Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/228

 214 I R B I R E The latter service is continued twice a month to Bhamo, about 1000 miles from the sea. The principal articles carried up stream are Manchester piece goods, rice, salt, hardware, and silk. The articles carried down stream are raw cotton, cutch, india-rubber, jade, spices, precious stones, timber, earth-oil, and dry crops, such as wheat and pease. The value of the trade either way is roughly esti mated at about 1| millions sterling. The total number of native boats on the Irawadi is returned at about 8000. They carry a large proportion of the heavy articles of commerce, especially cutch and earth-oil. IRBIT, a town of European Russia in the government of Perm, 70 miles north-east of Ekaterinburg, at the conflu ence of the Irbit with the Nitza, a sub-tributary of the Obi. Though the St Petersburg Calendar for 1878 gives the permanent population as only 4212 (in 1860 the number v,-a3 3iOS), it is one of the most important trade centres of northern Russia, and during its great fair (February 1-13 to March 1-13) it is visited by upwards of 20,000 people. Among its public buildings are a theatre, an exchange, a bank (established in 1849, with a capital of 30,000 roubles), and a district school. Irbit was originally founded by Tartars in 1633, but the discovery of iron ore in the neighbourhood soon attracted Russian settlers. The assistance which the inhabitants rendered in the suppres sion of the Pugatcheff rebellion was rewarded by Catherine granting Irbit the rank of a town in 1775. In 1781 it was made a district town of Perm. The right of holding the fair was bestowed by Michael Theodorovitch as early as 1643, and from 1695 the customs which had previously been collected at Verkhoturya were taken at Irbit itself. , In 1829 the value of the wares brought to market amounted to 10,888,155 roubles (1,723,916), and these were sold to the value of 7,537,489. In 1861 the corresponding figures were 51,204,000 roubles and 39,397,500. In 1859 the principal items were (a) of Russian goods: leather and skins, 6, 780, 000 roubles ; furs, 4,750,000; copper andiron, 1,252,000; grain, salt, meat, and fish, 1,207,000; fruit and groceries, 1,115,000 ; wooden wares, 1,040,000 ; (b) of European wares: cotton, woollen, and silk, 12,087,000; sugar, 2,650,000; groceries 860,000 ; (c) of Asiatic goods : tea, 29,500,000. In 1880 the fur trade was especially active, no fewer than 3,550,000 Siberian furs and 110,100 Russian furs being brought to market. The tea, on the other hand, did not go beyond the value of 5| million roubles. There is a horse fair at Irbit, October 28th (September 10th), when old horses are disposed of by Tobolsk and Tyumen Tartars. The Irbit iron-works are situated 40 miles from the town, on the banks of the river Irbit, below the confluence of the Shaitanka, which flows out of Irbit lake, a sheet of water nearly 4 miles long and 2^ miles broad. The inhabitants of the spot numbered 1822 in 1869 (861 men and 961 women). In 1873 the output of pig iron was about 2000 tons. The Irbit post-road leaves the great Siberian road at KamnishlofT, 73 miles from the town. IRELAND PART L GEOGRAPHY AND STATISTICS. IRELAND, a large island to the west of Great Britain, and along with it forming the United Kingdom, extends from 51 26 to 55 21 N. lat., and from 5 25 to 10&quot; 30 W. long. It is encircled by the Atlantic Ocean, and oa the east is separated from Great Britain towards the north by the North Channel, whose width at the narrowest part, between the Mull of Cantyre and Torr Head, is only 13^ miles; in the centre by the Irish Sea, whose width is 130 miles; and in the south by St George s Channel, which has a width of 69 miles between Dublin and Holyhead, and of 47 miles at its southern extremity. The island has the form of an irregular rhomboid, the largest diagonal of which, from Torr Head in the north-east to Mizen Head in the south-west, measures 302 miles. The greatest breadth of the island is 174 miles, and the average breadth about 110 miles. The total area comprises 32,535 square miles, or 20,822,494 acres. Territorially it is divided into 4 provinces Leinster, Munster, Ulster, and Connaught and 32 counties, the number of counties included in the different provinces being 12, 6, 9, and 5 respectively. These 32 counties are divided into 316 baronies, comprising 2532 parishes, which are further divided into townlands or ploughlands numbering about 60,760, with an average size of over 300 acres each. Table I. shows the area and distribution of land by provinces and counties in 1880. Geology. The central part of Ireland is occupied by a great undulating plain, whose highest elevation is 300 and average elevation about 200 feet. In the centre of the country, from Dublin Bay on the east to Galway Bay on the west, this plain stretches from shore to shore, but towards the south and north it is enclosed by an irregular semicircular belt of mountainous country. The surface of the plain is broken occasionally by isolated hills. Through out nearly the whole of its extent it rests on the Carboni ferous Limestone, and in several places there are remains of the Upper Carboniferous strata or Coal-measures, by which the Carboniferous Limestone was at one time overlaid, and which have been carried away during a vast period of denudation chiefly by the action of subaerial agents. The strata of limestone are nearly horizontal, except where they are contorted by local disturbances. In the central plain it is only occasionally that the limestone crops to the surface, as it is generally overlaid by boulder clay, the result of glacial action, by the middle sands and gravels formed on the bed of the shallow sea by which the plain was at one time occupied, or by the peat bogs resting on the beds of previous lakes. At one period the Carboni ferous beds must have extended widely beyond their present limits, and have formed the surface strata of the uplands to the north-west and south-east. In the north-western highlands of Sligo, Leitrim, and Fermanagh they still form a lofty table-land, which occasionally rises into peaks about 2000 feet in height. The mountain masses of Ireland are generally traversed by deep and narrow valleys running both north and south and east and west, and frequently giving rise to high and isolated peaks. The districts of Donegal and Derry in the north-west, and those of Galway and Mayo in the west, consist chiefly of metamorphosed Lower Silurian rocks, and are believed to form part of the same geological system as that of the Highlands of Scotland. Those of Donegal and Derry, lying between Donegal Bay and Lough Foyle, consist of granite, gneiss, and hornblendic and other schists, with crystalline limestones and quartzites. Their principal peaks are the isolated summit of Errigal (2466 feet) and Blue Stack (2219 feet). In West Galway and Mayo the rocks consist chiefly of quartzite, or of alternating beds of quartzite and granite or gneiss schist. They include the Twelve Pins of Connemara (2395 feet), Croagh Patrick on the shores of Clew Bay (2510 feet), the Nephin Beg mountains, and the Ox mountains. The range of hills between Killary Harbour and Lough Mask the highest summit of which, Muilrea, has an elevation of 2688 feet belongs to the Upper Silurian formation. The fact that these rocks do not share in the rnetamorphism of the Lower Silurian beus shows that the alteration must have taken place at some time between the Lower Silurian and Upper Silurian periods. Rocks of Cambrian age occur in &quot;VVexford, Wicklow, and Dublin. The principal elevations of these districts are formed of granite, and belong to an earlier epoch than