people labour; for this part of East Lancashire is about the busiest bit of England. There are not as many beautiful and clearly marked dales on the Lancashire as on the Yorkshire side of the "backbone"; two, however, Lancashire has, as lovely as any in the adjoining moorland county, the fair and fertile dales of the Ribble and the Lune. Stonyhurst College lies within Ribblesdale, and Mr. Howitt thus describes his visit to the spot: "From the first opening of this splendid vale, you have Stonyhurst lying full in view; Rib-Chester, the celebrated Roman station, to the left, in the level of the valley; down the vale to the north-east, you have the castle of Clitheroe, standing on its bold and abrupt eminence; and as you wind along the eastern side of the dale, with the Ribble below you on your left, and above you, on your right, woods and cottages with their little enclosures, the ruins of Whalley Abbey come in view, and, high beyond, the bare and cloud-mottled heights of Pendle Hill." The Roman Catholic College at Stonyhurst is a large and handsome building. Broad meadows and pasture fields are common in Lancashire; the feeding of cattle and the making of butter and cheese are the chief kinds of farming work done in the county; perhaps, because most of the people are at work in the mills and cannot attend to crops. In the river valleys, however, the vales of Lune, Ribble, and Mersey, crops are raised; wheat and oats, and capital potatoes, for which last Lancashire is rather famous. FURNESS AND THE SEA BOARD. 31 II. FURNESS AND THE SEA BOARD. FURNESS is a bit of Lancashire entirely separated from the rest of the county by the waters of Morecambe Bay. The little Winster stream alone divides it from Westmoreland, and the Duddon from Cumberland; but nowhere does it touch the shire of which it forms a part. Furness is in every way like the two counties between which it is wedged; it is a bit of mountain country, full of the slate mountains of the Cumbrian group. Like Scotland, it consists of highlands and lowlands: Low Furness is the peninsula at the end of the district, which has low shores and low islands lying off the shores; the largest of these is Walney Isle. Slate is quarried in the slate mountains of High Furness, and veins of lead and copper are worked. In Low Furness, where the rocks are not of slate, but of mountain limestone, a great treasure has been found of late years, enormous beds of iron-ore, which yields iron of the very best kind. This valuable "find has changed much of Low Furness into a Black Country, full of smoke, and noisy with the roar of blast furnaces and the clang of many hammers. Barrow has become, quite lately, a large and busy iron-working town. Ulverston, the next largest town, is also busily engaged in the iron trade. Just beyond the din and bustle of Barrow, in a narrow, fertile vale, are the grand and peaceful ruins. of Furness Abbey; the roof is gone, but there are still walls and windows and glorious arches, lofty and wide, to fill the beholder with awe. The whole of the Lancashire coast is low, and it is in many places skirted by bogs or "mosses." The wide inlet of Morecambe Bay stretches far into the land, and the tide comes in sudden, strong, and high, as into all the openings upon this western coast. At low water there is an endless stretch of white sand, called, near Morecambe, the Lancaster sands. The town of Lancaster stands on the slope of a hill rising from the river Lune; on the top of the hill is the strong and stately castle, "the honour and grace of the whole town." It is now used as the county gaol. The low level land between Lancaster Bay and the mouth of the Ribble is called the Fylde; there are two or three bathing places, for the folk of the busy towns, upon its coast-Fleetwood and Blackpool. The sea is now drawing back so far from Southport, a watering place south of the Ribble, that the long pier hardly reaches the water. 66 III. LIVERPOOL. LIVERPOOL Contains nearly half a million people; there are in it streets of warehouses, full of the goods which its merchant princes" have brought from over the sea, or are going to send forth in ships to all parts of the wide world. There are streets full of fine shops; there are handsome buildings-St. George's Hall, with its magnificent organ, the Sailors' Home, the Town Hall, the Custom House. There are endless narrow streets, where the poor folk live; but there are not |