Page:Walks in the Black Country and its green border-land.pdf/368

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354
Walks in the Black Country

which must greatly impress the traveller. Perhaps no other space in the district sends up into the red ocean above such undulating rivers of furnace-light. As a sample of the wealth stored away in its cellarage, a lump of coal was taken from it and exhibited in the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park in 1851, weighing six tons. It was cut in a circular shape, like a cheese, and measured six feet in height and eighteen in circumference. The whole township is planted with furnaces, forges, foundries, rolling and slitting mills, producing vast quantities of pig, bar, rod, and sheet iron. These again are largely manufactured into steam engines, boilers, chain cables, anchors, hinges, nails, screws, &c. Thus Tipton has become one of the most important centres of the district, with all the mechanical and material capital for a hopeful future.

Sedgley is a place which no one can pass by unnoticed, for it is truly set upon a hill, and claims to be the highest table land in England. Sedgley Beacon is supposed by some antiquarians to have been the site of Druidical sacrifice and worship. The parish is very large, embracing a space of 7,000 acres, and several distinct and considerable villages. It has long been distinguished for its mining and manufacturing industries; and the two occupations are frequently so blended in one family as to embrace all its working members. While the men and larger boys are employed in the