LANCASHIEE. 



267 



The coast of Lancashire, though much indented by arms of the sea, is 

 singularly deficient in good harbours, and even the approaches to the Mersey are 

 much obstructed by sand-banks. Morecambe Bay, which forms so inviting 

 a feature on a map, is also choked with sand-banks, and when the tide is out it is 

 possible to cross almost dry shod. 



Lancashire is most essentially a manufacturing and mining county, its agri- 

 culture being quite of secondary importance. An extensive system of canals 

 places its principal centres of population in communication with each other, 

 and railways intersect it in ever}' direction. 



There is not, probably, a river in the world which sets in motion the wheels 

 of so many mills, and carries on its back so many vessels, as does the Mersey ; 

 and yet this river drains only a small basin, and its volume does not exceed 

 1,400 cubic feet a second. But within this basin lies Manchester, the great seat of 



Fig. 132. — Manchester and Environs. 

 Scale 1 : 375,000. 



W.of G. e- 30 



5 Miles. 



the cotton trade, and its mouth is guarded by Liverpool, the commercial port of the 

 most important manufacturing region in the world. 



Manchestef and Salford are built upon the black and dye-stained waters of the 

 Irwell, Irk, and Medlock, into which numerous factories discharge their refuse, 

 but which the corporations of these two towns have at last determined to cleanse 

 and convert into limpid streams. The volume of water brought down from the 

 moorlands by these rivulets is not very great, but it sufiSces to fill a dock crowded 

 with barges. It has been proposed by engineers to make Manchester a maritime 

 port by converting the Mersey and its tributary Irwell into a ship canal, up 

 which the tide would ascend as far as the present dock. The construction of 

 such a canal, which would have a length of 33 miles, a width of 220 and a depth 

 of 20 feet, it is a'ssumed, would require an expenditure of close upon four millions. 

 If this scheme should ever be realised, Manchester will have no longercause to 

 envy Glasgow, its Scotch rival. For the present the metropolis of the cotton 



