The book Arran; - Cook Clan

FOLK HISTORY 123
would have something to tell of news or wonder spreading
thus from fireside to fireside.
II
Among the things about which report has come to us by
oral accounts, here happily verified by evidence on the
ground, is the ancient iron industry of Arran. The existence
of this industry is a further testimony to the considerable
growth of natural wood that must once have flourished in
the island. Indeed, Arran is said on this account to have
been known as the Black Forest.
In early times, and down to the middle of the eighteenth
century, iron had to be smelted by the use of charcoal.
Wasteful alike of wood and iron, this process, nevertheless,
from the absence of impurities in the heating material,
turned out a fairly satisfactory if uncertain product ; but
it was one of the principal forms of destructiveness among
the woods of districts where it was carried on, and had to
cease when the supply had been used up. Thus the existence
of such an industry in Arran probably terminated about the
beginning of the eighteenth century ; ^ nor is it likely, from
what we know of other parts of the country, that it had begun
before the sixteenth. There is no hint of anything of the
kind in the royal accounts ; Scotland was still importing its
iron. A silver coin, of date 1580, was found in the field in
which were the furnaces at Glenkil, I^amlash. Pennant in
1772 and Headrick in 1807 know nothing of the business.
Tradition or knowledge of it among the natives is limited
to a very few.
Part at least of the raw material was bog-iron, for such
was found still adhering to the slag on one of the three sites
at Glenkil. Tradition speaks of a working of ore in Glen
Rosa and Glen Cloy, and shelly ironstone bands do crop
out by the bridge over the Rosa Burn at Brodick Manse.
• Cf. what is said about the Arran woods in the next chapter.