Supjily of Coal and Ironstone from the West of Scotland. 293 



are indispensably npcessary to all manufacturing and commercial pros- 

 perity, and the available abundance of these has been the foundation 

 of the great wealth and power which have placed and maintained Great 

 Britain at the head of all other nations. In whatever district a good 

 coal field is found, there also are to be seen wealthy and industrious 

 communities. Thus, the Staffordshire field produced Birmingham, 

 Wolverhampton, and numerous" other hives of industry principally 

 engaged in the manufacture of iron. The Lancashire field has main- 

 tained the wonderful manufacturing power of Manchester, and all the 

 towns surrounding it. The great Northumberland and Durham field 

 furnishes more than one-fourth of the whole produce of all the coal 

 fields of Great Britain, and not only supports a busy mauufacturing 

 population over its own surface, but supplies fuel for most of the 

 southern counties of England, and sends also large quantities to con- 

 tinental Europe. The Welsh field yields about a third of all the iron 

 produced in Great Britain, and throughout its hills and valleys the 

 unceasing blaze of the blast furnaces and ring of the forge hammer 

 give proof to the eye and the ear of a population busy in the produc- 

 tion of wealth. The Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, and Yorkshire 

 fields, and others of less extent, are also seats of England's great 

 manufacturing industry ; and when we come home to the fields of 

 Lanarkshire and Ayrshire, we recognize the source of Scotland's proud 

 and prosperous position. 



The city of Glasgow, where we are now met, had a certain measure 

 of prosperity in her commerce with America and the colonies even 

 before the wealth of the mineral field lying around her was fully 

 known and developed. But it is during the present century that, with 

 the development of her coal field, and the abundant supply of fuel 

 drawn therefrom, Glasgow has increased in manufacturing power, wealth, 

 and population, to its present gigantic dimensions and influence. A 

 continuance of the present abundant supply of cheap fuel is therefore a 

 matter of the utmost importance for the maintenance of her prosperity, 

 and for her future progress. Within the last sixty years, the produce 

 of iron from the mineral fields of this district has increased so enor- 

 mously, that it is now the most important trade of this city and neigh- 

 bourhood, and has constituted Lanarkshire one of the greatest seats of 

 tlie iron trade in Great Britain. 



In 1800 the anuual quantity of pig iron produced in Scotland was 

 about 8,000 tons ; in 1825 it had increased to about 30,000 tons; in 

 1815 it had reached 470,000 tons; and the make for the last year 

 (1859) was nearly 1,000,000 tons, or about one-third of the whole 

 quantity produced in Great Britain, 



