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Rh 2,500,000 tons of pig iron annually. Middlesbrough is the seat of a Roman Catholic bishop. The parliamentary borough falling within the Cleveland division of the county, returns one member. The county borough was created in 1888. The town is governed by a mayor, ten aldermen and thirty councillors. Area, 2823 acres.

The earlier history of the place is meagre. Where Middlesbrough now stands there were at one time a small chapel and priory founded by Robert de Brus of Skelton Castle. These were dedicated to St Hilda, and with some lands were given by de Brus to the abbey of St Hilda at Whitby in 1130. The priory fell into ruins at the time of the Reformation, and no trace now remains beyond some stones built into the wall of a brewery. The Oak Chair in the town-hall also is made from a fragment. In 1801 there were upon the site of Middlesbrough only four farmhouses. In 1829 a company styling itself the Middlesbrough Owners bought 500 acres of land, and began building in the town. In 1830 the Stockton & Darlington railway was extended to Middlesbrough; four years later the town was lighted with gas; and after six years more a public market was established. The census of 1831 showed the population to be 154; that of 1841 showed 5709. In 1842 the opening of the docks gave additional importance to the town; From the year 1851, when John Vaughan discovered the presence of ironstone in the Eston hills, the town advanced rapidly.

MIDDLESEX, LIONEL CRANFIELD, (1575–1645), was a successful London merchant, who was introduced to King James I. by Henry Howard, earl of Northampton, and entered the royal service in 1605. In 1613 he was knighted and was appointed surveyor-general of customs; in 1616 he became one of the masters of requests, and in 1619 master of the court of wards and liveries and chief commissioner of the navy. He was returned to parliament as member for Hythe in 1614 and for Arundel in 1621. Cranfield, who was also master of the wardrobe, was responsible for many economies in the public service, and his business acumen was very useful to the king. He took part in the attack on Bacon in 1621, and although, contrary to general expectation, he did not succeed Bacon as lord chancellor, he was created Baron Cranfield in July of this year. In 1621 also he became lord high treasurer, and in September 1622 was created earl of Middlesex, losing his positions and influence shortly afterwards because he opposed the projected war with Spain, and had incurred the hostility of Prince Charles and George Villiers, duke of Buckingham. Impeached by the House of Commons for corruption, he was found guilty by the House of Lords in May 1624 and was sentenced to lose all his offices, to pay a heavy fine and to be imprisoned during the king’s pleasure. However, he was released from prison in a few days, was pardoned in the following year, and was restored to his seat in the House of Lords in 1640. The earl’s second wife was Anne Brett (d. 1670). a cousin of Buckingham’s mother, whom he married somewhat reluctantly in 1621 in order to ensure Buckingham’s support. Middlesex died on the 6th of August 1645, leaving with other issue a son James (1621–1651), 2nd earl of Middlesex, who was a partisan of the parliamentary party during the Civil War. James was succeeded by his brother, Lionel, and when this earl died in October 1674 his titles became extinct. The first earl’s daughter Frances married Richard Sackville, 5th earl of Dorset, and their son Charles was created earl of Middlesex in 1675. Two years later he became earl of Dorset, and the title of earl of Middlesex was borne by the earls and dukes of Dorset until 1843.

MIDDLESEX, a south-eastern county of England, bounded N. by Hertfordshire, E. by Essex, S.E. by the county of London, S. by Surrey, and W. by Buckinghamshire. The area is 283·3 sq. m., and, excepting Rutland, the county is the smallest in England. The area outside the county of London, or extra-metropolitan area, with which this article is mainly concerned, is 233·8 sq. m. It lies entirely in the basin of the river Thames, which forms its southern boundary. On the east it is separated from Essex by the Lea, the largest northern tributary of the Thames. The other rivers, in order westward, are the Brent, the Crane or Yedding Brook, and the Colne. The waters of several streams are collected in the artificial Brent reservoir near Hendon, from which the Brent flows with a circuitous course to the Thames at Brentford. The Crane, rising in the high ground near Harrow-on-the-Hill, joins the Thames at Isleworth; and the Colne, which rises on the elevated plain between Hatfield and St Albans (Hertfordshire), traverses a flat valley on the western boundary of the county, where it divides into several channels, and joins the main river at Staines. The highest ground, exceeding 400 ft. at several points, and reaching 503 ft. above Stanmore, is found along the northern boundary, in a line from Stanmore through Elstree, Chipping Barnet and Potter’s Bar. Two well-marked lines of heights, detached from the main line, project southward, the eastern from Whetstone through Finchley and Highgate to Hampstead, where, within the county of London, a height of 443 ft. is found on Hampstead Heath; the western being the isolated elevation on which stands Harrow-on-the-Hill. The hills skirting the Lea valley, in the neighbourhood of Enfield, are abrupt, though of no great elevation. Elsewhere the country is very slightly undulating or quite flat, as along the banks of the Thames and Lea. The Thames, however, beautifies its immediate neighbourhood, and rich sylvan scenery is not wanting in the higher districts. The greater part of the county was formerly densely forested and sparsely populated, and the name of Enfield Chase, a royal preserve in the north-east, still recalls this condition. In modern times the visible influence of London has spread over practically the entire county. Villages have grown into populous suburbs; large institutions, for which sites adjacent to rather than within the metropolis have been found preferable, are numerous, and the development of suburban railway communications has brought fresh ground within reach of builders.

Geology.—The county lies entirely within the structural basin of the Thames, and, as in the neighbouring counties, the general slope of the ground and dip of the strata is towards the south-east. South of an irregular line passing from Uxbridge, north of Hayes, by Hanwell and Ealing to Hyde Park and east of a similar line from the upper side of the Park to Tottenham and on from that point to Enfield, the only visible deposits are the gravels, loams, brick-earths and sands laid down in former times by the Thames, with contributions by the Lea and the Colne. These alluvial deposits rise gradually northward from the Thames and westward from the Lea, in a series of gentle terraces. The earliest portions of London were built upon these terraces, because while they were dry at the surface, water could be obtained by sinking shallow wells. The alluvium has yielded many flint implements and the bones of the mammoth, bear and rhinoceros, great elk and other extinct forms. The loams are dug for bricks and the gravel for ballast, &c., about West Drayton, Southall, Enfield and Tottenham.

The London clay, a marine deposit, is bluish where it has not been turned brown by exposure to the weather. It underlies all the river deposits and rises to the surface north and east of the alluvial boundary indicated above. It gives rise to the undulating grassy country round Harrow, Chipping Barnet and Elstree. Below the London clay are the more sandy Reading beds, they may be seen at Harefield and at South Mimms; inliers occur at Pinner and Ruislip. Chalk is only visible on the side of the Colne valley at Harefield, where it is quarried, and at South Mimms. Formerly, the sandy and pebbly Bagshot beds covered all the London clay area, but now only isolated patches remain, such as those on the top of Harrow, Hampstead and Highgate hills. Long after the Bagshot beds were laid down the country was covered by a variety of glacial deposits; such are the pebble gravels of Stanmore Heath and the district north of Barnet, the clay and sand of Finchley, Muswell Hill and Southgate, the chalky boulder clay to be seen at Finchley, Southgate and Potter’s Bar. Several deep borings in the London basin prove the existence, beneath the chalk, of beds which do not crop out in Middlesex. The most interesting is that at Meux’s Brewery, Tottenham Court Road (about 1146 ft.), which passes through the following formations: gravel and clay, 21 ft.; London clay, 64 ft.; Reading beds, 51 ft.; Thanet sand, 21 ft.; chalk, 655 ft.; upper greensand, 28 ft.; gault, 160 ft.; lower greensand, 64 ft.; Devonian rocks, 80 ft.

Industries, &c.—The climate of some of the high-lying districts is particularly healthy. Little more than one-half the total area of the county is under cultivation; and the grain crops, greatly decreasing, are insignificant. The soil in the north and north-west