142 History of Inland Transport 



Severn had mainly been, in order to secure the convenience 

 of river transport. 



The chief reason why the bleak and barren moorlands of the 

 north were preferred to the fair and fertile plains of the south 

 for the further expansion of these great national industries 

 was that, in the days when the steam-engine of James Watt 

 was as yet far off, the heavier rainfall in the English Highlands 

 of the north and north-west, together with the more numerous 

 streams pouring down mountain sides both of greater height 

 and of greater extent than in the south, gave to the cloth- 

 makers, not only the abundant water supply they wanted, but, 

 also, the particular kind of motive power, through the use 

 of water-wheels, on which they then mainly relied for the 

 working of their machinery. 



It was in the interests of this power derived from falling 

 water that the textile industries first migrated from the eastern 

 counties where the streams flow but slowly, and from 

 comparatively slight elevations to the western counties, 

 where there are streams coming from hills of from 800 to 

 1000 feet in height. These, for a time, answered better the 

 desired purpose, though only to be more or less discarded, in 

 turn, for northern or north-western streams which, with a 

 greater rainfall, had their rise on heights of from 1500 to 2000 

 feet, and were so numerous that almost every one of the 

 " small " manufacturers who set up business for himself on the 

 otherwise cheerless slope of a Yorkshire hill-side could have a 

 brook, a rivulet, or a mountain torrent of his own, or, at least, 

 make abundant use of one before it passed on to serve the 

 purposes of his neighbour. 



In alluding to the woollen trade as affected by these con- 

 ditions, Dr Aikin remarks in his " Description of the Country 

 from Thirty to Forty Miles round Manchester " (1795), " It 

 would seem as if a hilly country was particularly adapted 

 to it, since it almost ceases where Yorkshire descends into 

 the plain " ; though the position has, of course, been entirely 

 changed by the general resort to steam in preference to water 

 power. 



Other industries, besides those relating to textiles, whether 

 woollen or, at a later period, cotton, took advantage of the 

 same favourable conditions, as shown in the case of Sheffield, 

 where the earliest of the cutlers who were to make Hallamshire 



