294 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Other important beds are southwest of Lyons at St. Etienne, and north- 

 west of Lyons near Creuzot. Some anthracite is found in the Alps; 

 some lignite near Marseilles. 



The manufactures of France depend more largely upon skill and 

 artistic ability, and less upon cheap coal and raw materials, than do 

 those of England or Germany. The use of the 'factory system' secures 

 the advantage of cheap motive power and the economy of machines, but 

 it does not so much further the utilization of skill. This accounts, in 

 part, for the persistence of household industries in France. The dis- 

 tribution of industrial skill depends upon the location of trade centers, 

 where the traditions of craft have been handed down from generation 

 to generation of workers. Here and there one finds an industry that 

 grew up under royal patronage, often carried on for a time, as an exotic 

 by Italian workmen, as was the case with the silk manufactures of 

 Lyons. The industries of many towns are the survivals of those 

 founded when the place was one of the privileged cities in which the 

 Protestants were allowed to live and carry on trade. In other places 

 industries are still carried on where they were attracted by mediaeval 

 church fairs, or royal courts, or by water powers no longer utilized, or 

 harbors now silted up. Skill is a relatively immobile economic factor. 

 The supplies of raw silk are either imported at or grown close to Mar- 

 seilles, but to be manufactured they must be taken as far north as 

 Lyons to secure a healthy and temperate climate. The manufacture 

 of woolens is located at five points in France, each being midway be- 

 tween sheep-raising highlands and the populated valleys where markets 

 are found. The supplies of raw cotton come chiefly from America, and 

 are landed at Le Havre. Cotton manufacturing requires exactly such 

 a moist climate as there prevails. It is, therefore, carried on in the 

 lower valley of the Seine, or, at most, is removed but a short distance 

 to the east to secure coal and a labor market. The linen manufactories 

 are naturally in a flax-growing country, and center at Amiens and 

 Lille. The Liverpool of France is Le Havre. Its Birmingham is St. 

 Etienne. The French Manchester is said to be Montlucon. The bank 

 center and city of diversified industries, corresponding to London, is 

 Paris. There a vast variety of art goods, conveniences and luxuries, 

 such as Gobelin's tapestry and articles de vertu, collectively known to 

 the trade as 'Articles of Paris,' are manufactured. 



The commercial routes of France have been remarkably distinct 

 from the earliest historical times. The railways of France have opened 

 fewer new arteries of trade, and have destroyed less of the old equili- 

 brium of industry than it has been their fate to do in most other coun- 

 tries. The distribution of large cities serves well to show where these 

 commercial highways are located. The southern trade moves from 

 Marseilles to the Ehone Valley, and across the plains to Paris, or it 



