GLIMPSES OF WESTEEN EUKOPE. 
135 
seems to stand still in the flame, and the wonder is why it doesn’t burn off. 
In the world there are now forty millions of cotton spindles whirring; and 
twenty-one millions of these are in Great Britain. America ranks next, oper¬ 
ating six millions of spindles ; France five and a half millions. 
MANCHESTER TO NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE, via SHEFFIELD AND LEEDS.' 
I have left Manchester, ticketed for Sheffield. The Swift-moving train is 
already leaving the spires and curling smoke of the great cotton city behind. 
Many stops, but so brief that my patience is not even tried, much less ex¬ 
hausted, as a thousand times it has been on our American railways. Time is 
precious here, and every man connected with the road and train appears to 
bei part of them, and to move with the despatch and regularity of machinery. 
A village is in sight, and though some miles ahead, our mile-in-a-mniute 
speed soon annihilates the intervening space. The locomotive whistles its 
salute (with a voice more shrill than those of our Yankee engines) and in a 
moment more, the vigorously applied breaks bring us to a short halt. Some 
passengers tumble out, others immediately take their places, and ere we 
have time to to look at our watch, the station bell rings, and away we go, 
like the wind. There’s some pleasure in such railway travelling. 
In advance of us there seems to be a range of hils. Already the train en¬ 
ters a deepening cut. Darkness, gas light, and cavernous thunder 1 We 
are dashing through a tunnel. Light dawns! but we have been a 
long time under ground. About five minutes. We have passed the famous 
Woodhead Tunnel, at the summit of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincoln¬ 
shire railway, three miles and sixty feet in length ! Tunnels are very num¬ 
erous in England, constituting about one-hundred and thirtieth of the aggre¬ 
gate length of all the railways, or some sevnty miles altogether. 'English en¬ 
gineers prefer tunneling the rock to making a cut deeper than sixty feet. 
When the rock is not perfectly solid, the roof is arched with several succes¬ 
sive arcs ofbrick, the upper arch some times extending on either side into 
a nether arch beneath the railway ; thus forming a complete circle of brick 
masonry. 
The scenery along the way is beautiful; the undulating surface marked by 
majestic groves, meadows, and rich pastures, with grazing herds, and now 
and then a fine old residence, gray with the lapse of centuries, but sugges¬ 
tive of all comfort and independent living. Derbyshire is more billy than 
many of the counties of England through which I have heretofore passed, but 
is nevertheless a good agricultural district. 
Sheffield ! City long famous for its superior cutlery, and still chief seat of 
the English manufacture of cast, shear and blister steel of all sorts, steel 
wire, cutlery and toolsofevery description, railway carriage springs, &o ; and 
also noted for its silver, silver-plated, German silver, brittannia and other 
white metal wares. It was formerly an old manor of the Earls of Shrewsbury, 
who had a castle in the town, and a fine manor house near by, in one or the 
other of which was passed the greater period of the captivity of Mary, Queen 
of Scots. The city has a population of nearly 190,000, and teems with the 
wonderful activity of its multitude of workshops. * * * * 
And now for Leeds, the second noted manufacturing town in the West 
Riding of Yorkshire. A Short run, and soon over. Rather an irregularly 
built city, of some 191,000 inhabitants, on both sides of the navigable river 
Aire. It communicates with the German Ocean through the Aire, and with 
St. George’s Channel by means of a canal, and is also the centre of an im¬ 
portant network of railways; thus giving it great importance in a commereial 
point of of view. It was once a Roman station, and successively passed un¬ 
der the control of the Northmen, the Saxons, and the Normans. Now dis¬ 
tinguished as being the seat of the laigest number of woolen factories con¬ 
centrated at any place in the world. 
The route hence is almost due north, and leads from Yorkshire through the 
county of Durham, and into Northumberland. Here is where originated the 
short-horn breed of cattle. The pastures are rich, and the flocks and herds 
along the way are worthy of the country. The fields are well cultivated, and 
