| Description | Pleased Sir Lawrence has settled the affair of the commissioner without having any dispute with Mountstuart. But he must obtain th £100 for Thomas Simpson. 'I was at Loftus last week examining the works and have oredered three more pans (as you mention) to be immediately put in. They are in a very much better way of making just now than ever I saw them. That part of the alum house where the pans are, whcih we called the fire house is totally ruinous. The roof is propped in twently places and it is so ill constructed by the beam ends going into the fire wall that it is two or three times of a week on fire. I am now convinced that the great loss in all the alum made at your works is entirely owing to nastiness of the house, the whole places the people work in laying entirely open to one another by which the coal dust, the ashes, the sut, the steam and every possible kind of dirt is flying about and there is nothing so well known as that all sorts at the time of crystalisation should be kept perfectly quiet and free from even the smallest particle of dust. The fire house must undoubtedly be rebuilt this year and indeed if any accident happens this winter the works may be entirely stopped. The great part of the materials will serve again but to do it pproperly I think will cost three hundred or four hundred pounds and I am sure if that is laid out it will save one hundred pounds a year in the making of alum. I think it would be very proper to do one end of the house this winter while I am here which they might work in while the other is doing in summer. I should be able to ascertain the expense exactly by attending myself to it and I really never will trust Farquharson in building sfter the Loftus farm. I wish you would write him saying your determination with respect to this as building is very cheap at this season and we can work in all weather at the heat of the alum house. I am at this moment informed that John Miller a freeholder at Redcar has bought Lister's land, 36 acres for £860. I am very sorry for it as it lays in the very heart of your estate at Marske and is all in detached parcels''
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