cedent, the tall and ever-smoking chimney no parallel, in times past; the spinning-jenny is without ancestry, and the mule and power-loom entered on no prepared and recognized heritage. These potent novelties, which sprung so suddenly into existence, and which passed so rapidly through their stage of infancy, that they had taken their position in the world of industry, and firmly established themselves before there was time to prepare for their reception, were naturally viewed. with apprehension and fear. The magnitude, moreover, with which they developed themselves necessarily dislocated the existing machinery of production, disturbed its very framework, and produced an amount of confusion and suffering which the most startling and trying alternations could alone adjust and reconcile. Under these circumstances, and viewed in this light, Manchester has unquestionably established her industrial originality, and is fully entitled to be considered the centre and capital of modern manufacture, whatever may be her short-comings in other respects. Nor is this the only feature of her power which invests her with an exceptional character; there are others of an equally curious and suggestive nature.

If we glance over our own huge and ever active metropolis-London, we find that the sources whence the materials of industry are derived, are almost as diversified as the branches of that industry itself. If, regarding the whole West Riding of Yorkshire as one gigantic town (and the clothing towns and villages are so linked together as almost to bear that character), we watch its industrial proceedings, we observe that the material worked upon, although in part imported, is largely grown in the adjacent counties. If the busy workshops of Sheffield and Birmingham be examined, there we find that although Swedish iron, and Chilian gold, and Mexican silver are employed, British iron is the main staple on which the lusty arm and the skilful fingers are employed. If we visit the extraordinary knot of Pottery' towns, one of the most singular assemblages in the kingdom, we find that our own country mainly supplies the potter with the materials whereon his ingenuity is to be displayed: Cornwall its fine clay; Dorset its less costly clay; Stourbridge its fire-clay; Kent its flints. If the glass-maker on the Tyne or the Wear; or the carpet-maker of Glasgow or Kidderminster; or the tanner of Bermondseywere asked to name the materials on which his labour is bestowed, he would say that, though foreign countries aid in furnishing a supply, our own England yields the larger bulk.

But what do we see at Manchester? Every fibre of the cotton-of the five hundred millions of pounds which our spinners work up into yarn every yearmust be brought over the seas. Never was dependence more complete than that of the Manchester man on foreign supplies. Cotton is the great moving principle that keeps Manchester alive; and the tropical agriculturist, and the ship-owner, and the merchant, must perform their parts, before the cotton can reach the spindles and looms of the North. It is true that some

such principle of commercial inter-dependence marks more or less all branches of industrial economy; but there is no other example in the world, perhaps, of so immense a branch of manufacture being so completely at the mercy of a supply of raw material from districts thousands of miles away.

Manchester, however, was not always the cotton metropolis. It was a notable Lancashire town centuries before the Arkwrights and the Strutts, the Kays and the Hargreaves, the Cromptons and the Peels, set on foot those great enterprizes which have astonished the world. Situated in the south-eastern part of the county, it has the river Mersey flowing at a few miles. distance from it on the south; and this same Mersey, after being applied to numberless industrial purposes at Ashton and at Stalybridge, at Dukinfield and at Hyde, at Stockport and at Warrington, winds its course between Lancashire and Cheshire, and enters the Irish Sea at the point where the two opposite neighbours, Liverpool and Birkenhead, lie in wait to catch commerce from whatever quarter it may arrive.

Manchester is watered by three rivers, the Irwell, the Medlock, and the Irk, neither of which is remarkable for the clearness of its stream, nor for its picturesque appearance; but, what is of much greater importance, they are all made subservient to the trade of the place,-being extensively used for manufacturing purposes. The Irwell divides Manchester from the borough of Salford, and is crossed by several bridges, one or two of which have considerable claims to architectural beauty. The Irk flows into the Irwell at the north-eastern end of the town, near the Victoria Railway station. The Medlock, which divides Manchester from the adjacent townships of Ardwick, Charltonupon-Medlock, and Hulmne, on the southern side, also joins the Irwell at the south-eastern part, near Regentroad Bridge and St. George's Church. The Mersey forms the boundary between the two counties palatine of Lancashire and Cheshire.

The physical character of the districts surrounding Manchester, also present peculiar facilities for manufacturing pursuits; the hilly range separating Lancashire and Yorkshire, gives rise to numerous streams, which, before they reach the estuary of the Mersey, are capable of affording an almost unlimited motive-power, and of becoming the arteries for the ready transport of commodities. Had any mind, some centuries ago, been endued with the prescience and foresight requisite to measure the extent of our present manufactures, it would have fixed upon this district as the fitting scene of its development; here, it might safely have been predicted, will be found the elements for spinning, for weaving, for bleaching, and for dyeing; and these water-courses, which intersect the country so fortuitously, will become the highways to the ocean for the ultimate conveyance and disposal of its productions. The existence, moreover, of coal in abundance in the same county, and iron in the adjacent counties, with which there is easy communication, would not fail to have suggested the precise agents for converting the