408 BELGIUM. 



indispensable now to the manufactories of the town, has been worked around Liège 

 for sevei'al centuries. Fire-arms are the principal article manufactured at Liège, 

 the armourers for the most part working at their own homes. There are also a 

 Government cannon foundry and a small-arms factory. The largest industrial 

 establishment of Belgium, and one of the most important in the world, was founded 

 in 1817, by John Cockerill and King William of the Netherlands, at Seraing (24,315 

 inhabitants), a town a few miles above Liège. It employs thousands of miners, 

 forgemen, and other artisans, and since 1822 it has turned out several thousand 

 steam-engines. In its steel works as many as 365 tons of steel rails can be rolled 

 in a single day. Val St. Lambert, higher up on the Meuse, has important 

 glass works ; Jcmcppe (6,000 inhabitants) lies opposite to Seraing, of which it is 

 virtually a suburb ; Ougrée (7,450 inhabitants), supposed to be a Hungarian 

 (Ugrian) colony, lies closer to Liège, and has iron works ; Grivegnée (6,950 

 inhabitants), to the south of the city, has blast furnaces; whilst Chênée, at the 

 confluence of the Ourthe and Vesdre, is the seat of the zinc works of the Company 

 Yieille-Montagne. Ans (5,400 inhabitants), in the west, is a town of coal miners. 

 Including its suburbs and the towns situated within a radius of 6 miles, Liège has 

 no less than 175,000 inhabitants. 



The sterile soil and absence of ready means of communication have prevented 

 the growth of towns in the valley of the Upper Ourthe and of its tributary, the 

 Amblève. Stavelot (4,070 inhabitants), close to the German frontier, is the only 

 important centre of population in that part of the country, and until the middle 

 of the last century it M'as the capital of an independent principality. The valley 

 of the Yesdre, through which leads the road from Liège to Aix-la-Chapelle, is more 

 highly favoui^ed by nature than that of the Amblève, and abounds in factories. 

 Limhurg (2,060 inhabitants), historically its most important town, now, however, 

 lies in ruins. It was a powerful place formerly, but never recovered after its two- 

 fold destruction by the armies of Louis XIY. in 1075 and 1701. The actual town 

 ne&tles at the foot of the old feudal castle. 



The small river Gileppe, which rises in the woods to the south of Limburg, 

 and flows through a picturesque valley, has recently been pent vip by a dam, 

 155 feet in heig-ht and 770 feet lonff. The lake reservoir thus formed holds 424 

 milliards of cubic feet, and whilst preventing floods in winter, it supplies the 

 factory towns in the valley of the Yesdre throughovit the summer with the water 

 they need. The most important of these towns are Verriers (37,828 inhabitants), 

 Bison (11,432 inhabitants), and Ensival (5,450 inhabitants). Cloth has been 

 manufactured here since the twelfth century, but Yerviers only rose into impor- 

 tance after the industrial ruin of Flanders had been accomplished ; that is, about 

 the middle of the eighteenth century. Yerviez's manufactures cloth, flannel, 

 cashmere, fancy articles, and woollen stuffs, for the most part exported to 

 England. Italy and the East are supplied with " array cloth." 



At Pepinster (2,350 inhabitants) the Yesdre is joined by a small valley which 

 leads up to Sjya (6,350 inhabitants), the most fashionable watering-place of Europe 

 during the eighteenth century, afterwards deserted for years, but recently once 



