evening, the verdant flat of the island with wood dispersed upon it, and water curling about us, view of the hills on both sides of the river, the good appetites, best provisions, and a world of merry stories of the Scots (which by the way makes a great part of the wit in those parts), made the place very agreeable, where every one walked after his fancy, and all were pleased.

to a coal

Some of the aldermen related strange histories of a drain of their coal-works: and one was by Sir William mine, and Blacket who cut into a hill in order to drain the way-leaves. water, and conquered all difficulties of stone, and the like, till he came to clay, and that was too hard for him; for no means of timber, or walls, would resist, but all was crowded together; and this was by the weight of the hill bearing upon a clay that yielded. In this work he lost 20,000%. Another thing, that is remarkable, is their wayleaves; for, when men have pieces of ground between the colliery and the river, they sell leave to lead coals over their ground; and so dear that the owner of a rood of ground will expect 201. per annum for this leave. The manner of the carriage is by laying rails of timber, from the colliery, down to the river, exactly straight and parallel; and bulky carts are made with four rowlets fitting these rails; whereby the carriage is so easy that one horse will draw down four or five chaldron of coals, and is an immense benefit to the coal mer

The small port of Sea

chants. Another advantage of the coasters upon the river, was showed his lordship: and that was what they call ballast wharfs. Any land owner may make that which they call a quay, next to the river, and sell leave to ships to throw out their ballast there, which the town will not permit to be tossed into the river; and the loading of coals is ballast enough to return with home towards London. So it seems that the shifting of the ballast, out and home, is no small incumbrance to the coal-trade.

From Tinmouth his lordship, by invitation, ton Delaval. went to dine at Seaton Delaval. Sir Ralph Delaval entertained us exceeding well; and not so much with eating and drinking, which appertains properly to the brute, and not to the man, but with very ingenious discourse, and showing to us many curiosities, of which he himself was author, in that place. The chief remarkable, there, was a little port, which that gentleman, with great contrivance, and after many disappointments, made for securing small craft that carried out his salt and coal; and he had been encouraged in it by King Charles the Second, who made him collector and surveyor of his own port, and no officer to intermeddle there. It stands at the mouth of a rill (as it is called) of water, which, running from the hills, had excavated a great hollow, in the fall, as it ran. The ground, at the sea, is a hard

impenetrable flat rock; and, for cover of the vessels, which else, in the rage, must be dashed to pieces, Sir Ralph had built, or, rather, often rebuilt a pier of stone, that fended off the surge to the north-east, and, at high water, gave entrance near a little promontory of the shore, turning in by the north; and, at low water, the vessels lay dry upon the rock. This had been built of square stone, with, and without, cement; but all was heaved away with the surge; and, for a great while, nothing could be found strong enough to hold against the lifting and sucking of the water. At length, Sir Ralph, at an immense cost, bound every joint of the stone, not only laterally, but upright, with dovetails of heart of oak let into the stone; and that held effectually for, if the stones were lifted up, they fell in their places again. This little harbour was apt to silt up with the sea sand; for remedying of which, he used the back water of his rill, and that kept the channel always open: and, for that end, he had an easy and sure device; which was sluice-gates built cross the channel of the rill, which, during tide of flood, were shut, and so the water gathered to a great head above, till low water; and then the sluices opened, let the gathered water come down all at once, which scoured away the sand that, every tide, lodged upon the rock, and washed it as clean as a marble table. All this we saw, with his salt-pans at work

A colliery, drowned.

about it, and the petit magazines, of a marine trade, upon the wharf: and so he reaped the fruits of his great cost and invention; and if, in the whole, the profit did not answer the account, the pleasure of designing and executing, which is the most exquisite of any, did it.

I must not omit one passage, which showed the steady constancy of that gentleman's mind; which was, that, at the beginning of dinner, a servant brought him a letter, wherein was an account of a bag of water which was broke in his greatest colliery. Upon which, folding up the letter, said he, "My lord, here I have advice sent me of a loss, in a colliery, which I cannot estimate at less than 7000%.; and now you shall see if I alter my countenance or behaviour, from what you have seen of me already." And so fell to discoursing of these bags of water, and the methods to clear them, as if the case had been another's, and not his own. He said, his only apprehension was that the water might come from the sea; and " then," said he, the whole colliery is utterly lost: else, with charge, it will be recovered." Whereupon he sent for a bottle of the water, and, finding it not saline, as from the sea, was well satisfied. Afterwards we inquired if the water was conquered, and we were told it proved not so bad as he expected. For it seems that although 1700l. was spent upon engines, and they could not sink it an inch, yet

66

6007. more emptied it; so that it had no more than the ordinary springs; and, in about six weeks, he raised coal again. He said that chain pumps were the best engines, for they draw constant and even; but they can have but two stories of them, the second being with an axle-tree of seven or eight fathom; and the deepest story is wrought by buckets, and a wheel and ropes, with the force at the top.

commis

The county of Northumberland hath been ex- The Border ceedingly infested with thieving of cattle, which sion. is the remains of the Border trade, since the union with Scotland, after the way used, in time of peace, before. For as, in Italy, the murderer, running into the next territory, was safe: so here they stole on either side, and the other, under a different jurisdiction, was an asylum. This was so great a mischief that all the considerable farmhouses (the houses of gentlemen were castles of course) were built of stone in the manner of a square tower, with an overhanging battlement, and, underneath, the cattle were lodged every night. In the upper room the family lodged, and, when the alarm came, they went up to the top, and, with hot water and stones from the battlement, fought in defence of their cattle. The advantage of the union was so great to these countries, that the Lord Grey of Wark's estate, which, before, was not above 1000l. per annum,