button to main menu  Otley's Guide 1823 (5th edn 1834)

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Page 181:-
The specific gravity of the best wad, or black-lead, is, to that of water, as two to one nearly: the coarser kind is heavier in proportion, as it contains more stony matter. It comes from the mine in pieces of irregular shape, and of various sizes, requiring no process to prepare it for the market, further than freeing the pieces from any stony or extraneous matter, which may adhere to them. It is then assorted according to the different degrees of purity and size, and thus packed in casks to be sent off to the warehouse in London, where it is exposed to sale only on the first Monday in every month.
In the year 1803, after a tedious search, one of the largest bellies was fallen in with, which produced five hundred casks, weighing about one hundred and a quarter each, and worth thirty shillings a pound and upwards; besides a greater quantity of inferior sorts; and since that time several smaller sops have been met with; in the beginning of the year 1829, a sop produced about half a dozen casks; the best part of which was eagerly bought up at thirty-five shillings a pound. For three or four years the quantity raised was trifling; but in 1833, they succeeded in filling a few casks, the best part of which has been sold at forty-five shillings a pound.
By an account published in 1804 the stock then on hand was valued at £54,000, and the annual consumption stated to be about £3,500. This
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