THE PROVINCIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
CXX.-LANCASHIRE :-GEOGRAPHY.
THE county of Lancaster is one of the most irregular in shape of the counties of England. It may be described in a general manner as consisting of four blocks of territory. One, containing the southern districts, is an oblong or irregular paral- lelogram stretching from east to west, between the Mersey and the Ribble, with a gentle inclination from north to south on the northern frontier. The second block consists of soother oblong, projecting into the Irish Sea, with the Ribble for its southern limit (which, however, only covers part of the northern frontier of the southern block). The third block is a narrower and very irregular oblong stretching from south to north, and completing that portion of the eastern boundary of the Irish Sea which belongs to Lancashire. The fourth block, which is separated from the rest of the county by an intervening part of Westmoreland, lies to the north-west of the third block, and running from south to north, and protruding in its western exremnity into the Irish Sea, forms the northern and part of the western boundary of a great recessed bay or sound, of which the eastern and southern boundaries are made by the third and second blocks. The history of Lancashire is as disjointed as its geographical distribution ; these blocks of territory had for some time a separate history, since we have seen in Domesday Survey there was no separate county of Lancaster, the districts afterwards included in that general title being then divided between the adjacent counties.
The western frontier of Lancashire is almost entirely the Irish Sea, the only exception being the extreme northern portion, which is overlapped on the west by Cumberland. This last county and Westmoreland are its northern neighbours ; Yorkshire abuts on its very irregular eastern boundary, and is the immediate neighbour to the north of the eastern districts of the first block (between the Mersey and the Ribble) ; while the southern districts of Lancashire rest on the county of Chester, to which they once belonged. The greatest length of the county (not including the isolated block of Furness to the north-west) is, from " Counties' Stone," at the junction of the three counties of York, Westmoreland, and Lan- caster, to the bank of the Mersey, south of Prescot, about 64 miles ; the greatest breadth is, from Redmar's [lead, east of Rochdale, to
Formby Point, on the Irish Channel, nearly 45 miles. The greatest length of Furness is, from the neighbourhood of Ambleside, at the head of Windermere, to Rampside, at the western extremity of Morecambe Bay. 24 or 25 miles ; the greatest breadth, from the Dliddon to the Muster, about 13 miles. The long narrow island of IValney and some smaller ones are at the southern extremity of this detached portion. The area of the whole county is 11,905 square miles, or 1,219,221 acres, " of which about 850,000 are supposed to be arable, meadow, and pasture. The population, which in 1841 was 1,667,051, was, in 1851, 2,031,236, and in 1861, 2,465,366.
" The hundred of Furness is generally rugged and mountainous, and the east parts of the county, along the Yorkshire border, are occupied by portions of or offsets front the great central or inner range of English mountains, but with these exceptions the country is generally flat ; and in the south part of it an extensive plain stretches from Formby Point and Liverpool on the west to Oldham on the east."
Geologically, Lancashire is divided between the new red sand- stone or red marl ; the coal-measures, cropping out from under the red marl, and probably extending westward under the sea ; the millstone-grit ; the carboniferous or mountain limestone ; the old red sandstone, and the Lower Silurian slate-rocks. The new red sandstone (in which is deposited the rock-salt) occupies the valley of the Mersey, extending several miles inland, especially in the neighbourhood of Manchester, alarge part of the western side of the county up to the valley of the Lune, at Lancaster, and part of Lower Furness, forming its southern extremity. Near the coast, and to the west of a line from Liverpool by Ormskirk to Preston, it is covered with moss or peat, and front Preston by Garstang to Lancaster by the clays, marls, and peat-mosses of time Fylde district, the peat-mosses containing the relics of ancient forests. A great part of the peat district is cultivated. The coal-field of South Lancashire (the basis of its manufacturing prosperity) lies between the Ribble and the Mersey, its eastern boundary being just within the county, where the high land, composed of millstone- grit, crops up from under the coal-measures, and divides the county from Yorkshire. Another but small coal-field extends east of Lancaster into Yorkshire. In the space between these two coal-fields the red marl rests on time millstone-grit, which also composes the heights separating the basins of the Mersey and the Ribble, the valleys of the Dwell and the loch, and the valleys of the Ribble and the Lune. The district north of the Lune, and a small district between Hornby and Lancaster, south of that river, are chiefly composed of the mountain limestone, lying on the old red sandstone which appears on the border of the county, near Kirkby-Lonsdale. The slate rocks occur in Furness, in the central part of which we have the mountain-limestone. Besides coal, the principal mineral of the county, lead, is obtained from the millstone-grit and mountain-limestone district ; some copper is found in the high grounds of Furness and ironstone in its lower districts. Freestone is quarried near Lancaster.
The principal elevations in the county are Old Man, in Coniston Fells (2,577 feet) ; another peak near it, of about the same height ; Pendle Hill, near Clitheroe (1,803 feet) ; Bleasdale Forest, on the east border near Garstang (1,709 feet) ; Boulworth Hill, near Burnley (1,689 feet) ; and Rivington Moor, near Bolton (1,545 feet). The extensive level tract between the mouth of the Ribble and the Wire is called the Fylde country. There are four principal rivers, the Lune in the north, the Wire and the Ribble in the centre, and the Mersey in the south, all of which flowing from the north-east to south- west, expand at their mouths into estuaries or basins, piercing the coast-line on the west of the county. The Lune or Loyne, whose watershed is the northern slope of Langdale Fells, in West- moreland, entering the county near Kirkby-Lonsdale, expands into an estuary from Lancaster, up to which town it is navigable for ships of small burden, its course in Lancashire being about 20 miles out of a total course of 48 miles. Its tributaries are the Greta and the 1Venning. The Wire rises in the Yorkshire border moorlands east of Lancaster, and flows by Garstang, to a little to the north-east of Pouiton, where its deep estuary changes its course to the north, and ultimately forms a wide basin with a narrow mouth at its northern extremity. At its mouth a harbour has been formed, and the town of Fleetwood built. Its total course is about 28 miles. The Ribble rises in the hilly district of Yorkshire, a little east of Whernside, and after bisecting the county of Lancaster separates it from Yorkshire for some miles, and then winds through the county to Preston, below which it widens into a shallow estuary.
With the tide small vessels can go up to near Preston. Its tri- butaries are the Hodder and the Caller. The Mersey rises
in Yorkshire from different sources, which together form the Thame or Tame, which then flows through Yorkshire, along the borders of Lancashire and Cheshire, to Stockport, where it is joined by the Goyt, assumes the name of Mersey, and becomes navigable. Its principal tributary in Lancashire is the Irwell, which flows from the moors between Rochdale and Burnley to Manchester, where it becomes navigable, is joined by the Irk and the lfedlock, and, after a total course of about forty miles, falls into the Mersey. The total course of the Theme and Mersey, including the estuary, is nearly seventy miles. The valleys of the Lune and Ribble are extremely beautiful. There are also several smaller streams in the county, and two considerable lakes,— Winandermere or TVindennere and Coniston Water, both in Furness. The former is about eleven miles long from north to south, with a breadth of from half a mile to a mile, and at one part is not above 500 yards over. Its greatest depth is rather more than 200 feet. Its southern portion only lies within Lancashire, the rest belonging to Westmoreland. Its waters are discharged by the Leven, which flows from its southern extremity into Morecambe Bay. It receives the waters of a small Lancashire lake on its west, called Esthwaite Water. Its waters are very clear, and in it are several small islands. Coniston or Thurston Water is nearly six miles long from north to south, with a breadth never exceed- ing three-quarters of a mile, and a greatest depth of about 240 feet. It discharges its waters into the estuary of the Leven. There are also some shallow lakes or morasses along the western coast of the county. We need not dwell on the picturesque beauties of the lake district of Lancashire, which is well known to all tourists. The county is also supplied with ample water-com- munication by canals, as well as with land communication by railways.
Excepting the clay cliffs (rising to above 100 feet and extend- ing for three miles), near Blackpool, the sea-coast is generally flat, " with a sweeping, rounded outline," and broad sands. The great sheet of sea-water, to which we have already alluded, which lies immediately to the south of the north-western part of the county (Furness), is divided into two bays—Morecambe to the north and Lancaster on the south—by a tongue of low land projecting near the mouth of the Lune. This sheet of water is shallow, except in the channels formed by the currents of the rivers, and there is said to be a practicable, though dangerous, roadway between Lancaster and Furness over the sands at low tide. Walney Island, off the southern extremity of Furness, extends (north-west to south-east) about eight miles, with a width never greater than a mile. It is so low as to have been more than once nearly inundated by the sea.
" Sandy loam and sand are the prevailing soils in the low districts of the county, in which, however, there are considerable mosses. Peat-soil prevails in the mosses. There is a great want of drainage. The climate is mild and healthy, but more humid than that of any county in England." Lancashire is the great potato district of England ; the county produces much more grass than corn ; grazing is much attended to, large quantities of hay are produced, and there is a good deal of dairying. This county has the credit of being the original seat of the long-horned breed of cattle, but they are now seldom met with here. "There are some large estates, but property is notwithstanding a good deal subdivided. Tillage farms are, for the most part, rather small," and generally held only on seven-years leases, a term too short for extensive improvements. " The farm buildings are generally good."
Here, as in Cheshire, the manufacturing and agricultural or landed interests breast each other, and the result is a very mixed social condition ; but the manufacturing has a greater predomi- nance than in the sister county of Chester, while Liverpool and Birkenhead add a third element not less important,—the shipping and merchant interest. The former town once also supplied another social ingredient in the West India connection, and although this interest has now fallen from its high estate, its tradi- tions, and the spirit which it once infused, still exercise consider- able influence in one part of the county, and contribute to sever it socially from the industrial influences of the manufacturing districts, of which Manchester is the recognized capital, and whose staple is cotton. The rapid rise of the manufacturing prosperity of Lan- cashire, and its recent prostration and continued depression, under the effects and results of the Civil War in the United States of America, are too well-known facts to need additional comment. The recent depression of the manufacturing interest has, no doubt contributed to the reaction in a Conservative direction which the political faith of the country has lately manifested, independently of that religious animus originating in the presence on its soil of a considerable Roman-Catholic Irish population, which was roused by the character of the special
proposal of Mr. Gladstone's Government. Lancashire is as varied in its religions as in its social elements. Here the old Roman Catholic families still make their social influence felt, and here Protestant Dissent in all its forms has grown up under the foster.. ing care of the manufacturing towns, and has, to some extent, filled the place of the Presbyterian platform of Church government once dominant in the county, and of the Nonconformist interest, which was its successor under the later Stuarts and the earlier Hanoverian Kings.
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