[184]See Lappenberg’s England under the Anglo-Norman Kings. Ed. Thorpe, p. 89.
[185]Yarranton, in that strange but clever work, England’s Improvement by Land and Sea (Ed. 1677, pp. 43-63), dwells at length on the quantity of iron-stone along the coast, and the advantage of the New Forest for making charcoal to smelt the metal. He proposed to build two forges and two furnaces for casting guns, near Ringwood, where the ore was to be brought up the Avon.
“That narrow sea, which we the Solent term,
Where those rough ireful tides, as in her straights they meet,
With boisterous shocks and roars each other rudely greet;
Which fiercely when they charge, and sadly when they make retreat,
Upon the bulwark forts of Hurst and Calshot beat,
Then to Southampton run.
Polyolbion, book ii.