ed with the pits from which the ironstone was dug;
the hammer ponds lie in a string along a tiny tributary of the Wey. John
Ray, in his _Collection of English Words not generally Used_, published
in 1672, and printed in the _Sussex Archaeological Collections_, gives an
account of the methods of the old iron smelters. A stream, or a pond
with a stream running through it, would be dammed, and the fall of water
at the lower end would then work two pairs of bellows for the blast for
the furnace and a wheel which raised and let fall a hammer. The fuel
used was charcoal. Before the ironstone was put into the furnace it was
"mollified" or broken up into small pieces by being burnt between layers
of charcoal. Then it was put into the furnace, and when melted drawn off
in long lumps, called pigs or sows. Then the sows were taken to the
forge or hammer, and beaten into square "blooms," two feet long; then
the blooms were beaten into "anconies," three feet long; then the
"anconies" had their ends nicely shaped, and the iron was ready for
market.

A very extensive "collection of English words not generally used" is
contained in an inventory of tools supplied to William Yalden, when he
took over the Thursley ironworks. Perhaps an ironmaster of to-day might
recognise some of those I have chosen:--

Twoe fargons. A beame way anckrues. One turnsowe. One hurdgier. One
twewer trole; one twewer hook. Two hursts and brights to them. 2
eyron rackes. A hamer and ane bill and helfe and armes redy placed.
Twoe boyghts about the Chafery. One quas to stopp the fyer. A neew
locke.

Mr. Baring-Gould has described one of the natives of Thursley Common in
the _Broom Squire_:--

"The natterjack, so rare elsewhere, differing from a toad in that
it has a yellow band down its back, has here a paradise. It may be
seen at eve perched on a stalk of willow herb or running--it does
not hop--round the sundew, clearing the glutinous stamens of the
flies that have been caught by them, and calling in a tone like the
warning note of the nightingale."

[Illustration: _Elstead._]

I looked for the natterjack at eve, but did not find him. At Farnham, I
am told, he is called a jar-bob. Thursley children like to catch a
natterjack to sell.

Elstead is three miles away, on the northern edge of the belt of
heather; a happy little village standing round a green, with a mill, a
bridge, and a church with a wonderful ladd