LANCASHIEE. 265 



whicli supplies a profitable cargo to outward-bound merchantmen, and in this 

 manner the miners of Cheshire contribute largely to the prosperity of the great 

 port of the Mersey. Most of this salt, which is cut into huge quadrangular blocks, 

 is sent to India, Russia, and the United States. The salt mines of Cheshire may 

 be less famous than those of Wieliczka in Galicia, or of Hallein and Hallstatt in 

 Austria, but commercially they are certainly of far greater importance. 



Crewe, to the east of Nantwich, has grown from an agricultural village into a 

 populous hive of industry since the establishment of the locomotive factories of 

 the London and North-Western Railway Company. There are, besides these, iron 

 and Bessemer steel works. 



Sandhach, Congleton, Macclesfield, and BolUngton, to the north-east of Crewe, 

 and at the foot of the picturesque range of heights which stretches along the 

 eastern border of the county, are the centres of a manufacturing district, in which 

 silk spinning and weaving are the principal branches of industry carried on. 

 Macclesfield, the most important of these towns, engages also in the velvet and 

 cotton trade, and near it are coal mines and quarries. 



A second manufacturing district of even greater importance occupies the north- 

 eastern portion of the county, extending down the picturesque valley of the 

 Mersey, almost from its origin in the moorlands of Yorkshire to within a few 

 miles of its junction -with the Irwell. Cotton is king in this district, the natural 

 head-quarters of which are at Manchester. Stockport is the great cotton town of 

 Cheshire. It occupies a beautiful site on botb banks of the Mersey, here spanned 

 by a fine viaduct, and, in addition to cotton stuffs; produces felt hats. Higher up 

 on the Mersey are 3yde, one of the most prosperous of these cotton towns, 

 Diiku) field, and StaJijhridge, which, in addition to cotton-mills, have important 

 machine works, and manufacture nails and rivets. Bredhury and Mottram are the 

 principal towns in the Longdondale, which joins the Mersey above Stockport. 

 The hills along its sides j'ield coal and iron. 



Descending the Mersej^ we pass Sale, a small manufacturing town, and, 

 turning away from the river, reach. Altringham, or Altrinchani, a clean and cheerful 

 town, with a few flax-mills, close to Bowden Downs and the beautiful park of 

 Dunham Ma?sey. 



Lymm, near the confluence of the Bollin with the Mersey, and Knuts^ford, half- 

 way between the Bollin and the Weaver, are prosperous market towns. 



Lancashire naturally falls into three parts, of which, the first lies between the 

 Mersey and the Kibble, and is the great seat of the cotton industry of the British 

 Islands ; the second stretches to the north of the Babble, and is mainly agricultural ; 

 whilst the third includes tbe hundred of Furness, a detached part of the county 

 lying beyond Morecambe Bay, which has recently attained considerable importance 

 on account of its iron mines and furnaces. The central and eastern portions of 

 Southern Lancashire are occupied by hilly moorlands,* which throw off" a branch 

 in the direction of Liverpool, and thus separate the plain of the Mersey, with its 

 mosses, from the western maritime plain, which near the coast merges into 



* Pendle Hill, their culminating point, attains a height of 1,816 feet. 

 320 



