312

HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

CHAP.

III.

and, when the evaporation was complete, the substance" which was left was scarcely fit to be used with food. Physiciansattributed the scorbutic and pulmonary complaints which werecommon among the English to this unwholesome condiment.It was therefore seldom used by the upper and middle classes;and there was a regular and considerable importation fromFrance. At present our springs and mines not only supplyour own immense demand, but send annually more than sevenhundred millions of pounds of excellent salt to foreign coun-tries. *

Far more important has been the improvement of our ironworks. Such works had long existed in our island, but hadnot prospered, and had been regarded with no favourable eyeby the government and by the public. It was not then thepractice to employ coal for smelting the ore; and the rapidconsumption of wood excited the alarm of politicians. Asearly as the reign of Elizabeth there had been loud complaintsthat whole forests were cut down for the purpose of feedingthe furnaces: and the Parliament had interfered to prohibit themanufacturers from burning timber. The manufacture conse-quently languished. At the close of the reign of Charles theSecond, great part of the iron which was used in the countrywas imported from abroad; and the whole quantity cast hereannually seems not to have exceeded ten thousand tons. Atpresent the trade is thought to be in a depressed state if lessthan a million of tons are produced in a year.**

One mineral, perhaps more important than iron itself,remains to be mentioned. Coal, though very little used inany species of manufacture, was already the ordinary fuel

* Philosophical Transactions, No. 53. Nov. 1C69, No. 66. Dec. 1610,No. 103. May 1614, No. 156. Feb. 168|.

** Yarranton, England’s Improvement by Sea and Land, 1611; Por-ter’s Progress of the Nation. See also a remarkably perspicuous history,in small compass, of the English iron works, in Mr. M’Culloch’s Sta-tistical Account of the British Empire.