STAFFORDSHIRE.
In this region the smelting and manufacture of iron abounds. Hundreds of chimneys, large and small, single and in groups, begin to meet the view as soon as we are fairly out of Stoke Village. Everywhere the air is permeated with dense though by no means very disagreeable smoke; that is, it did not produce half the ill effect on the eyes or the body that it did on the shirt bosoms and the mind.
The vast extent of the domain astonished us. As we merged into the thicker part, the sun was entirely obscured, the people were weird-like, and all things wore a smoky aspect. Condensed masses of smoke hung like thunder-clouds, and they were lighted up by the glare that issued Pandemonium-like from a hundred chimney-tops. In the dimness below, the men at the blastfurnaces, handling red-hot rods, or pouring molten iron into moulds, seemed like so many imps, and we had a vivid representation of the other place, that was talked of a hundred years ago. We were glad of the experience, for it was unlike anything seen before, or likely to be seen again; but how we enjoyed a change to clear atmosphere and a blue sky, and how increased was our ability to enjoy the
"Sweet fields of living green,
And rivers of delight,"
by which the swift train presently hustled us!
We need not say that bituminous and not anthracite coal is used in England. It burns with a brilliant red flame, and its smoke is either black, gray, or white. It is found in great profusion (as hard coal is in our Pennsylvania) in the same regions with iron ore.
It is as common to see coal-mine openings—their cheap houses over them, and their railways,—as to see iron mines. No manufacturing region would seem complete without them. It is providential that these two useful minerals, coal and iron, are found together, and so conveniently near the geographical centre of Great Britain as to make them accessible to each section of the island.
We are at our journey's end, in