A short account of the iron industry, which was pursued throughout a large portion of the county of Sussex and immediately around Crowborough, may be interesting to some readers.

Abundance of the ironstone is still to be found in this neighbourhood. The store seems inexhaustible, and should coal to any extent be discovered in Sussex or Kent, it is not improbable that furnaces for smelting the ore may again be in operation in the country around, to the destruction of its beauty and charm.

The ore is found in the beds of sandstone which form the forest ridge, the highest part of which is Crowborough. This and the Weald, of which it is the central portion, was, according to a writer of one of the archaeological papers, "in a remote period overflowed by the waters of an immense river, then submerged by the ocean, and lastly elevated by successive deposits to its existing form. It was in the first of these periods that the ferruginous matter, afterwards to become so useful to mankind, had its origin."

The geologist Dr. Mantell says: - "The strata of the Wealden were a vast delta formed by some mighty river; of its original extent our conjectures must necessarily be extremely vague. It is most probable that the Wealden is made up of the debris of rocks of various ages. The principal lines of its elevation are clearly referable to those movements which upheaved the chalk and incumbent strata."

He also says: - "It is an interesting fact that all our principal ironworks obtained their metal from the ferruginous clays and sands of the Wealden; in other words, from iron produced by animal and vegetable decomposition in the bed and delta of a mighty river."

That ironworks were in operation in Sussex at a remote period seems well established. At Old Land, in the parish of Maresfield, were discovered the remains of a Roman settlement, and amongst the extensive cinder-beds near it were found coins of the Roman Emperors Nero, Vespasian and Diocletian, as well as pieces of pottery. The first-named Emperor reigned from A.D. 54 to 68, but it is probable the works existed long before this date.