Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 17.djvu/520

504 the great East Anglian plain, while the Fen country, the Somersetshire levels, and Holderness consist mainly of alluvium. Thus we see that, little as the mediæval farmer suspected it, the distribution of his corn-fields and pasture-lands, his orchards and sheep-walks, nay, even of the royal forests and the barren heaths, was finally dependent upon underlying geological conditions.

Even in mediæval and agricultural England, however, certain particular spots acquired a special industrial character from the nature of the subjacent strata. The occurrence of fuller's earth in the Stroud Valley and near Bath and Bradford gave rise to the west country cloth-trade. Salt was pumped from several inland wells in the Trias at Droitwich in Worcestershire, at Northwich, Sandbach, Middlewich, and Nantwich in Cheshire, and at Shirleywich in Staffordshire. The bays in which sea-water had been evaporated to yield salt had been known as "wyches," and the same word was applied to the new wychhouses of the interior. Clay suitable for potteries was found in many places, and naturally produced a small trade. But mines were little worked, and building-stone, of which more must be said hereafter, formed almost the only other geological differentiating factor between various districts.

The change to the modern industrial distribution is far too large a subject to be treated otherwise than quite cursorily here; but a few traits of the change may perhaps be sketched with a rapid pen. In Britain mineral wealth is almost universally connected with the primary formations. Our coal more especially has formed the great central pivot upon which turns the whole manufacturing and commercial system of the country. As soon, therefore, as the use of steam began to revolutionize our industrial world, the primary tracts of England, Wales, and Scotland, rose to the highest importance. The population of Britain suddenly found itself turned back upon the Keltic and coal-bearing regions. A slight classification of the various great towns of modern Britain according to the coal-fields in which they stand, or on which they depend, will serve to show the vastness of the revolution.

In or around the Scottish coal-field stand Glasgow, Paisley, and Greenock. Above the Tyne colliery region are Newcastle, North Shields, and Durham, while close at hand lie Sunderland, Stockton, Darlington, Middlesborough, and the Cleveland iron district. The Lancashire field incloses Manchester, Blackburn, Wigan, Bolton, St. Helens, Burnley, Middleton, Oldham, Rochdale, and Ashton, with Liverpool for its port, and Preston and Macclesfield upon its outskirts. An outlier contains Stoke-upon-Trent and Newcastle-under-Lyne. The West Riding coal-field includes Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield, Barnsley, Sheffield, and Chesterfield, while Huddersfield, Nottingham, and Derby hang upon its border, and Hull supplies it with an eastward outlet. The Staffordshire tract comprises Wolverhampton, Bilston,