Dowlais House
Merthyr Tydvil.
26th Septr 1857
Sir
Although I was willing to give you any information in my power to enable you to form an estimate of the Commercial value of your minerals I am afraid it will scarcely suit me to become to any considerable extent a purchaser. I know not what the would be the expense of raising the ore & bringing it by canal & sea, or by canal & rail to Cardiff, but I suspect it would be quite enough to raise its cost to very near that of the rich hæmatitic ores of the North which we import from Barrow & Whitehaven, & which are the only ores which we find it profitable to bring from a great distance. Even the ore found at Llantrissaint, a place between Cardiff & Margam, & which much resembles yours, has not as yet been found to pay its carriage.
Still, although it may not suit me it does not follow that all other Iron masters will take the same view or find themselves in the same circumstances. The Staffordshire masters pay dearly for their purchased ore <illeg> and I am told bring ore from Northamptonshire & Oxfordshire. Indeed I happen to know that, a few weeks ago, the Grt Western Ry Co. were under contract to convey to Staffordshire 40,000 tons of Wiltshire ore, and your ore is certainly superior to any as yet on the Market, and notably so to that hawked about South Wales by a Mr Hart, and of which Mr Crawshay & I, to our loss, purchased a few hundred tons.
Perhaps, as the subject is an important one, you may feel sufficient personal interest in it to wish to investigate it by the aid of the Mine agent and Furnace Manager at Dowlais, in which case I shall have much pleasure in receiving you here, & in giving you every facility for deciding upon what you had better do.
I am just at this time much engaged at a distance from home, but if it suits you I shall be at home on Thursday, Friday, & part of Saturday, the 8th, 9th & 10th of October and the Express train which leaves Swindon at 11.8 would, by the Taff Vale, bring you here by 5 o’clock.
I remain
Sir
yrs faithfully
Geo. T. Clark
H. F. Talbot Esq
Lacock Abbey.
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H. F. Talbot Esq
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham