actice. If
ever such was the custom, no other trace of it appears, and it is quite
unknown now. In parts of South Wales, water may be used with advantage,
but were it applied to the mineral here, much would be washed away,
because of its finely divided state.

An interval of two centuries and upwards intervenes at this point. No
data for determining the state of the Dean Forest iron works again occurs
until the reign of Elizabeth. For the mean time, however, there seems
every probability that operations went on without intermission, although
some decline had apparently taken place. Perhaps the dissolution of the
monasteries interrupted the works at Flaxley and Tintern, by causing the
discharge of the old hands and the employment of unskilled operatives in
their stead.

The domestic series of the State Papers enable the clue to be resumed
under date 30th June, 1566, when one William Humfrey, upon information
derived from some German miners, addressed a letter "to Sir Wm Cecill abt
the plenty of good iron contained in the Forest of Dean." It was, no
doubt, the general rumour of this fact that rendered it an object of
spoliation to the would-be invaders from Spain in 1588. At this date,
wire, drawn by strength of hand, is said to have been made at Sowdley.
For such kind of manufacture the Forest iron, from its toughness and
ductility, was admirably fitted, without requiring any essential change
in the mode of reducing the ore, although improved methods of doing so
were being adopted in other parts of the kingdom, particularly in Sussex.
That the old way of working lingered long in the northern counties
appears from a statement of Mr. Wyrrall's, to the effect that "The father
of the late Mr. James Cockshut of Pontypool found, some years ago, an old
man working by himself at a bloomary forge in a remote part of Yorkshire.
Being himself well acquainted with every branch of the iron trade and
works, he stayed with the man long enough to investigate and comprehend
his mode of working, and saw him work, with his own hands, a piece of
iron from the ore to the bar."

The earliest intimation of any decided alteration being adopted in the
manner of operating on the raw metal occurs in the terms of a "bargayne"
made by the Crown "wth Giles Brudges and others," {28} on 14th June,
1611, demising "libertye to erect all manner of workes, iron or other, by
lande or water, excepting wyer workes, and the same to pull downe,
remove