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LIME-KILNS, NORTHFLEET.

In whatever point of view the county of Kent is considered, it will be found to possess no common portion of provincial eminence. The historian, the antiquary, the naturalist, the agriculturist, and the lover of landscape beauty, will find it a source of gratification in their various pursuits, to instruct, improve, and embellish the human mind.

Northfleet is an interesting feature on the banks of the Thames: of its docks some account has been already given; and we proceed to the manufactory of lime, which its chalky cliffs so amply supplies, and whose appearance is represented in the engraving that accompanies this page. It may not be considered as a misemployment of the reader's attention to direct it to the process by which the lime is produced, and the particular occupation of those employed in it.

Lime is a soft, friable substance, obtained by the calcination of stones, shells, chalk, &c. and is not only used by architects, builders, plasterers, sugar-refiners, tanners, &c. but is an excellent manure for land, where it is sandy or a mixed gravel: it is also an officinal article of the apothecary's shop.

Lime is produced at Northfleet entirely from chalk, which is not so strong as that obtained from stone. The cliff furnishes the chalk from which it is dug, and is carefully separated from the flints, which are found amongst it, before it is carted to the kiln; where it is thrown with very thin alternate layers of coal. The fire is kept continually burning; and when the chalk is sufficiently calcined, which requires about twelve hours, it is taken out at the bottom, while fresh supplies are discharged into the upper part. The proportion of coals is about one-eighth of the material on which is it employed. In this operation the coal is entirely

LIME-KILNS, NORTHFLEET.

consumed, as neither cinder or dust remains. One burner and one shoveler are sufficient for each kiln, besides women, who bring the chalk in baskets to feed its mouth. The internal part of the kiln is circular, and is an inverted cone, being eighteen feet in diameter at the top, and eleven at the bottom. There are seventeen of these laboratories at Northfleet continually burning.

John Calcraft, Esq. is the lord of the manor, and owner of these productive cliffs, which are rented by Mr. Howard, of Northfleet.

Fossils of various kinds are frequently found in the solid stratum of chalk, among which human jaw-bones have been occasionally discovered.

The excavation is now directed towards Gravesend, as the high road above it prevents its being carried further into the interior part of the parish.

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