, we
find the production of Scotch pig-iron had increased to 475,000 tons.
It has since increased to upwards of a million of tons,
nineteen-twentieths of which are made from Black Band ironstone.[6]

Employment has thus been given to vast numbers of our industrial
population, and the wealth and resources of the Scotch iron districts
have been increased to an extraordinary extent. During the last year
there were 125 furnaces in blast throughout Scotland, each employing
about 400 men in making an average of 200 tons a week; and the money
distributed amongst the workmen may readily be computed from the fact
that, under the most favourable circumstances, the cost of making iron
in wages alone amounts to 36s. a-ton.[7]

An immense additional value was given to all land in which the Black
Band was found. Mr. Mushet mentions that in 1839 the proprietor of the
Airdrie estate derived a royalty of 16,500L. from the mineral, which
had not before its discovery yielded him one farthing. At the same
time, many fortunes have been made by pushing and energetic men who
have of late years entered upon this new branch of industry. Amongst
these may be mentioned the Bairds of Gartsherrie, who vie with the
Guests and Crawshays of South Wales, and have advanced themselves in
the course of a very few years from the station of small farmers to
that of great capitalists owning estates in many counties, holding the
highest character commercial men, and ranking among the largest
employers of labour in the kingdom.

[1] Article by Dugald Bannatyne in Glasgow Mechanic's Magazine, No. 53,
Dec. 1824.

[2] Glasgow Mechanic's Magazine, vol. iii. p. 159.

[3] Mr. Mushet described it as "a wonderful discovery," and one of the
"most novel and beautiful improvements in his time." Professor Gregory
of Aberdeen characterized it as "the greatest improvement with which he
was acquainted." Mr. Jessop, an extensive English iron manufacturer,
declared it to be "of as great advantage in the iron trade as
Arkwright's machinery was in the cotton-spinning trade"; and Mr.
Fairbairn, in his contribution on "Iron" in the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, says that it "has effected an entire revolution in the iron
industry of Great Britain, and forms the last era in the history of
this material."

[4] The invention of the tubular air-vessels and the water-tuyere
belongs, we believe, to Mr. John Condie, sometime manager of the Blair
Iron Works.

[5] Mr. Mushet