1119 



..VT1I 



HI. AC I, 



UH 



found.itinn, having been built and ei:^ -10 the 



Nunnan Conquest. This structure waa takiii down in 1810 and 

 rebuilt >i|H>u the site of the old Orammar school ; and in 1831, a few 

 yeart after it was finished, the new edifice was partially destroyed by 

 an accidental fire : it is again restored, and is much admired for its 

 architectural beauty. About 12 new churches hare been erected in the 

 parish during the last thirty years, in which considerable assistance 

 was given by the Commissioners for building New Churches, the 

 Diocesan Society for the same object, and by other public bodies. 

 The Independent*, Baptists, Wesleyan, Primitive, and Association 

 Methodists, United Presbyterians, Quakers, Swedenborgians, and 

 Roman Catholics hare places of worship. 



The Free Grammar school, founded and endowed by Queen 

 Kliz.il>cth. has 50 governors, who are incorporated for the manage- 

 ment of the school, an income from endowment of 12W. a year, a char- 

 ter which describes the school as "free to all the world," and a master, 

 but in 1851 there were no scholar?. The school-house is a neat stone 

 I. nil. ling in the Elizabethan style, erected about thirty years since. 

 A Charity school for girls, founded by a benevolent individual of the 

 name of Leyland, provides clothing and instruction for 90 girls. The 

 I Blackburn National and Sunday school Society has a consider- 

 able number of schools under its superintendence. There are various 

 other elementary schools. The Independent academy at Blackburn 

 for the education of young men for the ministry has been removed, 

 and in now incorporated with the Lancashire Independent college at 

 Withiugton, near Manchester. There are in Blackburn a mechanics 

 institute, a large subscription library, a small theatre, and a few 

 other buildings devoted to amusements. A cloth-hall, situated on 

 one side of Fleming Square, is appropriated to the fairs of woollen 

 cloth, which take place at stated times of the year. Among the older 

 buildings of the town and its environs the most remarkable are the 

 old Manor House, called Audley Hall, and an ancient mansion known 

 as Old Samlesbury Hull. 



The town of Blackburn depends entirely on trade for its prosperity. 

 As far back as 1050 it produced the 'Blackburn checks,' a species of 

 cloth consisting of a linen warp and cotton woof, one or both of 

 which being dyed in the thread gave to the piece when woven a 

 striped or checked appearance. This fabric was afterwards super- 

 seded by another, the 'Blackburn grays,' so called because the 

 materials of which it was composed were not dyed but sent to the 

 printers unbleached, or as it is technically described, in the gray 

 state, in order to have the patterns stamped upon them. For a long 

 period the chief article manufactured here was calicoes, for which the 

 Blackburn weavers were celebrated. This branch of trade is now 

 transferred to the power looms, and the remnant of hand-loom 

 wearers an chiefly employed in making low-priced muMin-*. !Ym 

 statistics collected in 18SO it appears that there were then from 50,000 

 to 60,000 pieces of cotton goods manufactured each week in Block- 

 burn and its vicinity, on which above 10,000 persons were employed. 

 The annual value of the goods produced was supposed to exceed 

 2,000,0002. About 100,000 spindles were employed in cotton spin- 

 nine, producing about 100,000 pounds of yarn weekly, at 40 hanks to 

 the pound. 



The commerce of Blackburn has every advantage of water carriage 

 by means of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, which passes the outskirts 

 of the town, opening to the inhabitants a direct communication 

 between the eastern and western seas. Coal and lime are abundant 

 in the vicinity. Railways afford great accommodation to Blackburn, 

 connecting it on the east with Burnley and the West Hiding, on the 

 west with Preston and Liverpool, and on the south with Itolton and 

 Manchester. The East Lancashire and the Bolton and Clitheroe 

 railway companies hare stations in the town. A county court is 

 held in Blackburn. Wednesday and Saturday are the market-days ; 

 fort nightly fairs for cattle are held from the beginning of Kt-bnmry 

 till Michaelmas ; and annual faira for cattle, Yorkshire cloths, Ac., 

 ar- held on May 12th and October 17th. 



BLACKHEATH. (K 



Ill.Ai'KISTiiN. [Sot,- ACSTBALIA.] 



I.I \- KNKSS, Mnlithgowshire, Scotland, a sea-side village in tlic 

 parish of Carriden, on the right bank of the Forth, in 66 1 N. lat, 

 8* 80' W. long., about 18 miles W. from Edinburgh. This place 

 appears to hare been a Roman station ; a stone with an eagle on it 

 and a Vespasian of gold hare been found here, with axes and other 

 instruments and several rase*, evidently Roman. At one time. this 

 was the port of Linlithgow and had a good trade, but a few I .ricks 

 and tiles are now the only shipment*, and sonic linn- :md manure the 

 only articles of import The harbour is in ruins. Blacknc*" 

 which stands on the point of a small peninsula projecting from the 

 village into the Frith of Forth, was the principal state prison in 

 Scotland during the reign of James VI. At the Union this was one 

 of the four fort* agreed to be kept up in Scotland, but the <l 

 consist merely of a wall with a few port-holes and two irregular lofty 



tWiT. 



BLACKPOOL) I/ancashirr, a village in the township of I 

 with Warbreck, |rish of Bixpham and hundred of Amounderness, is 

 situated on the coast between the (estuaries of the rivers Kibble and 

 Wyre, in 63' 40' N. lat, 8" 8' W. long., 27 miles S.S.W. from Un- 

 caster, 235 miles N.W. by N. from London by road, and 21 OJ miles 



v. BlRckpool contained in 1>.M a popu- 

 lation .-: ]'' '! ; th. number, from the season of the year at which 

 'isns was taken, in. hul. .1 fw visitors for sea-bathing: the 

 number of visitors present at one time in the bathing season varies 

 from 2000 to 6000. The living is a perpetual curacy in the arch- 

 deaconry of Lancaster and diocese of Manchester. 



The name of Blackpool is derived from a dark peaty-coloured 

 stream, or ' pul,' at the south end of the village. Its situation gives it 

 many advantages over other watering-places along the same coast. Its 

 elevation above the sea at low In clear weather 



the promontory of Furness, the Cumberland Hilln, and the mountains 

 of North Wales are distinctly visible, and at times the Isle of Man 

 may be seen. Blackpool is recommended to visitors by the fine hard 

 sands and by the healthy bracing air, which however is too ki 

 persons labouring under some complaints. Many of the ' 

 inhabitants attain a great age. A range of lofty houses about a mile 

 in length faces the sea. There are several large hotels, some of which 

 commanding positions near the water side. A broad terrace 

 walk used as a promenade runs along the edge of a steep bank whii-h 

 keeps off the tide. A newa-room and a library are kept open during 

 the bathing season. The church was erected in 1V21 : it accom- 

 modates about 1000 persons. The Wesleyan Methodists and 

 Independents have places of worship. There are National schools 

 for boys and girls. The Preston and Wyre railway has a handsome 

 station in the village. No manufacture is carried on in Blackpool ; 

 but those persona who are not engaged in attending upon visitors 

 find employment in the fishing-boats or in the fields. 



The heights north of Blackpool are comjKJsed of clay and marl. 

 Fragments of these cliffs which fall upon the beach are in process of 

 time, by the action of the air and salt water, converted into a kind of 

 pudding-stone, which is used by farmers and others in the con- 

 struction of gate-posts and for other similar purposes. The sea has 

 made considerable encroachments on the clay cliffs to the northward 

 of the village. A large atone on the sands above half a mile from the 

 shore, called Penny Stone, is said to mark the spot where a public- 

 house once stood. 



i K ROD. [LANCASHIRK.] 



BLACK SEA (Kara Deniz in Turkish, Tchcriago MorS in Russian, 

 Schwaraes Meer in German) is said to have received its name from tin- 

 Turks, who, being accustomed only to the navigation of the Archi- 

 pelago, where the numerous islands and their convenient ports offered 

 many places of refuge in case of danger, found the traversing of such 

 an ojjpu expanse of water, which is sometimes subject to heavy storms, 

 very perilous, and accordingly they expressed their fears by the epithet 

 ' black.' The original name of the sea seems to have I 

 which the Greeks disliking, as it resembled a word in their language 

 (ajjifoj) that meant 'inhospitable,' changed to Ea.iinf (*; 

 ' hospitable.' The alteration was dictated by some such supers 

 notion probably, as made the Romans change Maleventuin into Bene- 

 ventum ; but the common explanation is that the first name was 

 expressive of the dangers encountered by the early Greek navigators 

 from the stormy navigation of the sea and from the barbarous tribes 

 that dwelt on ite shores, and that afterwards, when tin- art of naviga- 

 tion had been improved, anil they had succeeded in establishing 

 numerous colonies on its shores, they changed it* name to El 

 Thin unsatisfactory explanation of the name, like many others of the 

 kind, must be attributed to the fondness of the Greeks forti. 

 every foreign name into one that bad a resemblance to some term in 

 their own language, and consequently thus became significant. It i 

 highly probable that the original name was descriptive in some 

 primitive tongue unintelligible to the Greeks; the first part i.f the 

 word contains a very wide-spread and rery ancient root, exprex- 

 'water.' The Greeks sometimes called this sea simply Pontus, or 

 :;. M . 



The Block Sea divides the southern provinces of Russia from 

 Anatolia, or Asia Minor, anil extends in length, c;i ...Lout 



iles, from the head of the Bay of Burgaz in Humili 

 month of the Choruk-Su, near Batum on the Asiatic shore, between 

 41 and 46" 40' N. lat, 28 and 41 30' E. long. Its greatest breadth 

 is on the west, between the rcstuary of tl. ,nd the mouth of 



the Sakariyeh, 880 miles ; in the middle, where it is narrowed by the 

 projecting peninsula of the Crimea, the narrowest port, l : 

 capes Aia and Kerampc, hardly exceeds 160 miles, but farther east, 

 between the mouth of the Ycshil ami the southern end of the Strait 

 of Venikale, the width increases to 260 miles; it then rapidly 

 diminishes, and mi the meridian of Trcl,i/.ond near its eastern 

 extremity, the distance between that city and tin; Circassian shore is 

 only about 170 miles. The area covered by the Block Sa is about 

 170,000 square miles (not including the !"). It is smaller 



than the North Sea and only a little larger in area than the 

 Baltic. 



The lilnek Sea is connected with the Sea rf 

 Yenikale (called also the Strait of Knfla and the Strait of K. 

 and with the Ar.hipelago and the Me.! porus, 



:, and the Dai-dandle*. I',y the first it r. 

 the ili-iinagc of o part of Southern Russia, and by the set-on. 1 it 

 olf the surplus waters which are not lost by evaporation. 



With the exception of the Hoang-Hai (or Yellow Sea) tl 



