Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/266

 252 L A N L A N LANARK, a royal and parliamentary burgh, the chief town of the above county, is situated on a slight eminence near the Clyde, 32 miles south- west of Edinburgh, and 25 south-east of Glasgow. It consists principally of one main street, which is spacious and well-paved. The in dustries are hand-loom weaving and nail making. In the neighbourhood there are extensive oil-works. The county ! buildings, in the Grecian style, were erected in 1836, and j the assembly-rooms, erected in 1827, occupy the site of an , old Franciscan monastery. The population of the town in j 1371 was 5099, and in 1881 it was 4908. A parliament was held by Kenneth III. at Lanark in 978, and occasionally it was the residence of the Scottish kings. Its charter is said to have been bestowed by Alexander I. It was more than once the scene of the exploits of William Wallace. New Lanark, a manufacturing village situated on the Clyde about a mile distant, is famous from its connexion with the communistic projects of Robert Owen. &amp;gt;late LANCASHIRE, or COUNTY OF LANCASTER, a maritime V. county in the north-west of England, lies between 54 40 and 55 33 N. lat., and between 3 15 and 1 58 W. long. A detached portion in the north, known as Furness, is situated between Cumberland and Westmore land. The remainder of the county, separated from Furness by Morecambe Bay, is bounded N. by Westmore- lind, E. by Yorkshire, S. by Cheshire, and W. by the Irish Sea, which forms also the southern boundary of Furness. The outline of the county is irregular. Its greatest length is 7G miles ; south of the Ribble the average breadth is about 40 miles, while to the north it is only about 10 miles. The total area is 1,207,920 acres, or 1887 square miles. With the exception of a narrow tract of country along the s?uth coast, the Furness division consists of hilly moorlands, a continuation of the Cumberland mountains, intersected by deep valleys. The highest summits of this region are Coniston Old Man (2633 feet) and Ssathwaite Feils (2537 feet). A similar elevated dis trict, forming part of a mountainous chain stretching from the. Scottish border, runs along the whole eastern boundary of the main portion of the county, and to the south of the Kibble occupies more than half the area, stretching west nearly to Liverpool. The moorlands in the southern dis tricts are covered chiefly with heather. Towards the north the scenery is frequently picturesque and beautiful, the green rounded elevated ridges being separated by pleasant cultivated valleys variegated by woods and watered by rivers. None of the summits of the range within the boundaries of Lancashire attain an elevation of 2000 feet, the highest being Blackstone Edge (1323 feet), Pendle Hill (1831 feet), and Boalsworth Hill (1700 feet). Along the sea-coast from the Mersey to Lancaster there is a continuous plain occupied at one time by peat mosses, many of which have, however, been reclaimed. The largest i-iChat Moss between Liverpool and Manchester. In some instances these mosses have exhibited the phenomenon of a moving bog. A large district in the north belonging to the duchy of Lancaster was at one time occupied by forests, but these have wholly disappeared. The coast is very irregular in outline, the principal inlets being the estuaries of the Mersey and Ribble, Lancaster Bay, and Morecambe Bay. To the south of Furness, between Morecambe Bay and the estuary of the Duddon, there is a small group of islands, the largest of which is Walney, 9 miles long, and with a breadth varying from a quarter to three-quarters of a mile. The principal river is the Mersey, which divides the county from Cheshire, and flowing by Stockport and Warrington opens into a fine estuary before reaching the sea at Liverpool. It drains an area of 580 square miles, and receives on its north bank the Irwell and the Sankey. For large vessels it is navigable to Warrington, and for smaller vessels to Stnckport, the Irwell being navigable to Manchester. The Ribble, which rises in the mountains of the West Riding, forms for a few miles the boundary be tween Lancashire and Yorkshire, and then flows south-west to Preston, receiving the Hodder from the north and the Calder and Darwen from the south. The Wyre enters Morecambe Bay at Fleetwood. The Lune rises in West moreland, and falls into the sea at Lancaster Bay. The Winster separating Lancashireand Westmoreland, the Leven from Lake Windermere, the Crake from Lake Coniston, all flow south into Morecambe Bay ; and the Duddon forming the boundary of the county with Westmoreland enters the Irish Channel. Windermere, the largest and most beauti ful of English lakes, is partly included in the county. Some miles to the west and parallel with Windermere is Coniston Lake, 5 J miles long and 2 miles broad ; and between the two larger lakes is Esthwaite Water, 12 miles in length by half a mile in breadth. About the middle of last century the Sankey Canal, 10 miles long, the first in Britain, was constructed to bring coals from St Helens to Liverpool. Shortly afterwards the duke of Bridgewater projected the great canal, completed in 1761, from Manchester across the Irwell to Worsley. The Leeds and Liverpool Canal, begun in 1770, connects Liverpool and other important towns with Leeds by a circuitous route of 130 miles. The other principal canals are the Rochdale Canal, the Manchester Canal, between Manchester and Huddersfield, the Lancaster Canal, and the Ulverstone Canal. Geology and Minerals. The greater part of I urness is occupied by slaty Silurian rocks belonging to the mountain formations of Cumberland and Westmoreland. This is mingled occasionally with Carboniferous Limestone, and in the lower region along the coast there is an Old Red Sand stone district and also a very rich deposit of iron ore. To the north of the Lune the country is occupied with Carboni ferous Limestone. Near the sea are some low Old Red Sandstone cliffs, and the formation is also seen on the borders of Westmoreland, near Kirk by Lonsdale. South of the Lune the greater part of the higher ground is formed of Millstone Grit. Along the valley of the Mersey there is an extensive bed of New Red Sandstone, containing rock- salt, and the same formation occurs along the western boundaries of the county, but it is covered for the most part by the glacial drift deposits, which occupy nearly all the low ground, ani in some cases fill up the valleys between the mountains. The coal-field of Lancashire occupies an irregular area of 217 square miles lying between the Ribble and the Mersey, its length being about 30 miles and its average breadth about 7 miles. The field extends into Cheshire and North Wales, and is separated from the Yorkshire field by the Millstone Grit which crops out beneath the Coal-measures. To the south of the Lune, near Ingleton, there is also a small coal-field which extends into Yorkshire. The upper Coal-measures consist chiefly of shales, sandstones, and limestones, with a bed of blackband ironstone. The middle measures contain a considerable variety of workable seams, the lowest being very valuable, and there is an important mine of cannel coal. The lower measure consists of flags, shales, and thin seams of coal, with gannister floors and roofs of slate. This coal is extensively mined in the mountain districts to the north east of the bed. The coal district is traversed by immense dislocations which divide the field into several belts. Nearly all the marine fossils obtained are molluscs allied to Anthracosia, with the exception of a remarkable series obtained on the banks of the Tame near Ashton-under- Lyne. The available coal supply of Lancashire is estimated at 5,165,000,000 tons. The amount raised in 1852 was 8,225,000 tons ; in 1871 it was 13,851,000 tons, but for several years it