Oakum
Oakum is a preparation of tarred fibre used to seal gaps. Its main traditional applications were in shipbuilding, for caulking or packing the joints of timbers in wooden vessels and the deck planking of iron and steel ships; in plumbing, for sealing joints in cast iron pipe; and in log cabins for chinking. In ship caulking, it was forced between the seams using a hammer and a caulking iron, then sealed into place with hot pitch.
Tar Tunnel
Miners struck a gushing spring of natural bitumen, a black treacle-like substance, when digging a canal tunnel for the Coalport Canal in 1787, or else digging a level in search of coal. The plan, proposed by William Reynolds, was to connect the canal alongside the River Severn to the lower galleries of the mines below the Blists Hill area. After digging some 3,000ft (almost 1 km) into the hill the canal project was abandoned in favour of bitumen extraction. 
The tunnel was a great curiosity in the eighteenth century and bitumen still oozes gently from the brick walls today. Bitumen's chief commercial use at the time was to treat and weatherproof ropes and caulk wooden ships, but small amounts were processed and bottled as 'Betton's British Oil', a panacea remedy for rheumatism and scurvy. After the canal project was abandoned the Hay Inclined Plane was built instead, its base being alongside the canal basin.