instructed to
proceed with the conversion of the Enfield rifles to breech-loaders to
the full extent of their power. The London Small Arms Company was very
shortly afterwards established. They received similar instructions.
The result was that the whole of the Enfield rifles available were
converted, as follows:--
Enfield (Government Factory) 296,352
Birmingham Small Arms Company 156,000
London Small Arms Company 85,200
-------
537,552
As this number was insufficient for the requirements of the service,
and as it was indispensable that there should be but one description
of arm in use, it became necessary that new Sniders should be made.
In 1869, and subsequently, orders were issued to the trade, and the
following supplies were made:--
Enfield 200,523
Birmingham Small Arms Company 92,837
London Small Arms Company 42,525
National Arms Company 2,000
-------
337,885
Making a total of 875,437 Snider arms.
The adoption of the Martini-Henry rifle resulted from an invitation to
inventors, issued by the War Department first in 1866. More than 100
different arms and 49 descriptions of ammunition were sent in, but the
committee appointed to make the selection reported that none came up
to the requirements. The invitation was repeated in December, 1867,
resulting in 45 additional arms being submitted. In February, 1869, the
Committee reported recommending a combination of the Martini Breech
Action and the Henry rifling, and for the ammunition, the Boxer coiled
case. During the following year, trials of this arm were made in the
service, and finally, in 1871, it was definitely adopted. Orders were
afterwards issued to the trade, and the following statement shows the
numbers which have been manufactured at the Government Factory, and by
the trade, up to March, 1885:--
Enfield 583,798
Birmingham Small Arms Company 107,219
London Small Arms Company 74,131
National Arms Company 12,456
-------
777,604
It has now (July, 1886) been decided to adopt a new arm, embodying
the improvements suggested by the experience gained in the use of the
Martini, during the service it has undergone. It has been found that
the calibre of the barrel if still further reduced would much improve
the shooting, an increase being made at the same time in the twist of
the rifling. A Committee has for some time past had the matter under
consideration, and finally have recommended an arm which is to be known
as the Enfield-Martini.
In the new arm, the Martini action is retained, the outside dimensions
of the barrel are the same, but the bore is reduced from ·45 inch to
·4 inch. While the twist of the rifling is increased from 1 turn in
22 inches to 1 turn in 15 inches. The weight of the bullet is reduced
from 480 grains to 384, the powder charge being the same as in the
former rifle, 85 grains. A wooden hand guard is fixed over the breech
end of the barrel to protect the hand of the soldier when the barrel
becomes heated by rapid firing. The barrel is no longer imbedded in
the fore-end of the stock; it was found that the exterior of the
barrel was liable to rust from contact with the wood. The fore-end
is now so shaped that the barrel simply lies upon it, held in place
by the bands which surround both stock and barrel. The back sight is
provided with a wind gauge, and a locking bolt secures the trigger
when the arm is at full cock. A sword bayonet is substituted for the
former triangular-shaped bayonet. A “quick loader” will be used with
this arm. It hangs on the side of the body of the action, and holds
six cartridges. The cartridges are acted upon by a spring which forces
the head of the cartridge through an aperture in the lid, ready for
the soldier’s hand. With this “quick loader,” six rounds can be fired
in about 25 seconds, whereas, in loading from the pouch, 40 seconds
are required. This description, of the new arm may be subsequently
modified, as the recommendation of the Committee has not yet been
confirmed.
DIMENSIONS, &C., OF THE BREECH-LOADING ARMS OF THE BRITISH SERVICE.
----------------------------------+----------+-----------+-----------
| | MARTINI | ENFIELD-
| SNIDER. | HENRY. | MARTINI.
----------------------------------+----------+-----------+-----------
RIFLE. | | |
| | |
Length of Barrel | 39in. | 33³⁄₁₆in. | 33³⁄₁₆in.
Length over all |4ft. 7in. |4ft. 1½in. |4ft. 1½in.
Length with Bayonet |6ft. ½in. |5ft. 11½in.|5ft. 11½in.
Weight with Bayonet |9lb. 14oz.| 9lb. 14oz.|10lb. 4oz.
Weight without Bayonet | 9lb. | 9lb. | 9lb. 6oz.
No. of Grooves in Barrel | 3 | 7 | 7
Calibre | .577 | .45 | .4
Twist of Rifling 1 turn in | 78in. | 22in. | 15in.
Velocity of Muzzle per second | 1240ft. | 1315ft. | 1570ft.
Trajectory at 500 yards | 11.35ft. | 8.594ft. | 6.704ft.
Figure of Merit at 500 yards | 0.89ft. | 0.55ft. | 0.30ft.
| | |
AMMUNITION. | | |
| | |
Weight of Loaded Cartridge, grains| 715 | 758 | 718
Powder ” | 70 | 85 | 85
Bullet ” | 480 | 480 | 384
----------------------------------+----------+-----------+-----------
DESCRIPTION OF ARMS USED BY OTHER COUNTRIES.
------------------+--------------------------+---------
COUNTRY. | DESCRIPTION. | CALIBRE.
------------------+--------------------------+---------
America, U.S. | Springfield | ·450
Austria | Werndl | ·433
Belgium | Albini Braendlin |
Denmark | Remington | ·433
Egypt | Remington | ·433
France | Gras | ·433
France | Kropatschek Magazine Gun |
| in Navy | ·433
Germany | Mauser | ·433
Greece | Gras | ·433
Holland | Beaumont | ·433
Italy | Vetterli | ·408
Norway and Sweden | Jarman | ·397
Portugal | Martini Henry | ·450
Roumania | Peabody Martini | ·450
Russia | Berdan | ·420
Servia | Berdan | ·420
Spain | Remington | ·433
Switzerland | Vetterli Magazine | ·409
Turkey | Peabody Martini | ·450
------------------+--------------------------+---------
As it is essential that all arms made for the service should be
interchangeable, the orders to the trade have been confined to the
factories where the work is done exclusively by machinery, viz., to
the Small Arms Company and National Arms Company in Birmingham, and to
the London Small Arms Company, whose works are at Bow. The National
Arms Company, which was incorporated in January, 1872, is no longer
in existence, having gone into liquidation in December, 1882. With a
paid up capital of £330,000 they erected gun works at Sparkbrook, and
ammunition works at Holdford. The gun works have now been purchased by
the Government, and the Holdford Works are on the market for sale. The
same irregularity in the Government employment, which proved fatal to
the National Arms Company, acted very prejudicially for both the other
Companies. The Birmingham Company paid no dividend during the five
years 1879-83, and a nominal one only in 1884.
To this uncertainty of Government employment may be attributed
the difficulty of obtaining swords and bayonets, to which, a short
time since, attention was called in Parliament. When military arms
were supplied by the ordinary hand-made trade, there were four
bayonet-makers in Birmingham and West Bromwich, where, now, there is
not one; and in Birmingham there is only one manufacturer of swords,
when formerly there were several. The manufacture of triangular
bayonets has been, with trifling exceptions, confined of late to
Enfield, while sword bayonets, not made at Enfield, have been procured
from Solingen. The future Enfield-Martini is to be provided with a
sword bayonet. The plainly expressed wish of the House of Commons is
that in future, all swords and sword bayonets shall be made in England,
of English material. There will not be the slightest difficulty in
carrying out this wish. Birmingham will be able to produce any number
that may be wanted, but to keep together the required staff of workmen
it is necessary that the demand should be continuous.
In the manufacture of rifles, as well as bayonets, there is every
reason to hope that the future employment of the trade will be more
regular and continuous. The past bitter experience has shown that
the trade cannot live without steady employment, and it is now fully
recognised that it is not desirable that this country should remain
dependent for its supply of arms on one Government manufactory at
Enfield.
AMMUNITION.--Up to the present time the English Government have adhered
to the use of the Boxer cartridge, the case of which is made up of thin
coiled brass, attached to an iron base, which carries the ignition.
For some years past all other European nations have used a solid metal
cartridge case, _i.e._, a case in one piece stamped out of a flat disc.
The English Government have now decided that the solid case shall be
used, with the new Enfield-Martini rifle. A plant for the manufacture
of these cartridges is being prepared at Woolwich. It is fully
intended also to employ the trade. Orders have already been issued
to the Birmingham Small Arms Company and Messrs. Kynoch and Company,
Birmingham, and Messrs. Eley Brothers, of London, who have all had long
experience in the manufacture of this description of cartridge.
=Nails (cut).=--[R. F. MARTINEAU.]--(B. 613). The machines for cutting
tacks and small nails up to 1½ inch are now fed automatically. One
unskilled workman can keep five or six machines going. The machines do
not work so fast as the hand fed, but there are fewer stoppages, and
the quantity turned out is greater. This improvement has reduced the
price 30 per cent. The present machines turn out the work so that it
need not be looked over and sorted as was formerly the case. The cut
nail trade has developed in the North and at the present time, there
are as many nails made at Leeds as at Birmingham. The better class
of nail is, however, supplied from Birmingham. London brewers send
coasting vessels up the east coast with cargoes of stout, and they
return from Hull with cut nails at very low freight. The quantity of
nails made in Birmingham is about the same as in 1865. The French and
Belgians have given up making cut nails, but they make tacks. No French
tacks or _tingles_ (the smallest sort of tacks used in the shoe trade)
are now imported into England, on the contrary, some are being exported
into France.
Mild steel has been introduced since 1865. Steel nails are now being
made at only a shilling per cwt. above the price of iron nails. These
steel nails will clench, and hence are replacing wrought nails.
The manufacture of wire nails has been introduced into Birmingham since
1865. On its introduction, wire was imported from Germany and Belgium,
owing to its cheapness and low freight, but now, as English wire has
fallen in price, it is used in preference to the foreign.
Wire nails are suited for hard wood, hence a large trade is done in
them in Australia. The Cape, India, and South America, are markets
for Birmingham nails. Women get about ten shillings a week. Youths
as feeders about 15 to 20 shillings, skilled mechanics from 30 to 50
shillings, and labourers 15 to 20 shillings per week.
=Needles and Fish Hooks.=--[J. M. WOODWARD.]--(B. 197). The pointing
of needles is now done exclusively by machinery. The new machines
introduced into the trade within the last 25 years, are the machines
for cutting, *pointing, *skimming, stamping, eyeing, *point handing,
*tempering, scouring, *handing, *counting, heading and tailing,
blueing, *burnishing, *finishing, assorting, and sticking. The machines
marked with * produce not only cheaper, but better quality of work.
Electro-gilding has taken the place of the old ether gilding. As
regards machinery used in the production of sewing machine needles,
the chief novelty is the “grooving” machine, which is taking the place
of the old stamping process. From special enquiries made I conclude
that in the needle district the weekly productions of all kinds of
needles and goods akin to needles, cannot be less than 50,000,000 in
number. _Pins._ In addition to pins in ordinary use, steel and glass
headed pins are made at Redditch, the weekly production of all kinds
of pins being about two tons. An attempt is being made to adapt the
machines for the production of two pins at a time instead of one. _Fish
hooks and fishing tackle_ are now made almost entirely by machinery.
Artificial fly making is altogether done by hand; feathers of various
birds are used for “sea flies.” Spinning baits are shaped much like the
bowl of a spoon, and are electro-plated so as to cause a glittering
appearance when in motion. Swivels in connection with these baits form
a branch industry, and machinery for the dressing and turning of these
has of late been introduced.
The manufacture of fishing rods is now an important branch. Among
the new aids to production are the turning machine and the machine
for splitting bamboo canes for the manufacture of “split cane” rods.
These curious and costly articles first came from America, and the
making of them by hand requires the greatest patience as well as the
highest skill in joining, every part of the rod, from the butt to the
thinnest member, having to be split lengthwise into six pieces, each
wedge-like in section, and then glued together again with the greatest
care and exactness. Reel making has been introduced of late years. One
manufactory turns out about 50 dozen rods, 7,000 floats, 13,000 flies,
4,000,000 fish-hooks, and 5,000 swivels per week. Electro-tinning is
now used for small sea-hooks. The weekly production of fish-hooks is
approximately 20,000,000.
=Nickel, Cobalt and German Silver.=--[ALFRED S. JOHNSTONE.]--(B. 673.)
Many of the original sources of nickel have become exhausted. It is now
found plentifully in Norway (in magnetic pyrites, containing about 4
or 5 per cent.) Hungary still supplies ore. The South African supply
of ore, (an arsenide of over 25 per cent cobalt) has fallen off. South
America and her desert of Atacama was a great source of nickel or
cobalt, some of its hydrated arseniates reaching as much as 25% in
the ores of nickel, and 17% in the ores of cobalt. The sole mine in
Connecticut has been worked for many years. Sweden has yielded nickel
from the Klefra and other mines. Germany supplies nickel from the
Mansfeld mines. About 1874 nickel was discovered in the Island of New
Caledonia, and large quantities of the ore were shipped to this country
and to France. There appears now to be a constant supply from this
source. The ore is a double silicate of nickel and magnesia, averaging
7 to 10% nickel. Later still nickel and cobalt have been discovered
in Nevada. Passing over the history[57] of the production of nickel,
which is already, to some extent, described in “Birmingham and Midland
Hardware District,” it should be mentioned that nickel, though brittle
under the hammer, has been successfully rendered malleable by treatment
in which manganese is employed. The process of rendering nickel
malleable is due to Messrs. Wiggin & Co., who patented the process in
1880. About the same time Dr. Fleitman, in Germany, succeeded also in
rendering nickel malleable by using magnesium instead of manganese. The
nickel thus produced may be rolled into plates and drawn into wire, or
be stamped, beaten or raised into any article of common use, and it may
be welded to itself or to iron. It is less malleable when it contains
carbon than when pure. Besides its application for the production of
German silver, nickel is largely used as anodes for nickel plating,
and for coinage in many countries. Its oxide is used in the Potteries
for giving a soft brown tint to china and earthenware, and it is
also employed for the production of nickel salts for plating. The
German Government in 1873 adopted nickel alloy for coinage, and the
exceptional demand advanced the price from 4/- to 16/- per lb. At the
present time, owing to the extensive supplies from all parts of the
world, and the keen competition in the trade, nickel is reduced to 2/-
per lb.
Cobalt has scarcely any application; it is used as an anode in
plating, and for some parts of scientific instruments. It does not
whiten copper to the same extent that nickel does. The oxides of cobalt
are of great value in the arts, not only for the production of the
beautiful blue colours given to china, earthenware, and glass, but
also as a basis of the blue pigment known as cobalt blue. The oxide
of cobalt was in 1841 40/- per lb.; to-day it is about 8/- per lb.
Latterly there is a tendency to replace brass and electro-plate by
white alloys which have nickel for their basis. Spoons, forks, fittings
for railway and ship fittings, bar fittings, and harness furniture have
been largely manufactured from these metals. These alloys are known
under various names, such as silveroid, argentoid, navoline, nickeline,
aluminium metal, &c., but they are all varieties of German silver,
containing in some cases small proportions of tin, lead, cadmium, and
other metals.
=Papier Mâché Trade.=--[E. H. HODSON].--(B. 566). Within the last
few years wood pulp imported from Sweden has been introduced as a
substitute for paper pulp, and is used for small desks, work boxes,
jewel cases, and many other articles, thus enabling Birmingham
manufacturers to compete with Chinese and Japanese lacquered goods. A
change too has taken place in the mode of ornamentation. Instead of
employing artists at a high rate of wage, transfers are used which can
be applied to the articles by boys and girls. German papier mâché is
imported into this country duty free, but on the other hand, English
papier mâché is subjected to heavy duties before it reaches the German
and Continental Markets. It should be mentioned that there still
continues a steady demand for small quantities of expensive articles
made of papier mâché, though for the supply of the Million, the old
papier mâché is replaced by the Swedish pulp above referred to.
=Pewter & Britannia Metal Trade.=--[W. PERKS.]--(B. 617). The two
trades are distinct. Pewter consists of 95 parts tin, 4 parts copper,
and 1 part antimony. The metal is cast in iron or brass moulds.
Britannia metal is not cast, but rolled, stamped, swaged, or spun.
Its composition is similar to pewter, but a little more antimony and
copper and less tin. The staple articles in pewter are still ale and
wine measures, tankard and drinking cups, the most saleable shapes
are identical with those which Hogarth painted in the early part of
the last century. There has been a revival of pewter for ink pots for
Board School use and home use. In foreign markets a tea-pot known as
the Dutch pattern is still sold of the same shape, style, and strength
as it has been for the last 70 years. Makers have tried to introduce
wrought metal pots instead of cast pewter, but the foreign traders do
not care for them. The trade in beer engines and bar fittings has much
increased within the last 20 years.
=Plate, Crown, and Sheet Glass.=--[HENRY CHANCE.]--(B. 147.) In the
1864 report it was mentioned that cast plate glass is manufactured
at Smethwick (Plate Glass Company) crown, sheet, and rolled or rough
plate glass at Smethwick (Messrs. Chance Brothers and Co.) and at
Stourbridge (Stourbridge Glass Company.) Of these three manufacturing
establishments, that of Messrs. Chance Brothers and Co. is the only
one now in operation. Antique glass for decorative purposes and glass
shades are manufactured at Oldbury by Messrs. W. E. Chance and Co.
Crown glass is now almost extinct; Messrs. Chance however still make
the very limited quantity required. The price of ordinary sheet glass
has fallen from one shilling and twopence per foot in 1884 prior to the
repeal of the duty, to three halfpence in 1886. Rolled plate glass is
now made by most of the manufacturers of sheet glass, and by several
firms who confine themselves to this branch of trade. The Siemens’
regenerative furnace has not only been successfully applied to furnaces
containing pots, but by its aid Messrs. Siemens have been able to
dispense with pots and employ large tanks made of clay, for the melting
of glass. By this means the process of melting and working becomes
continuous. The raw materials are introduced at one end of the tank
furnace and arrive, after gradual transformation, at the other end, in
the shape of melted glass.
=Plated Wares.=--[ELKINGTON AND CO.]--(B. 477.) A great impetus has
been given to the trade owing to the development of hotel life in
London and all large towns, together with the equipments required for
ocean-going steamers, in many cases special designs having reference
to the building being required. On the other hand the taste of the
public is now for simple and useful designs. The old form of stamping,
in which the stamp was lifted by one or more workmen, has been
superseded by the method described on page 172. A dish cover which
formerly required hundreds of blows now requires only six, and instead
of the old process of smoothing the surface with hammer and stake a
“wheeling” machine is used, and the swage or shape lapped over instead
of mounting with a wire, the time consumed being about one twentieth
part of that required by the old process. Improvements in metals used
enables the hollow bodies of coffee and tea services to be “spun”
(see page 174) instead of being slowly raised into form by wooden
mallets and steel hammers. Spinning oval bodies is now extensively
practised, though at one time it was considered impossible to treat
German silver in this way. This process (oval spinning) is used only
when one or two articles of a particular shape are required. When great
numbers are required stamping is the process adopted. Press work in
shaping articles has considerably improved, and has replaced, to some
considerable extent, the tedious process of chasing and embossing.
Enamelling has been introduced, but owing to Japanese competition the
trade is gradually falling off. The enamelling, known as cloisonné is
performed as follows: The decoration, birds, flowers, &c., is traced
on the surface of the object to be enamelled, very thin wire of any
metal, but generally silver or copper, is then bent by hand to the
various forms traced on the metal. This process requires the utmost
care. The wire thus bent is then soldered down to the surface of the
object, the different colours put in in the form of paste into the
different divisions formed by the bent wire, and the whole is subjected
to intense heat until the colours are completely fused. When cold the
surface is rubbed down flat, and finally polished. In the champlevé
process the spaces for the colours are cut out with a graver. The
process of damascening largely carried on by Messrs. Elkington is
described at (B. 545.) Soldering arrangements are much improved, the
introduction of the patent blowpipe saves time, and the workman is able
to solder, cleaner and produce a firmer jointing than with the old
process. The sand blast is a new feature in the finishing department.
=Refrigeration.=--[S. PUPLETT.]--Mechanical refrigeration owes its
development to the enterprise of Birmingham men. The imports of ice
into the United Kingdom were in 1884 nearly 300,000 tons. Refrigerating
machinery is supplying ice in competition with these importations. In
addition, refrigerating machinery is used in brewing for the purpose
of cooling wort quickly, in bacon curing, in working of butter and
butterine, cocoa, and candles, in oil refining and tar distilling,
and in telegraphic works for securing a low temperature when testing
cables. Freezing machines have too been used in sinking and tunnelling,
the water being prevented from running into the shaft owing to the
hardening of the earth by freezing. The cost of imported ice may be
taken as 20/- per ton, while machine ice can be made for 5/- per ton.
The first commercial machine, patented by James Harrison, of Geelong,
in 1856, was an ether machine, and made in London. Afterwards machines
of this kind were made by Mr. Philips, of the Atlas Works, in Oozells
Street, Birmingham. In 1861 Carré showed the advantages of ammonia over
ether as a refrigerant, and since then Mort and Dicholle, of Sydney,
and Stanley, of London, have patented various modifications of the
Carré system. Pictet has devoted many years to the subject, and has
identified himself with sulphurous acid as a refrigerant, and recently
claims to have discovered a fluid termed _liquide Pictet_, SCO₄;
in addition to these refrigerants, air, water, chloride of methyl,
bisulphide of carbon, carbonic acid, and nitrous oxide have been
used. The machines made in Birmingham by the Birmingham Refrigerating
Company are ammonia machines. This form of machine consists of (1)
a multitubular vessel called the refrigerator, containing liquid
(anhydrous) ammonia--in this vessel vaporization takes place; (2) a
vapour pump, by which the ammonia formed by evaporation is exhausted
from the refrigerator, compressed, liquefied, and forced into (3) the
condenser, consisting of a multitubular vessel surrounded by water;
(4) a circulating pump for supplying the condenser with water; (5) ice
tanks surrounded by a bath of a liquid of a low freezing point, such as
a solution of chloride of calcium or of common salt; (6) a circulating
pump for circulating the brine through the refrigerator and around the
ice tanks; (7) the steam engine or other motor for driving the vapour
and circulating pumps.
=Rope Making.=--[J. T. WRIGHT.]--(B. 578). Within the last few years
a machine has been introduced by Mr. Good, an American, for treating
fibres as imported, more particularly Manilla. By means of fluted
rollers, and a system of bars fitted with strong steel pins which press
upwards into the hemp, the fibres are dressed and straightened out, the
operation is aided by a patented machine known as Wright and Laider’s
Patent Sun and Planet Hacklebus. Finally, the hemp fibres are drawn off
the pins and delivered in a compact and continuous sliver into a can
placed in front to receive it. These slivers being in one length, are
now passed on to the drawing frames to be accumulated together.
=Steel Pen Trade.=--[MAURICE POLLACK.]--(B. 634.)--There has been
little improvement since 1865. Muffles heated by gas on the plan of
Dr. Siemens, have been introduced for tempering and colouring, and
ordinary gas is also used in connection with these processes, but these
improvements are only used by one or two firms, and more as a matter of
convenience than as a means of making pens of a better quality or lower
price.
Many patents have been taken out since 1865 for new styles of pens,
the most successful have been those which deal with the points; these
have been turned up or turned down, thickened, or planished, all for
the purpose of producing smooth points to glide freely over paper
even with a rough surface. The fashion in paper and ink materially
influences the style of pens. The J pens (so called because that letter
was embossed upon one of the first and best known broad points) have
been extensively used, and have influenced hand writing, especially
that of ladies. Calligraphy as an art has fallen off in this country,
and this has influenced pen manufacture. The most delicately made pens
are manufactured for foreign use. There are, perhaps, not so many pen
works now as there were in 1865, but the productive power has vastly
increased. The present _weekly_ average of pens manufactured is about
160,000 grosses, requiring from 16 to 18 tons of steel, of which only
8 tons appears in the article, the rest being loss or waste. Pen steel
is still produced in Sheffield, the best being made from Swedish
iron. The number of girls and women employed is from 3,200 to 3,600,
whilst the number of men employed as tool makers, rollers, engineers,
stokers, &c., hardly exceeds 500. The increase in make since 1865,
of quite 60 per cent. is mainly due to the export trade. No new pen
manufactories have been established since 1865, except in the United
States, where there are now four pen works, but of these, only one is
of importance. In France, there are now only three pen manufactories,
and the production is less than it was three years ago. In Germany
there is only one, and its make though improved in quality is very
inconsiderable in comparison with the large consumption of steel pens
in Germany. An attempt has been made to establish works in Russia,
where the duty on steel pens is high, but after existing one or two
years, the manufactory was burnt down, and no attempt has been made
to re-build it. The Customs duty on steel pens with the exception of
Russia, are the United States, where it is 6d. per gross, is very
moderate, and prevents the importation of low and middle class pens.
The price obtained for steel pens depends more upon the reputation
of the maker or of the mark than upon their intrinsic value, hence
the difficulty of giving an average value of each gross of pens
produced.[58]
=Stourbridge Fire Clay.=--[GEORGE KING HARRISON.]--(B. 133.) The
district suffers from high railway rates. The quantity of clay raised
per week now is about 3,500 tons, say 160,000 tons per annum. About 40
million bricks are made per annum.
=Salt.=--[J. H. HOLLYER.]--(B. 138.) At the Stoke Prior Works from
500 to 700 hands are employed. The salt manufactured is from 3,000
to 4,000 tons per week. The entire produce of salt in Worcestershire
is about 250,000 tons per annum. The Brine pits are about 1,000 feet
deep. “Butter salt” is largely exported from Droitwich to India and
Australia. Round pans have been introduced since 1865. The aggregate
traffic, that is, coal received and salt forwarded, of the Stoke Prior
works is about 1,000 tons per day.
=Swords and Matchets.=--[F. M. MOLE, JUN.]--(B. 649.) The conventional
ideas as to the extent of the sword trade are very erroneous. Our army
is small and only horse soldiers and officers carry swords. When once
equipped one single sword forger will produce what is required. Hence
the matchet trade is combined with sword manufacture. (The matchet is
a large knife used in sugar cultivation in the West Indies and Central
South America.) The extraordinary demand for swords at the time of the
Crimean war, and the inability of English firms to supply it, gave the
start to foreign competition. It is not generally known that the larger
proportion of the officers’ swords sold in this country are either
German swords imported complete or foreign blades mounted in London.
There have been several spurts in the trade, but these died out, and at
the present time Messrs. Robert Mole and Son, of Birmingham, are the
only manufacturers who take Government contracts. An outline of the
method of manufacture is given in (B. 649) and is similar to that of
edge tools generally--(see p. 208). In ornamenting the hilts of swords
fire or mercury gilding[59] is used. The “gripe” is of wood (walnut or
beech), and covered with dog fish skin.
=Tin Plate Ware.=--[A. N. HOPKINS.]--(B. 638.) Fifty years ago workmen
made a variety of articles with several pieces of tin plate soldered
together. The introduction of machinery in the trade is reducing the
number of skilled workmen. In 1835-6 Mr. Thomas Griffiths took out
a patent for stamping and burnishing; shortly afterwards Mr. J. H.
Hopkins commenced the manufacture of “Patent tea-pots.” Candlesticks
and other articles made in the same way quickly followed, and stamping
and burnishing opened up possibilities which till then had not been
dreamed of in the trade. In 1840 what was thought a monster stamp
was put down to stamp the top of an 18-inch imperial dish cover.
Further improvements in stamping led to the trade being speedily
one of the most important, both in this town and the neighbouring
one of Wolverhampton. A little time later, tin plate workers turned
their attention to the stamping of a few culinary articles, such as
colanders, gravy strainers, &c., and of wash-hand basins. In the
making of these sheet iron was used, and the articles when finished
were tinned by the same process as that used by tin plate makers, and
were then sold as “tinned wrought iron hollow ware,” and once more an
increasing impetus was given to the trade. Milk pans and “prospecting”
pans were made in this way, and the advance made just at this time by
the Australian Colonies on the great discoveries of gold opened out
a large field, where the goods have been bought in ever-increasing
quantities, while shortly after, the Cape and South America as well
as Canada became large customers for a similar class of goods. India
too came into the market for brass and copper articles, while Egypt,
especially about the time of the American Civil War, began to be a
most important customer for the copper utensils hitherto manufactured
only by the natives, but which the superior machinery the English
manufacturer possessed, enabled him to produce much better and cheaper.
Meanwhile the French Exhibition of 1855 had shown to our manufacturers
specimens of stamping superior to anything they could produce, and
one or two unsuccessful attempts were made by them to obtain a nearer
inspection of the French method of stamping or more properly pressing.
In one way and another it leaked out that the French makers employed a
pressure plate and a gradual forcing process, instead of the sharp blow
by which the English stamper pounded his material into the required
shape. The late Mr. Clutton Salt purchased the patent right for this
country, and in 1867 a machine was in operation at the works of the
Birmingham Enamel Co., with which Mr. Salt was at that time connected,
and Messrs. Griffiths and Browett took out a licence to use the patent.
Improvements in stamping followed, keeping well abreast of the new
process, and ultimately outstripping it, especially as regards size of
vessel produced.
The French system of pressing was taken up in the United States, and
as early as 1865 the works of Lalance and Geoschein, at Woodhaven, New
York, were in active operation on this principle. In 1866 a Birmingham
man, named W. Page, son of an old Birmingham worthy, travelled to New
York, and erected improved machines on the French system in the factory
of Messrs. Ketcham and Co. These machines economised material, and at
the same time quickened production.
In 1872 Mr. Satchell Hopkins, of Birmingham, after communication with
Mr. Page, put down a number of machines on Mr. Page’s principle,
including one which is even now the largest and most powerful of its
kind. A similar form of machine was adopted by other firms, and there
soon followed an extraordinary development of the trade hitherto known
as the “Stamped Tin Hollow-ware,” but now as the “Pressed Bright Tinned
Hollow-ware” Trade.
In another important branch of the trade, though there has not been so
much scope for improvement, advance has not been wanting. The common
and ugly japanned ware, in which stencil plates were largely used,
has been superseded by “transfers,” and by an invention of Mr. Alfred
Hopkins, the japanning of articles with backgrounds highly polished
has been superseded by a dead, morocco-like surface, in low tones of
pleasing appearance.
In iron plate working the only new mechanical appliance introduced
since 1867 is a machine or series of machines for making buckets, by
which the article is practically made in one operation. The low wages
of workmen who make buckets, coupled with the low prices to which
manufacturers have been driven by excessive competition, render the
employment of these machines of doubtful advantage. Besides Birmingham,
manufactories are established in Wolverhampton, London, Reading,
Sheffield, and other towns.
_Treatment of Waste._--The following facts are supplied by Mr. T. J.
Baker:--Sheet iron scrap and lathe turnings are worked up again into
sheet iron. Copper clippings and turnings are remelted. Copper scale is
resmelted, as also brass clippings and brass dust. Gold scrap of the
japanning department is sent to the gold refiners, and the leaf metal
scrap to the bronze powder manufacturers. Tin plate scrap, after the
larger pieces have been sold to the button makers, are “stripped”--that
is, the tin is removed by immersion in hydrochloric acid. The resulting
tin salt is used by calico printers. The iron scrap, after removal
of the tin, is used for precipitating copper by the wet process. Tin
oxide, known as “drop tin,” formed on the surface of the metal in the
tinning pot, is, after recovery of as much of the tin as possible, sent
to the tin smelter. Galvanizing dross, an alloy of zinc and iron, which
sinks to the bottom of the galvanizing bath, is removed by a perforated
ladle, and refined by distilling off the zinc. Zinc ashes, that is
cinders which have fallen on the molten metal and absorbed zinc, is
also refined by distillation. Flux skimmings, or that which is skimmed
off from the galvanizing bath, is an oxide and chloride of zinc. This
is put in a vat; stirred with hot water, the oxide falls to the bottom
of the vat, but the chloride dissolves. The clear solution is heated
with gas liquor, when zinc precipitates as carbonate, and the chloride
of ammonium, now in solution, is recovered by evaporation. The solid
residues are worked up in paint mills into zinc white.
=Tools (Heavy Edge).=--[A. WINKLER WILLS.]--(B. 656.) In addition to
edge tools proper, such as axes, adzes, hatchets, and other articles,
the trade includes pickaxes, spades, shovels, forks, hoes, augers,
trowels, shipscrapers, &c. The number of patterns regularly supplied
by the manufacturers of Birmingham and the neighbourhood is estimated
at several thousands, each nation and almost each district requiring
special patterns of its own. The character of the soil, habit of people
and other circumstances affect the form of tool though used for the
same purpose. The enormous hoe, with a blade nearly a foot wide and
of the same depth, which is in universal use in Guatemala, would be
useless in Valparaiso, because the soil is light in one country and
heavy in the other.
A Brazilian axe is made thus:--A piece of bar iron is taken and the
middle part thinned out under a light steam hammer to the thickness
required to form the edge of the tool. The blank is then doubled over
upon itself and the bottom part welded together. A bar of hard cast
steel is welded on to the bottom of the blank; the steel being then
cut off from the bar to a width corresponding to that of the blank.
The embryo axe, by means of a steam hammer, is forged under tools
of suitable shape fixed in the head of the hammer, the final shape
being given by hand tools. The tool is now ready for hardening and
tempering--the steeled end of the axe is heated to a blood red in a
slow furnace and is then plunged into cold water. It is now tempered
by slowly heating till it assumes the required tint. The tool is now
ready to be ground, polished on a succession of wooden wheels or bobs,
dressed with emery of gradually increasing fineness, and then to have
its upper part japanned black, blue, scarlet, or bronze-coloured,
according to the taste of the consumer.
The principal machinery employed consists of shears, “squeezers,” tilt
and trip hammers, striking from 200 to 400 blows per minute, steam
hammers, shearing and punching machines, stamps, rolls, and lastly,
massive machines or presses of various construction, used for shaping
the eyes of hoes, pickaxes, &c. The wood handles required for spades,
shovels, &c., form a distinct branch of the trade. Hickory handles
are almost exclusively used in the wedge axes so largely employed in
India and the colonies; these handles are necessarily imported from
the United States. Self-acting machines have during late years been
introduced for the turning of ash handles for axes, hatchets, &c. The
handles of spades, shovels, and forks are of ash sawn from planks,
subsequently turned in lathes. To bend them, they are steamed and
pressed into shape by powerful screws.
The only waste products are the scale or dross which falls from the
heated iron, and the shearings or scraps cut off the tools. Both are
sold to the ironmaster--the former for fettling his furnace, the latter
to be worked up again into bar iron.
The number of persons employed in the trade in Birmingham and the
district is probably 3,000 to 4,000.
The conditions of the manufacture have been greatly altered during
the last seven years by the extensive introduction of machinery to
replace manual labour; at the present time a much larger number of
boys and youths are employed than was formerly the case. Their wages
range from 8s. to 15s. per week according to age. Forgemen earn on an
average £2. 10s. or £3. per week; foremen smiths about £2., and their
strikers or underhands about £1. to £1. 5s, when in full work. Women
are only employed in japanning, wrapping up and similar light work.
The revolution which has taken place in the method of manufacture
during recent years was largely accelerated by the tyrannical
operations of the formerly powerful trades union of edge-tool makers,
which, during the period of large demand which prevailed from 1872
to 1874, used every available means to limit production, and to make
it impossible for the manufacturers to execute orders in reasonable
time. As a consequence, the productive power of the trade has been so
enormously increased that at present it is altogether disproportionate
to the demand, and hence, in this as in almost every other branch
of manufacture, unremunerative prices and reckless competition are
unfortunately the order of the day.
=Umbrellas and Parasols.=--[WILLIAM HOLLAND.]--(B. 666). Since the
previous article was written machinery has been extensively introduced,
an umbrella rib being now made by automatic machinery in one operation
instead of several. The square or round iron wire for the stretcher
is also similarly converted into form nearly ready for japanning. In
some cases, even the riveting or attaching the rib to the stretcher
is done by machinery, but as yet the experiment remains to be proved
good and economical. The number of hands employed has increased. Some
hundreds of men, women, girls, and boys are employed. The materials
have undergone a change, zinc and iron have displaced to a large
extent brass and copper, and great competition has caused everything
to be lightened and cheapened; but a reaction is taking place in this
respect, and better and stronger goods are coming into use. The various
parts of umbrellas and parasols are now gilt, bronzed, enamelled,
silver and nickel-plated, instead of being simply japanned as was the
case formerly. The patents which have been taken out in connection
with umbrellas and parasols are numerous, and in many cases trivial.
Over 800 patents were granted between 1867 and 1876, and since then
the inventive ball has been rolling still more rapidly. It has been
proposed to use a transparent material to enable one to see ahead when
protecting the face with the umbrella. Another arranges for spinning
the umbrella so as to drive off the rain, other proposals are to fold
the umbrella so as to go inside a stick, to convert it when necessary
into a railway carriage key, a corkscrew, or a pike, writing materials
have been inserted in the handles, and a variety of contrivances
proposed. One of the most curious of all these patents is one for
fixing the umbrella to the hat somewhat after the fashion of the
thatched Indians of whom one reads in books of travel.
=Watch Manufacture.=--[R. L. BRAGGE.]--The “watchmakers” of Birmingham
of forty or fifty years ago were rather repairers than makers, though
there was scarcely a part of the mechanism of a watch which they
were not at times obliged to make. Of these watchmakers, S. Allport,
of Bull Street, was considered to take the lead. There were also
T. Warwick, in Colmore Row; Birley, in High Street, and others. At
this time the highest class watches were made in London. Liverpool
also had a reputation for goods of high quality. Coventry, however,
enjoyed a larger industry than either of the other centres named.
The first earnest and persistent effort to include watch manufacture
as a Birmingham industry was made by Messrs. Hodgkins and Booth, who
commenced about 1843, and continued till 1850, when Messrs. Betts and
Fairfax succeeded to the business. Messrs. Charles Wood and Sons, of
Bath Street and of St. Paul’s Square, not long afterward gained a
reputation as manufacturers of high quality watches. Mr. W. Ehrhardt,
in 1873, erected a large manufactory for production of watches
according to modern ideas, and the English Watch Company (Limited) have
also erected extensive ranges of shopping in Villa Street. Exclusive
of “jobbers,” there are probably about 600 to 700 artisan watchmakers
employed in the town, about 30 per cent. of whom are females; some 500
of these are employed at the two large manufactories just mentioned.
It is probable that nearly 700 watches per week are turned out in
Birmingham. Birmingham watches have a good reputation, and there is not
a “duffer” watch turned out from one year’s end to another.
One singular feature of the trade is that the name of the maker rarely
appears on a watch--manufacturers generally put on the names of their
customers. Many large export houses have adopted fictitious names,
under which a certain pattern watch has attained a reputation that
makes the name a valuable property. A large Colonial trade is done on
these lines.
Messrs. Dennison, Wigley, and Co., manufacture watch cases, employing
about 100 hands, making the cases for American companies. These cases
as well as many Swiss ones pass through the Birmingham Assay Office,
and are afterwards sent abroad for the movements to be fitted in. Since
this practice prevailed, it is obvious that the Assay Office returns
are no index of the number of watches made in this town. Almost the
only branch of this trade which is not localised is the enamelling and
painting of the dials. Watch glass making is scarcely practised in this
country, nearly the whole supply of the watchmaking world coming from
the Continent.
=Wire Working.=--[J. B. GAUSBY.]--(B. 596.) No marked departure from
processes previously described has taken place. More attention is
now paid to decoration, and there is an endeavour to introduce more
artistic designs. The large demand for wire netting made by machinery
as described (B. 597) has led to a wide extension of locality for its
manufacture. Large wire drawing firms and galvanizers in different
parts of the country have taken up the manufacture, so that although
Birmingham still turns out a large quantity of the article, she has not
been able to retain the manufacture within her bounds.
=Wire (Steel).=--[CHARLES LEAN.]--(B. 591.) One hundred years ago
a horse was employed for drawing wire by a firm in the town. New
applications of wire within recent years have been telephones, deep
sea sounding, road and aerial tramways, and cycles. The scrap wire is
utilised for nails; it is also bought by hawkers for the purpose of
making riddles and a number of wire articles. No women or girls are
employed in the trade of the district, and perhaps about 700 men and
boys, the bulk of whom draw iron wire only.
* * * * *
[Other articles on Manufacturing Industries will be found in
Appendix.--ED.]
PART III.
GEOLOGY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY. (BIRMINGHAM DISTRICT.)
EDITED BY PROFESSOR CHAS. LAPWORTH, LL.D., F.G.S.
PHYSIOGRAPHY.
The town of Birmingham lies almost in the exact geographical centre
of England and Wales, midway between sea and sea. Its distance in a
straight line from the three nearest sea-ports on the opposite sides
of the island, Liverpool, Boston, and Bristol, is about 85 miles in
each case, while its distance from London and Southampton is only a few
miles more.
The main watershed of Southern Britain, which commences to the
northward in the Pennine Range and divides the rivers which flow
eastward into the German Ocean from those which drain westward into
the Irish Sea and the Bristol Channel, enters upon the Birmingham
District from the northward by way of Cannock Chase, crosses the “Black
Country” about six miles to the west of Birmingham, and passes out
of the district to the southward through the Lickey Hills, round the
headwaters of the Avon to the Edge Hills and the Cotswolds.
The town of Birmingham and its immediate neighbourhood, is drained by
the brooklets which unite to form the river Tame, the first of the
southern tributaries of the Trent. Thus, physiographically speaking,
Birmingham lies well within the basin of the Humber. To the west of
the watershed of Dudley and the Lickey, the rivers of the district
have a short and rapid descent to the main stream of the Severn; to
the south eastward, they glide gently across the Midland Plain to its
tributary--the soft-flowing Avon.
The physical centre of the district is the locality of Barnt Green,
a point on the Midland Railway, about eight miles to the south of the
town. From this point radiate the several low hill ranges which give to
the neighbourhood of Birmingham its distinctive character. The first of
these ranges (forming the main watershed, and constituting the natural
backbone of the area) is composed of the Lower Lickey Hills and their
northerly extensions--the rolling heights of Halesowen, the conspicuous
mound of Rowley Regis (820 feet), and the beautifully wooded heights
of Dudley Castle (730 feet), the Wren’s Nest, and Sedgley Hill. To the
west of this axial ridge, a second range bearing points of a somewhat
greater elevation, stretches from the same locality of Barnt Green
through the Upper or Bromsgrove Lickey Hills (900 feet) to Hagley,
where it is known as the Clent Hills (1,028 feet). These look out far
and wide over the beautifully fertile valley of the Severn, and are
continued to the north-westward in the heights of Stourbridge and
Abbots Castle. To the east of the main Lickey and Dudley axis, the
country is less conspicuously diversified. The hill-ranges are broader,
and rise almost imperceptibly from the surrounding plains. The most
important of these less elevated areas forms what may be termed the
Birmingham plateau. This is an irregular strip of broken ground, about
twenty miles in length by four or five miles in breadth, which takes
origin from the north-eastern slopes of the Lickeys between Northfield
and Halesowen, and sweeps northwards through Harborne, Birmingham,
Barr and Sutton Park, into the wild district of Cannock Chase. On
this irregular plateau stand the town of Birmingham and its suburban
villages of Harborne, Edgbaston, Moseley, Aston, Handsworth, and
Sutton Coldfield. The western side of the plateau overlooks the “Black
Country.” It is marked out by the terrace of Smethwick, Sandwell, and
Great Barr, and culminates in the conspicuous fir-topped hill of Barr
Beacon (800 feet). The eastward margin of the plateau is much less
pronounced, and subsides gently into the great Midland plain of Warwick
and Tamworth, along a line drawn from Northfield, through King’s Heath,
Moseley, Camp Hill, and Sutton Coldfield.
The ground forming the Birmingham plateau rises and falls into an
endless succession of heights and hollows; here sinking down into
broad tree-sheltered, stream-cut valleys, there rising into long low
mounds and hills. The subsoil throughout is mainly gravel or sandy
clay, and the underground drainage is, as a rule, excellent. The
north-western half of the plateau still retains its original forest
character, and the primeval aspect of the district is recalled by the
wild area of Sutton Park--a picturesque admixture of long, dry, pebbly
mounds, covered with thick woods of oak, ash and holly, and divided
from each other by open glades of gorse patches, with long, flat,
treeless expanses, shrouded in dark heather and picked out here and
there with deep, clear water-pools. The central half of the plateau
is now covered by the great town of Birmingham and its immediate
dependencies. The town stands upon a series of broad rounded knolls,
divided from each other by intervening open valleys. The more elevated
points are marked by the church of St. Philip’s, Newhall Hill, Soho
Hill, and the Monument; while the great maze of streets, manufactories
and commercial buildings fill up all the space between. Strictly
speaking, the town proper lies in the angle included between the river
Tame and its little tributary the Rea. The Tame runs in a broad valley
round the north-eastern side of the town to the low-lying district of
Saltley, and thence takes its course north-eastward across the Midland
plain towards the Trent at Burton. The little river Rea, which is the
Birmingham river par excellence, runs from the Lickey Hills through
the south-eastern corner of the town, across the low-lying district of
Digbeth, and joins the Tame at Saltley.
The south-western portion of the Birmingham plateau is occupied by
the fashionable district of Edgbaston and the neighbouring suburbs
of Harborne and Moseley. While the original upland character of the
plateau is still distinctly apparent, the dwellers in this southern
area have in all other respects utterly changed its former aspect. The
land has been reclaimed and enclosed. In place of the wild oak and ash,
we have masses of the Elizabethan elm, the fir and the beech; and in
place of the wild heather, cultivated lawns and grassy fields. Every
advantage has been taken of the natural resources of site and soil;
and the result is that Edgbaston and its surroundings form one broad
expanse of mansions, woods and fields, well worthy of the town and
neighbourhood.
To the westward of the Birmingham plateau lies the district of the
“_Black Country_,” of which the town of Dudley is the natural centre.
Compared with the Birmingham plateau, it is a lowland district of
wild confusion--a maze of mines, chimneys, factories, and straggling
villages and towns, shrouded in a canopy of smoke and steam. The
natural soil is generally hidden from sight by heaps of mining spoil,
and mounds of rubbish, cut through in all directions by lines of
railway and broad canals. The beautiful wooded hill of Dudley, crowned
with its grey keep, and the neighbouring oak-clad ridges of the Wren’s
Nest and Sedgley, rise like islands of verdure out of the dark sea of
mining ground around, and look strangely out of place amid their gloomy
surroundings.
To the east of the Birmingham plateau lies the broad plain of Tamworth
and Nuneaton, watered by the sluggish stream of the Tame. The plain is
continued far to the southward through the richly wooded district of
Warwick, Alcester, and the old Forest of Arden, and thence down the
valley of Shakespeare’s Avon, to the terrace of the Edge Hills and the
northern slopes of the Cotswolds.
GEOLOGY. (BIRMINGHAM DISTRICT).
Paleozoic Rocks.
BY PROF. C. LAPWORTH, LL.D., F.G.S.
INTRODUCTION.
The Birmingham district, or that area of which Birmingham constitutes
the natural capital and commercial centre, extends from Stafford on the
north to Tewkesbury on the south, and from Wellington on the west to
Leicester on the east, forming an area about 60 miles in length by 50
in breadth.
In no single district in Britain is the relation of the physiography of
the country seen to be more strikingly dependent upon its geological
structure than within the limits of the Birmingham district. Every
hill, ridge, plain, and valley of any importance is a mere reflex
of the underground geology. The local distribution and physical
peculiarities of its rock formations afford a natural and complete
explanation of all its special scenic peculiarities.
The dominant geological formation of this Midland area is the great
Mesozoic formation of the _Triassic_ or New Red Sandstone, which
stretches through Southern Britain in a continuous band from Hartlepool
to Exeter, and divides the broken and contorted Paleozoic rocks of
the west from the flat-lying Neozoics of the east. This great band of
New Red Sandstone attains its widest extension in the north of the
Birmingham district, between Eccleshall and Charnwood Forest, where
its transverse diameter is about 50 miles. Within the limits of the
Birmingham district, however, its diameter rapidly decreases, until in
the extreme south, in the neighbourhood of Worcester and the Malverns,
its breadth is reduced to about 10 miles.
The red rocks of this _Triassic_ formation not only form by far
the most predominant and most conspicuous geological feature of
the district at the present time, but not long since, geologically
speaking, they must have extended over the entire area in one unbroken
expanse. They now constitute a sheet of red sandstones and marls,
through which protrude, in numerous bands and patches, the older
Paleozoic rocks. Although nowhere very steeply inclined, these red
beds of the _Triassic_ have been bent into several long low arches, or
broad domes, whose longer axes range approximately north and south. The
summits of many of these arches have been denuded, and the underlying
older rocks have again been bared to-day. Four of these arches are
especially conspicuous, those of the Wrekin, Malvern, Dudley, and
Nuneaton. In each of these the underlying _Coal Measures_ are laid
bare, forming the four coalfields of Coalbrookdale, Forest of Wyre,
South Stafford, and Eastern Warwick, all of which shew round their
outer margins a narrow band of the intermediate formation of the
_Permian_. In each of these anticlinals, too, the denudation of the
core of the arch has been sufficient to wear away the _Carboniferous_
from its centre, and to expose to view yet older formations--the
_Old Red Sandstone_ in the Forest of Wyre, the _Silurian_ in South
Staffordshire, the Malverns, and Coalbrookdale, and even the _Upper
Cambrian_ and its underlying igneous rocks in the Wrekin, the Lickey,
and near Nuneaton. With the exception of the _Silurian_ of Abberley and
Dudley, and the recently discovered _Cambrian_ of Nuneaton, however,
these _pre-Carboniferous_ rocks are comparatively inconspicuous, rising
up merely in narrow bands in the cores of long wedge-shaped hills.
From the economical as well as from the structural point of view, by
far the most important of these geological arches is that of South
Staffordshire, which is the southward continuation of the Pennine
chain, and part of the true backbone of Southern Britain. The central
axis of this arch runs, as we have seen, through the Dudley Hills, and
dies away in the complex of faults to the south of the Lickeys. On
the natural consequences of the rise of this arch, all the physical,
scenic, and economic peculiarities of the central parts of the district
are essentially dependent. The hills and plains around Birmingham are
all more or less related to this grand anticlinal--the hills marking
the uplifted edges of the harder rocks, the limestones, sandstones,
and pebble beds; and the plains, the position of the gently inclined
soft shales and marls. It has brought within workable distance of
the surface the coals and ironstones of South Staffordshire, and the
valuable limestones of the Dudley Hills, and it has had its final
effect in bringing together the overflowing population of the town and
district.
The original simplicity of the geological structure of the floor of
the Birmingham District is much complicated by fractures, faults,
and unconformities. The Wrekin and the Malverns are both affected by
profound dislocations. The South Staffordshire Coldfield is bounded
both on the eastward and the westward by faults of more than ordinary
magnitude, while a long straight fault more than 20 miles in length
runs through the south-eastern part of Birmingham itself, and flings
down the _Keuper marls_ of the Warwick plain against the older
sandstones of the Birmingham plateau.
In the Birmingham District as everywhere in Britain, the _Triassic_
formation rests unconformably upon everything below. At the same time,
its members overlap each other more or less irregularly, and shew a
rapid diminution in thickness when followed from west to east. Thus it
happens that not only do the _pre-Triassic_ rocks make their appearance
in their expected positions along the main anticlinal lines, but many
of the old ridges of Palæozoic rocks, which rose out of the Triassic
waters, have had their enveloping pall of red sandstone removed from
their flanks and summits, which have thus been bared once more to
the light of day. Such are, in part, the ridges of the Wrekin, the
Malverns, the Lickeys, and the Forest of Charnwood.
In the valley of the Severn, to the west of Birmingham, the strata
run in narrow bands. The central portion of this valley lying between
Coalbrookdale and Bridgnorth, to the west of the main anticlinal of
the Birmingham district, owes all its striking beauty and variety to
the rapid alternations of hard and soft strata which occur within its
limits.
In the great Midland plain to the east of Birmingham, the strata
are spread out in broad sheets. The plain is underlain in great part
by the comparatively homogeneous flat lying Keuper marls, with their
intercalated bands of harder sandstones. Its scenery is consequently
less varied than that of the Severn valley, but it is rich in that
sweet sylvan beauty which is almost peculiar to the English landscape,
and it forms one broad expanse of gently rolling farmland and woodland,
whose green crested waves sweep onward to the east and south, mile
beyond mile, till they break against the long shore-like scarp of the
harder Jurassics.
THE LOCAL ROCK FORMATIONS.
As will be apparent upon a study of the accompanying geological map,
the geological formations exposed within thirty miles of Birmingham,
include the entire stratigraphical succession between the _Cambrian_
and the middle portion of the _Jurassic_, with two notable exceptions.
The two formations locally wanting are the _Ordovician_ and the _Old
Red Sandstone_. The nearest known _Ordovician_ rocks occur in central
Shropshire, to the east of Church Stretton; the nearest _Old Red
Sandstone_ beds are met with to the south of the Forest of Wyre. The
natural sequence of formations, and the localities where the several
formations are most conspicuously displayed, are given in the following
table:--
TABLE OF THE GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS OF THE BIRMINGHAM DISTRICT.
MESOZOIC, OR SECONDARY ROCKS.
LIASSIC.
_Middle Lias_ (_Marlstone_)--Edge Hill, Fenny Compton.
_Lower Lias Clays_--Harbury, Rugby.
RHŒTIC.
_Marls and White Lias_--Harbury, Knowle, Wooten Wawen.
TRIASSIC.
_Upper Trias or Keuper_:
(_a_) _New Red Marl_--Moseley, King’s Norton, &c., &c.
(_b_) _Lower Keuper or Waterstones_--Birmingham, Warwick.
_Lower Trias or Bunter_:
(_a_) _Upper Mottled Sandstone_--Harborne, Edgbaston, Hockley.
(_b_) _Pebble Beds and Conglomerate_--Sutton Park, Smethwick.
(_c_) _Lower Mottled Sandstone_--Clent Hills, Stourbridge.
PALÆOZOIC, OR PRIMARY ROCKS.
PERMIAN, OR DYASSIC.
(_a_) _Permian Breccia_--Clent Hills, Northfield.
(_b_) _Red Sandstones and Marls_--Halesowen, Enville, Rubery.
CARBONIFEROUS.
(_a_) _Upper Coal Measures with Spirarks Limestone,
&c._--Sandwell, Arley.
(_b_) _Lower Coal Measures_--Oldbury, Bilston, Hawkesbury.
(_c_) _Millstone Grit_--Absent near Birmingham, present near
Colebrookdale.
(_d_) _Carboniferous Limestone_--Absent.
OLD RED SANDSTONE OR DEVONIAN
Absent near Birmingham, present in Forest of Wyre.
SILURIAN.
(_a_) _Ludlow Shales and Limestones_--Sedgley Hill.
(_b_) _Wenlock Shales and Limestone_--Dudley Hill, Wren’s
Nest, Walsall.
(_c_) _Woolhope Beds_--Barr and Rubery.
(_d_) _Llandovery or Mayhill_--Rubery.
ORDOVICIAN.
Absent.
CAMBRIAN.
_Upper Cambrian_:
(_a_) _Tremadoc Beds and Lingula Flags._--Shineton, Nuneaton,
Lower Lickey, and Malverns.
FUNDAMENTAL, CRYSTALLINE AND IGNEOUS ROCKS.
(_a_) _Charnwood Volcanic Rocks_--Charnwood Forest, Caldecote
Hill, The Wrekin.
(_b_) _Malvern Crystalline Rocks_--North Hill, Hereford
Beacon, &c.
THE FUNDAMENTAL CRYSTALLINE AND VOLCANIC ROCKS OF THE MALVERNS, THE
WREKIN, AND CHARNWOOD FOREST.
The rocks which undoubtedly occupy the lowest place in the geological
formations of the Birmingham district are those crystalline and partly
schistose masses which form the core of the Malvern Hills; and certain
well-marked volcanic rocks which occur at the Wrekin and Nuneaton, and
which appear to have their equivalents in the great igneous series of
Charnwood Forest. That all these more or less crystalline rocks are
of higher antiquity than the Upper Cambrian of Wales is demonstrated
by the fact that fossiliferous rocks containing Cambrian fossils of
this age overlie them, while the lowest recognisable zones of these
overlying fossiliferous rocks (the Hollybush sandstone of the Malverns,
the quartzite of the Wrekin, and the Hartshill quartzite of the
neighbourhood of Nuneaton) are in part composed of their fragments.
Whether, however, they belong in part to the Middle or Lower Cambrian,
or wholly appertain to the earlier formations of the Archean, must as
yet remain an open question.
(_a._) MALVERN HILLS.--The core of the Malvern Hills is composed of
a coarse syenitic, and more or less gneissose rock, pierced by veins
of quartzo-felspathic rock of igneous origin (Hereford Beacon, &c).
The main mass which is coarsely crystalline, becomes occasionally
distinctly gneissose and even schistose, and its mineral bands strike
from north-west to south-east, _i.e._, transverse to the general trend
of the Malvern Ridge. The basement beds of the Hollybush sandstones
(Cambrian) and the Llandovery rest unconformably upon this rock, which
has consequently been claimed by some geologists as distinctly of
Archean age, representing in part the Laurentian of Logan.
The best localities for studying the essential characters of the
Malvern rocks are the quarries of the North Hill and the Wych, and the
eastern slopes of the hills between Malvern Wells and Herefordshire
Beacon.
(_b._) THE WREKIN.--The core of the beautiful hill of the Wrekin
is formed by a magnificent series of highly acidic volcanic
rocks--rhyolitic lavas and ashes. As first pointed out by Dr. Callaway,
they rise out unconformably from below fossiliferous rocks of Upper
Cambrian age. (Hollybush Sandstone and Shineton Shales) and are
believed by him to be of Archean age. The finest exhibitions of the
volcanic ashes of the group are met with in quarries on the flanks
of the Wrekin itself, while the rhyolitic lavas occur in scattered
localities along the hill. A broad mound of the same igneous series
rises out from below the Triassic to the south of Walcot Station, and
a most beautiful and instructive section of banded and spherulitic
rhyolites is shewn in the quarry at the locality known as the Lee Rock.
The truly volcanic nature of these remarkable rocks was first pointed
out by Mr. S. Allport, F.G.S., and their original characteristics,
and the changes they have undergone since their formation, have been
described by him in a well-known series of memoirs. Their geological
position, and their relation to the associated fossiliferous strata,
and to the similar rhyolitic rocks of Caer Caradoc and Pontesbury have
been fully discussed by Dr. C. Callaway, F.G.S.
(_c._) NUNEATON (CALDECOTE HILL).--A thin group of volcanic breccias
and tuffs, with associated quartz-felsites, and diabase, rises out from
below the Upper Cambrians of Nuneaton, in the Park of Caldecote Hill.
The lowest zone of the overlying Cambrian Hartshill quartzite is in
part composed of their fragments. The ashes are shewn in old cuttings
to the north-west of Caldecote Lodge, the quartz-porphyries and diabase
in an old quarry about a quarter of a mile to the southward, while the
breccia composed of the fragments of these old rocks, in the base of
the Cambrian quartzite is best shewn on the tramway still farther to
the southward, leading down to the Coventry Canal.
(_d._) CHARNWOOD FOREST.--This district is formed of an island of
ancient igneous and stratified rocks rising out from below the Upper
Trias. The stratified rocks are almost wholly composed of materials of
volcanic origin, and shade off on the one hand into coarse volcanic
agglomerates, and on the other into fine green slates like those of the
Borrowdale series in the Lake District, to which indeed the whole of
the bedded Charnwood rocks bear a striking resemblance.
The stratified volcanic rocks are pierced by numerous igneous
intrusions. The most conspicuous are those classed by Professor Bonney,
F.R.S., as syenite. These are most conspicuous near Groby, Bradgate,
and generally in the south eastern parts of the Charnwood area. A mass
of beautiful hornblendic granite rises through the Trias immediately to
the east of Charnwood Forest at Mount Sorrel, near Barrow on Soar. A
few later dykes of altered andesite occur within the forest itself, and
diorite in the outlier of Brazil Wood.
To the south of Charnwood Forest, several remarkable points of
syenitic rock protrude through the flat-lying Trias. The most
conspicuous of these are the hills of Sapcote, Croft, and Enderby.
There is no direct evidence of the Cambrian or pre-Cambrian age of
the Charnwood rocks, but strata identical with the fossiliferous
Stockingford shales (Upper Cambrian) of Nuneaton, have been pierced
in several borings through the Trias near Leicester, Market Bosworth,
etc., and appear to rest at once upon the Charnwood rocks, as do the
Nuneaton beds upon the Caldecote volcanic group.
CAMBRIAN ROCKS.
No fossiliferous strata unequivocally of Lower Cambrian age occur
within the limits of the Birmingham District; but strata of Upper
Cambrian age are met with in several localities. They were first
recognised by Professor Phillips in the area of the Malvern Hills,
and have been subsequently detected within the last few years at the
Wrekin, at Nuneaton, and in the Lower Lickey Hills.
MALVERN HILLS.--The Upper Cambrian beds of the Malverns rest upon
the crystalline rocks of the axis of the hills to the south of
Herefordshire Beacon, along the slopes of Midsummer Hill and Keys Hill.
The lowest zone is the _Hollybush Sandstone_, a light green micaceous
rock, containing tubes of sea worms and _Kutorgina cingulata_.
The Hollybush Sandstone is succeeded by shivery shales, somewhat sandy
below, and becoming darker and more carbonaceous above.
In their lower beds they yield:--_Obolella Salteri_, _Obolella
sagittalis_, _Lingula pygmea_, _etc._ In their middle beds they afford
_Pellura scarabeoides_, _Spheropthalmus alatus_, _Agnostis pisiformis_,
_Agnostus trisectus_, etc., well-known fossils of the Upper Lingula
Flags (Dolgelly) of North Wales.
Their highest beds contain _Dictyonema sociale_, a fossil which passes
up into the succeeding Tremadoc Slates.
The rest of the local succession of the Cambrian rocks is hidden by
the unconformable overlap of Silurian.
The Hollybush Sandstone and the overlying sandy shales contain numerous
intercalated volcanic rocks, some of which are of the age of the
surrounding strata, while others are intrusive.
NUNEATON DISTRICT.--In the neighbourhood of the town of Nuneaton in
eastern Warwickshire, a strip of Cambrian rocks, about eight miles in
length by one in breadth, has been detected within the last few years.
The rocks consist of volcanic ashes, quartzites and thin-bedded shales,
pierced by dioritic dykes. These strata were formerly mapped as altered
Millstone Grit and Carboniferous shale, and their Cambrian age has only
been recently demonstrated by the discoveries of Birmingham geologists.
The complete succession is as follows:--
(1.) CALDECOTE VOLCANIC GROUP.--Well-bedded tuffs and volcanic ashes
(see _ante_) with masses of Quartz-felsites and diabase.
(2.) HARTSHILL QUARTZITE.--Thick-bedded quartzites, with occasional
layers of sandy shale.
(3.) STOCKINGFORD SHALES.--
(_a._) _Lower Division._--(_Obolella Beds_) Purple and green shales
with _Obolella Salteri_, _Lingulella pygmea_, _Lingulella lepis_,
_Acrotreta_, _Protospongia_, &c.
(_b._) _Upper Division._--(_Agnosias Beds_) Grey and black shales
with _Agnostus pisiformis_. _Beyrichia Angelini_ and _Lingulella
Nicholsoni_, in the lower zones, and _Spheropthalmus alatus_ and
_Dictyonema_ in the upper zones.
These Cambrian rocks are overlain unconformably by the Coal measures to
the west, and by the Keuper beds to the east; the boundary of the area
is, however, locally defined by lines of fault.
The basement beds of the Hartshill Quartzite are locally composed
of fragments of the underlying volcanic rocks (Caldecote Beds).
The Quartzite itself, which forms the chief road metal of the
neighbourhood, is laid bare in a long series of quarries between
Nuneaton and Hartshill.
The overlying purple and green shales of the Stockingford Beds range
from Marston Jabet, south of Chilvers Coton to Atherstone Outwoods.
The best section is seen in Parley Park Lane near Atherstone, and the
fossils have been obtained from this section, from Atherstone Oakwoods,
Camp Hill, and Marston Jabet.
The best section of the succeeding grey and black Shales occurs in
the cutting of the Midland Railway near Stockingford, which gives its
name to the formation. Their fossils have been procured from the rocks
of this section; from the cutting at Chilvers Coton, the banks of the
Coventry Canal, from Oldbury reservoir, Mawbornes and Merevale Park.
The numerous intrusive dykes of volcanic rock form a conspicuous
feature in the geology of these Cambrian strata. They are formed of
coarse-grained diorites, much quarried for road metal, kerbs, and
setts. Good sections occur in the quarries near Tuttle Hill, in the
railway cuttings near Stockingford and Chilvers Coton, and in quarries
near Oldbury Reservoir.
A small patch of these Nuneaton Cambrians is met with on the
north-western margin of the East Warwickshire coalfield, at Dost Hill,
to the south of Tamworth. It consists of the usual annelide-bearing
Stockingford Shales, pierced by an intrusive mass of diorite.
LOWER LICKEY HILLS.--The core of the Lower Lickey Hills between Barnt
Green and Rubery, about eight miles south of Birmingham, is formed of
a mass of quartzite identical in all its main features with that of
Hartshill, near Nuneaton.
At the village of Rubery, in an exposure on the roadside, it is seen
to be unconformably overlain by fossiliferous Llandovery sandstone, the
basement beds of which contain fragments of the underlying quartzite in
abundance. At the south-western extremity of the Lower Lickey Range the
quartzites contain fragments of igneous rocks, and appear to pass down
into a series of felspathic grits, pierced by dioritic dykes similar
to those of the Nuneaton District. Good sections of the quartzites are
laid bare at Rubery Station, at the village of Rubery, and in a large
quarry near the roadside, a mile northward from Kendall End. In the
last-named locality the quartzites are seen greatly folded and faulted.
WREKIN DISTRICT.--In the Wrekin area the great volcanic series of
the hills is immediately overlain by a quartzite similar to that of
the Hartshill and the Lickey, the basement bed similarly containing
fragments of the underlying volcanic rocks. The quartzite is succeeded
by the Hollybush sandstone, with its characteristic fossil, _Kutorgina
cingulata_.
A broad area, lying between the Hollybush sandstone and the
unconformably overlying Silurian rocks of Buildwas, is occupied by
a series of Upper Cambrian rocks, denominated by Dr. Callaway the
Shineton Shales, and characterised by the forms:--_Olenus Salteri_,
_Sphæropthalmus_, _Asaphellus Homfrayi_, _&c._, _Bryograptus Callavei_,
_&c._, allying them with the Tremadoc Beds of North Wales.
SILURIAN ROCKS.
The rocks of the Silurian System are fully developed within the limits
of the Birmingham District, under their most typical aspect. The well
known localities of Dudley and Barr have been famous in the geological
world since the publication of Murchison’s great work, the Silurian
System; and the abundance and beauty of the fossils of the limestone
rocks of the district place it next to the typical area of Central
Shropshire as the representative country of the Silurian rocks.
The Silurian strata are all of the well-known Salopian type, shewing
several thick-bedded limestones, occurring on distinct horizons in a
great thickness of dark blue or grey nodular shales and mudstones.
They make their appearance in sharp anticlinal arches in the South
Staffordshire coalfield, and along its faulted margins. Four of these
exposures occur along the crest of the Lickey-Dudley anticlinal--at
Rubery, Dudley Castle Hill, the Wren’s Nest, and Sedgley. The largest
continuous exposure is that near the town of Walsall, on the eastern
margin of the coalfield.
All the Silurian formations from the Mayhill Sandstone to the Ludlow
(Aymestry) Limestone are recognisable, but the terminal Downton
sandstone is lost below the unconformably overlying Carboniferous. None
of the localities, however, shew the complete consecutive series, which
is made out by piecing together the sections occurring in the several
areas.
(1.) LOWER LICKEY HILLS.--
(_a._) _Landovery or Mayhill Rocks._--The usual red and grey
_Pentamerus_ sandstone of the Mayhill formation is exposed along the
north-west flank of the Lower Lickey Hills. It may be seen resting
unconformably upon the Cambrian quartzite in the village of Rubery, and
at Leach Heath. Casts of fossils are abundant in some of the sandstones
a few feet above the base of the formation, and include the well
known forms:--_Pentamerus oblongus_, _Pentamerus lens_, _Strophomena
expansa_, _Attrypa reticularis_, _etc._--These may be collected from
the rocks at the village of Rubery, and from the fragments of sandstone
scattered over the fields between the Asylum and Leach Heath.
(_b._) _Woolhope or Barr Limestone._--The Llandovery sandstone is
followed (in a stream section below the Asylum) by pale blue shales and
mudstones containing a bed of hard calcareous rock, affording examples
of _Illenus Barriensis_, _Atrypa reticularis_, _Encrinurus punctatus_,
_Rhynchonella Lewisii_; but the section is a poor one, and is covered
up almost immediately by the overlying Carboniferous.
(2.) WALSALL AND BARR.--This is the typical area for the well known
Barr Trilobite _Illenus Barriensis_. The quarries of the Woolhope
Limestone which afford it are now disused, but a good section of the
fossiliferous shales above is displayed in the railway cutting between
Aldridge and Walsall. The overlying Wenlock or Dudley Limestones
are mined at the town of Walsall itself, but good fossils are now
comparatively rare.
(3.) DUDLEY AND THE WREN’S NEST.--By far the most notable and
interesting of the Silurian exposures are those of the neighbourhood
of Dudley. In the three exposures of Dudley Castle, the Wren’s Nest,
and Sedgley Hill, the Silurian limestone rises up in steep dome-like
forms. This limestone, which is that of the Wenlock of Siluria, is
here composed of two calcareous bands--the higher about 28 feet in
thickness, and the lower about 42 feet--separated from each other by
an intermediate zone of about 90 feet of gray shales. The limestone
has been worked for centuries as a flux for the ironstones of the
coalfield. The hills have been mined to a great depth, and all the
best limestone rock extracted. The intervening and enveloping shales
have been allowed to remain, and the present structure of the hills is
that of a central dome surrounded by two enveloping shells, separated
from each other by two more or less empty spaces. Where the dip of the
rock is high, and these excavated parts are exposed, they form deep
moat-like hollows, bounded by walls of shale. Where the dip is low,
and the overhanging rocks are supported by the vast pillars left by
the workmen, these excavations form magnificent caverns of peculiar
weirdness and beauty. In the heart of the hill at greater depths they
form damp gloomy chasms of enormous extent, which can only be seen to
perfection when lit up by artificial light.
The Dudley limestone bands and the surrounding calcareous shales
have long been famous for the abundance and beauty of their included
fossils. Many of the type species of Murchison’s Silurian System
came from this locality; but since the superficial limestones have
been worked out, good specimens are exceedingly rare. An excellent
collection of the fossils of these beds is laid out in the Dudley
Museum, and another in the Geological Museum of the Mason College. Many
good collections are in the possession of private individuals in Dudley
and elsewhere.
The best localities for fossils at present are the shaly slopes on
the flanks of the Wren’s Nest, where the usual Wenlock Brachiopods and
Corals are abundant, but the beautiful Trilobites of the formation are
but rarely met with.
The Wenlock limestone occurs both in the Dudley Castle Hill and in
the Wren’s Nest. The Aymestry limestone is only met with in a single
locality on the flanks of Sedgley Hill, where it yields occasional
specimens of its characteristic fossil, the _Pentamerus Knightii_.
CARBONIFEROUS ROCKS.
Rocks of Carboniferous age make their appearance at four distinct
localities within the limits of the Birmingham District, viz., in the
coal fields of Coalbrookdale, the Forest of Wyre, South Staffordshire,
and East Warwickshire. The strata exposed on the last three of these
coalfields are those of the upper Carboniferous or Coal measures;
neither the Carboniferous limestone nor the Millstone grit being met
with outside the limits of the coalfield of Coalbrookdale.
In the Forest of Wyre the Coal measures rest upon the Old Red
Sandstone, in the South Staffordshire Coalfield upon the various
members of the Silurian, and in the East Warwickshire upon the Upper
Cambrian rocks. In these three coalfields a two-fold division of the
Carboniferous is recognisable:--
(_a._) _The Lower Coal Measures_ proper, consisting of grey sandstones
and shales with occasional coal seams, some of which are of remarkable
thickness.
(_b._) _Upper Coal Measures_, or Halesowen grey and red sandstones,
brick clays and marls, with occasional coal-seams, none, however, of
commercial value.
In the South Staffordshire and East Warwickshire coalfields, the well
known “_Spirorbis Limestone_” of the Upper Coal Measures occurs in its
normal place near the summit of the Carboniferous series.
SOUTH STAFFORDSHIRE COALFIELD.--The Carboniferous rocks of South
Staffordshire are arranged in a broad dome about 23 miles in length by
6 in breadth. Their basement beds rest unconformably upon the Silurian
around the flanks of the Dudley Hills, and in the neighbourhood of
Walsall. Their highest beds dip conformably below the Permian rocks at
the southern extremity of the coalfield south of Halesowen, and are
overlapped unconformably by the Triassic pebble beds at its northern
extremity, in the district of Cannock Chase. The eastern and western
boundaries of the coalfield are formed by lines of fault, which have
flung down against the Coal Measures the various members of the Permian
and the Triassic. The total thickness of the Carboniferous beds is
about 1,300 feet, and the normal succession in the central and highest
part of the coalfield is as follows:--
_Upper Coal Measures._--
_2a._ Halesowen Sandstone Group, 600 to 800 feet.
_2b._ Red Coal Measure Clays.
_Lower Coal Measures_, 500 to 600 feet, containing several excellent
coal seams, of which the following are the most important:--
(_a._) Brooch Coal, 4 feet.
(_b._) Thick Coal, 30 feet.
(_c._) Heathen Coal, 3 feet.
(_d._) New Mine Coal, 2 to 11 feet.
(_e._) Fire Clay Coal, 1 to 14 feet.
(_f._) Bottom Coal, five feet and above.
These measures include several zones of workable ironstone, of which
the most important are:--
(1.) The Pins and Pennyearth ironstones, below the Brooch coal.
(2.) The Whittery and Gubbin ironstones, below the Thick coal.
(3.) The Blue Flats, Silver Threads and Diamond Ironstones, below the
Bottom coal.
For its size the South Staffordshire coalfield has proved itself
the richest mineral area in Britain. Thick coal seams, rich bands of
ironstone, and great thicknesses of Silurian limestone, all occur
within a short distance of each other, and all within easy reach of
the miner. The natural result has been that the South Staffordshire
coalfield and its immediate neighbourhood has been the great coal and
iron mart of Central Britain, and the abundance and cheapness of its
material it has afforded, have rendered Birmingham and the “Black
Country” the hardware workshop of the world.
Almost all the available coal seams and ironstone beds within easy
reach have been long since practically worked out, but there is
still much excellent coal and iron to be obtained at greater depths,
especially in the northern part of the coalfield. Of late years the
Triassic rocks which surround the coalfield have been pierced in order
to reach the Coal measures beneath. An entirely new coalfield has been
developed in this manner in the district of Cannock Chase; and two most
remarkable collieries, those of Sandwell Park, and Hamstead, have been
opened in the neighbourhood of Birmingham itself.
The area immediately underlain by the Coal measures constitutes the
district of the “Black Country,” which extends from the western margin
of Birmingham to the fringe of Cannock Chase. It includes within its
limits, the large towns of Dudley, Walsall, Wolverhampton, Bilston, and
others of scarcely less note.
The most remarkable seam of the South Staffordshire coalfield is that
known as the Ten yard or Thick coal, a continuous bed of workable coal
from 25 to 30 feet in thickness. This underlies all the south central
part of the field in the area enclosed by Smethwick, Oldbury, Dudley,
Walsall and Bilston. To the southward near Halesowen it thins out
and becomes mixed with shaly material. It is in reality composed of
13 or 14 superimposed coal seams, which form an apparently unbroken
mass, but are easily distinguished individually by the practised
Thick coal miner. As we pass northward from the typical Thick coal
area towards Walsall and Cannock Chase, the component seams become
separated by intercalated sandstones and shales, so that eventually in
the district of Essington and Pelsall the Thick coal is represented
by 14 distinct coals occurring at intervals in a mass of sandy rock,
between 500 and 600 feet in total thickness. The Thick coal is known
to extend far to the eastward, beyond the present margin of the South
Staffordshire coalfield. The first attempt to reach it through the red
ground (Permian) was made under the bold and skilful guidance of the
late Mr. Henry Johnson, C.E., of Dudley, at the locality of Sandwell
Park. The coal was reached in 1873 at a depth of 1,250 feet and found
to be of its original thickness, and of excellent quality. The next
attempt which was made at Hamstead Hall, about three miles outside
the limit of the coalfield, was even bolder and more hazardous, but
it was eventually crowned with equal success; the Thick coal being
reached at a depth of 1,800 feet. As the demand for coal increases,
other collieries will doubtless be started at fresh localities outside
the limits of the coalfield, for there can be no question that the
Thick coal extends far to the eastward, under and beyond the town of
Birmingham itself.
The strata of the South Staffordshire Coalfield afford the usual
fossils of the British Coal Measures. The roofs of the coal seams,
and the layers of carbonaceous shale, locally furnish well preserved
examples of _Lepidodendron_, _Sigillaria_, _Calamites_, _Annularia_,
_Pecopteris_, _Neuropteris_, etc., often associated with abundant
specimens of the peculiar _Unio_-like shell, _Anthracosia_: while the
ironstone nodules occasionally yield fragmentary _Crustaceans_ and
_Insects_. Marine fossils are principally confined to the lower beds
of the series, below the Thick coal. Owing to the absence of true
limestone beds in the coalfield, the characteristic corals, &c., of
the Carboniferous are absent, but the following marine forms are not
uncommon in the lower ironstones:--
_Lingula elliptica_, _Discina nitida_, _Producta scrabicula_,
_Conularia quadrisulcata_, _Aviculopecten scalaris_, _Gyracanthus
farmosus_, _Megalichthys Hibberti_, _Pœcilodus angustus_.
These have been met with at several localities near Walsall, Oldbury,
Old Hill, Kingswinford, and Oldswinford, etc.
The rocks of the South Staffordshire coalfield are pierced locally
by sheets of igneous rock. The most important of these is a mass of
dolerite about two miles and a half in length, which caps the long
ridge of Rowley Regis. It is traversed by several mining shafts, which
pass through the dolerite into the workable coals below. Other igneous
masses occur near Dudley, and at Pouk Hill, near Walsall.
THE EAST WARWICKSHIRE COALFIELD.--The rocks of this coalfield form
a narrow strip about 15 miles in length, ranging from Tamworth on
the north to Bedworth on the South. The coalbearing strata rest
unconformably upon the Cambrian below, and pass up conformably into
the Permian above. The sequence of the beds is practically identical
with that of South Staffordshire--the richer coal measures being all
confined to the lower part of the Carboniferous series, and passing
up through a group of coloured clays into a final group of barren
sandstones. In the north of the coalfield five workable seams of
coal occur, separated by many feet of barren measures. As they pass
to the southward the intermediate strata thin out, and the coal-beds
practically come together at Hawkesbury to form one Main coal seam, as
do the corresponding members of the Thick coal of South Staffordshire.
It is probable that the two coalfields were formed in the same general
area of deposition, and except for the possibility of its destruction
by erosion prior to the deposition of the Triassic, it might be
suggested with safety that the Thick coal of South Staffordshire
extends in a continuous sheet under the red rocks of Northern
Warwickshire from Smethwick to Hawkesbury.
FOREST OF WYRE.--Unlike the strata of the other coalfields, the
Carboniferous rocks of the coalfield of the Forest of Wyre are
comparatively barren of good coal seams. The best, which is locally
known as the _Main_ coal, is about seven-and a-half feet in thickness,
and occurs at an average depth of 300 feet.
COALBROOKDALE.--This coalfield, which lies to the east of the Wrekin,
covers an area of about 28 square miles. It originally contained about
28 coal seams, but the majority of these are now practically worked
out. The succession includes the Carboniferous limestone, the Millstone
grit, and the Lower coal-measures in conformable sequence. The Upper
coal-measures rest in a hollow eroded out of the Lower coal-measures
beneath, forming what is locally known as the “Symon Fault.”
PERMIAN OR DYASSIC.
The Permian rocks of the Birmingham District are totally distinct
in their petrological characters from those of the typical area of
Yorkshire and Durham. No true limestones are present, and the formation
is wholly made up of red sandstones, marls and beds of angular breccia.
The lowest zones of the Permian repose conformably upon the Upper
Coal Measures of the South Staffordshire Coalfield in the slopes
of the hills to the south of Halesowen, and its strata are seen
in corresponding relation to the Carboniferous on the east of the
Coalfields of the Forest of Wyre and Coalbrookdale, and to the west of
the Coalfield of Eastern Warwickshire.
The Permian is everywhere covered up unconformably, or locally
overlapped, by the various members of the Triassic formation; all the
subdivisions of the Triassic series being found resting immediately
upon it in turns as they are followed from the valley of the Severn to
the neighbourhood of Charnwood Forest.
In the neighbourhood of Enville and the Forest of Wyre, three divisions
are recognisable in the Permian, viz.:--
(1.) _Lower Red Sandstones and Marls_, with bands of calcareous
conglomerate.
(2.) _Coarse Breccia._
(3.) _Upper Red Sandstones and Marls._
Round the South Staffordshire Coalfield the Breccia is the highest
division exposed, and this only occurs in force to the south of the
coalfield.
Between Tamworth and Kenilworth, to the east of Birmingham, the Permian
strata floor a wide tract of country, and lie almost horizontal. Red
sandstones, marls and beds of breccia occur in association, but the
divisions named above are not individually recognisable.
By far the most striking local member of the Permian formation is
the so-called _Volcanic or Permian Breccia_. It is found in scattered
patches over an area of about 500 square miles, extending from the
Malverns to Enville, Stourbridge, and the Lickey Hills. It is made up
of angular fragments of volcanic rocks, tuffs, altered shales, grits,
and slabs of fossiliferous sandstone and limestones, all embedded
in paste of bright red marl or pebbly sandstone. It is usually both
underlain and overlain by red sandstones and marls, but sometimes, as
at Stagbury and Woodbury Hills, &c., in the Valley of the Severn, it
reposes at once upon pre-Permian rock.
This peculiar Breccia is well displayed in the Clent Hills, between
Hagley and Halesowen. It there reposes upon the Lower Permian
Sandstones with calcareous grit bands--(which may be seen above the
little Church of St. Kenelm)--and forms all the highest points of the
Clent Hills, passing unconformably to the southward under the pebble
beds of the New Red Sandstone. In this locality the angular fragments
composing the Breccia are mainly volcanic:--rhyolites, porphyrites,
ashes, and volcanic grits, embedded in a coarse matrix formed of
similar materials. Other sections are seen in the Bromsgrove Lickey
Hills, and in the neighbourhood of Northfield. In the last-named
locality an excellent section is exposed in a lane leading from the
Bell Inn to Bangham Pit. In this exposure the breccia, which shows
the usual preponderance of volcanic materials, contains in addition
fragments of Silurian limestone (crowded with characteristic fossils),
and pieces of Landovery grit and shale.
According to Sir Andrew Ramsay,[60] this Permian breccia is probably
of glacial origin, its materials having been brought down by ice
in Permian times from the neighbourhood of the Longmynd in central
Shropshire, where all the formations represented in its derived rock
fragments occur at present in natural juxtaposition. According to
Professor Jukes,[61] the fragments of the Northfield breccia, at any
rate, “may have been derived from adjacent rocks, now concealed under
the Permian and New Red Sandstone.”
The Triassic Rocks.
BY W. JEROME HARRISON, F.G.S.
A considerable portion of the Midland Counties of England is composed
of red sandstones and marls. The town of Birmingham stands upon, and is
surrounded by rocks of this character. They form the Triassic System of
geologists, the first of the four grand members of the Mesozoic series.
Strictly speaking, the title _Trias_ is a misnomer as applied to the
English development of the rocks of this system. The central member
of the typical German succession, the _Muschelkalk_, is wanting in
Britain; and only the upper and lower divisions, the so-called Keuper
and Bunter, are represented. The _Bunter_ or lower Trias, consists in
the Midland areas of a mass of pebble beds or conglomerate, usually
underlain and overlain by variegated sandstones. The _Keuper_ is formed
of a great thickness of red marly strata, with a thick sandstone
(_Waterstones_) at the base.
The following table shews the subdivisions of the Trias which have been
recognised in England, together with (_a_) their maximum thickness, and
(_b_) their thickness in the neighbourhood of Birmingham.
CLASSIFICATION OF THE TRIASSIC STRATA--
Thickness Thickness near
in Cheshire. Birmingham.
Feet. Feet.
KEUPER RED MARLS (with the Upper
Keuper Sandstone) f. 6. 3,000 700
LOWER KEUPER SANDSTONE, f. 5. 450 200
_Muschelkalk_ (wanting in England).
UPPER MOTTLED SANDSTONE, f. 3. 500 200
PEBBLE BEDS, _or Bunter
Conglomerate_, f. 2. 600 400
LOWER MOTTLED SANDSTONE, f. 1. 400 (wanting.)