relative to certain ancient arms and utensils found in the river
Witham between Kirkstead and Lincoln.
...]
The Roman colonists were the first makers of iron in Britain on any
large scale. They availed themselves of the mineral riches of the
country wherever they went. Every year brings their extraordinary
industrial activity more clearly to light. They not only occupied the
best sites for trade, intersected the land with a complete system of
well-constructed roads, studded our hills and valleys with towns,
villages, and pleasure-houses, and availed themselves of our
medicinal springs for purposes of baths to an extent not even
exceeded at this day, but they explored our mines and quarries, and
carried on the smelting and manufacture of metals in nearly all parts
of the island. The heaps of mining refuse left by them in the valleys
and along the hill-sides of North Derbyshire are still spoken of by
the country people as "old man," or the "old man's work." Year by
year, from Dartmoor to the Moray Firth, the plough turns up fresh
traces of their indefatigable industry and enterprise, in pigs of
lead, implements of iron and bronze, vessels of pottery, coins, and
sculpture; and it is a remarkable circumstance that in several
districts where the existence of extensive iron beds had not been
dreamt of until within the last twenty years, as in Northamptonshire
and North Yorkshire, the remains of ancient workings recently
discovered show that the Roman colonists were fully acquainted with
them.

But the principal iron mines worked by that people were those which
were most conveniently situated for purposes of exportation, more
especially in the southern counties and on the borders of Wales. The
extensive cinder heaps found in the--Forest of De an--which formed