other advantages of a waterside position, there is this: that both these articles may thus be easily delivered, and cheaply conveyed; the canal boats can be brought alongside, and even run into the factory yard; and their contents can be laid down upon the very spot where they are required for use. Where these conveniences are wanting, there must be the additional item of cartage introduced into the cost; and this, where constant consumption necessitates constant supply, must amount in the aggregate to a sum sufficiently considerable to make exemption from it worth trying for. The consequence is, that nearly all but some of the oldest mills,- -as Houldsworth's, and that of the Oxford Road Twist Company, in Manchester-stand upon the banks of the numerous canals which intersect the district.

The original position of the various branches of the cotton manufacture in the places where it is now carried on, and which have grown into large towns from insignificant villages,-multiplying wealth" beyond the dreams of avarice,"—was undoubtedly determined by their possession of the means of water power; though this advantage soon became of little value, on the application of steam as the principal motive power. The situation of Stockport is where the Tame and the Goyt uniting form the Mersey. Upon the first of these streams stand Ashton, Dukinfield, Hyde, and Stalybridge. Manchester stands at the confluence of three rivers, the Irwell, the Medlock, and the Irk. The two lastnamed are nowhere navigable, in any part of their course; and the first, though rendered navigable up to Manchester, ceases to be so at that point. Nearer to its source, it flows past Bolton and Bury: and the Medlock, higher up, passes Oldham; while Rochdale and Heywood stand upon the bank of another small stream, from which the former town takes its name- -the Roach. These facts, it is manifest, bear strongly upon the point of original situation; and, as regards development, it is noticeable, that all these towns possessed canal communication more or less complete, and that the relative importance to which they had severally attained, is strikingly attested by the position which each assumed in the railway system. The presence or absence of a railway is in itself a fact of great significance, in the consideration of a question like this. The projectors or managers of a railway can only regard a group of towns under one aspect.

Their wisdom is to calculate
What [traffic] they will yield.

Thus the large towns are chosen as stations or termini, and they become larger; the smaller towns are passed or avoided, and they become smaller. The first shoot faster onward: the latter lag more in the rear. After Manchester became connected with Liverpool, lines of railway were continued or opened to Wigan, Preston, and Bolton; then to Rochdale, Heywood, and Todmorden, and so on to Leeds: and now the great centre of the district is accessible by railway, from nearly every one of its manufacturing dependencies. To some of them, indeed, this advantage has accrued somewhat tardily, and also indirectly. Those places received it latest which could wait the longest; as they were only included in the plans of rival companies, when the more remunerative towns were already supplied, and the zeal for railway extension set in rather too strongly for the interests of shareholders, however beneficial it may have been in other respects.

And now, on looking back, and comparing the present with the past, we see how, in less than a century of time, there has been wrought a very miracle of progress. The contrast is one which must astound even those who are most familiar with the facts. The population of Manchester and Salford, which in 1757, was 19,839, had increased in 1851 to 401,321. Liverpool, which in 1750 had 22,099 inhabitants, at the last census contained 375,955 souls, within the borough alone, exclusive of the environs. Between the years 1773 and 1851, the population of Bury increased from 2,090 to 31,262; and that of Bolton from 4,568 to 61,171. The importation of raw cotton, which in 1751 was under 3,000,000 lbs., had risen in 1800 to 56,000,000 lbs., and for the first three months of the present year, it was at the rate of 206,500,000. The export of cotton manufactured goods, of which in 1751, the declared value amounted to no more than £45,986, reached in the month of March last the sum of £2,476,378, or nearly £30,000,000 sterling per annum. The cotton manufactories of all kinds, in England (exclusive of Scotland and Ireland), were, in 1850, 1,753 in number of which 1,235, or 70 per cent. were in the county of Lancaster alone, and 145, or 8 per cent. in Cheshire. The proportion of water to steam power employed in the cotton manufacture throughout the country was 13

:

per cent: but in Lancashire it was little more than 7 (actually 7.2) per cent. Instead of the hand processes, or the imperfect contrivances which retarded rather than promoted the growth of this enterprise a century ago, there was found in the factories of Lancashire a mechanical force equal to 50,286 horse-power, (in the proportion of 3,376 of water, to 46,910 of steam), and this was employed in turning 13,955,497 spindles, and propelling 176,947 power-looms.* At the same time the success which has been attained in the construction of the machinery and mechanical appliances of the cotton manufacture, has given not a local celebrity merely, but a world-wide reputation to the names of Fairbairn, Sharp, and Whitworth of Manchester, Platt of Oldham, and Nasmyth of Patricroft. And, lastly, it is worthy of notice, as a very significant proof of its wonderful prosperity, that a tract of country almost entirely destitute naturally of the water-way which is the wealth of other countries, has been supplied by skill and enterprise, with lines of canal communication and a vast net-work of railways, which bring every needful article to its own doors, and carry its products forth to every home in the country, and for distribution to every nation in the world. So that, independently of all differences of opinion, or possible diversity of interest, there can be no question whatever upon this point-that in growth of population, in rapidity of extension, in developement of resources, in the wealth which these conditions represent, in the ever-active spirit of enterprise which influences and urges and directs the whole, and in the social and national importance which fitly waits upon such extraordinary success, no district in Her Majesty's dominions can be placed in comparison with that southern division of the county of Lancaster, in which we live and which depends as much, for its marvellous prosperity upon Liverpool and Manchester equally, as the colossal steamer, which brings New York as near to us as London used to be, depends upon simultaneous action of both its paddles for its propulsion and progress.

the

* See Table on the next page; extracted from the collection of Parliamentary papers in the Liverpool Free Public Library. For other assistance in the compilation of this paper, I am indebted to a work on the History of Manchester, published in 1836, by James Wheeler, Esq., of the Northern Circuit.

ABSTRACT OF A RETURN OF THE NUMBER OF COTTON AND OTHER FACTORIES, SUBJECT TO THE FACTORIES' ACT, ORDERED BY THE HOUSE OF COMMONS TO BE PRINTED, 15TH AUGUST, 1850.

FACTORIES NOT INCLUDED IN EITHER OF THE ABOVE DESCRIPTIONS.

Mem. by Mr. Horner: The return of cotton and silk factories in my district is incomplete; for Messrs. John Bright, & Brothers, who have two factories in Rochdale, and one at Collyhurst, near Manchester, and Messrs. T. J. & T. Walker, of Leigh, near Manchester, have refused to make the return called for.

*The disparity between the proportion of steam and water-power in the manufacturing and non-manufacturing counties, may be shown by comparing Chester, Derby, and Stafford, with York and Lancaster:

This refers only to the factories included under the fourth denomination.

RESULTS DEDUCED FROM OBSERVATIONS, TAKEN WITH THE
SELF-REGISTERING ANEMOMETER AND RAIN-GAUGE,
AT THE LIVERPOOL OBSERVATORY, DURING THE FOUR YEARS
ENDING DECEMBER 31, 1855.

By John Hartnup, Esq., F.R.A.S., V.P.

(READ 17TH APRIL, 1856.)

The instrument above-named was erected by Mr. Follett Osler, in the autumn of 1851. At the Liverpool Meeting of the British Association, in 1854, Mr. Osler gave a brief history of the invention of the instrument, and I supplied him with various tables of results, and such information as was necessary to illustrate its performance. This communication, including the tables and diagrams which had been prepared, was ordered to be printed entire in the proceedings of the Association, and it will appear in the volume for 1855, together with the results of observations for that year. The printing of the tables, and the engraving of the plates, will involve a considerable expense, and as they were thought to possess considerable local interest, Professor Phillips, the Secretary of the Association, kindly gave permission for as many copies to be struck off as might be required for the next volume of the Historic Society.

In the instrument to which we have alluded, the arrangements are such, that the pressure of the wind in pounds on the square foot, the horizontal motion of the air in miles for any required interval, and the direction of the wind, are continuously recorded on sheets of paper. The time at which it commences to rain, the rate at which it falls, and when it ceases to fall, will also be found recorded on the same sheets of paper. At an elevation of about thirty feet above the roof of the observatory, a pressure plate of four superficial feet is kept facing the wind by means of a set of small vanes. This plate is urged in opposition to the wind by eight springs, so arranged that a slight spring comes into play with a light wind, and stronger springs are made to act in conjunction with the first successively