large maritime province of England, washed by the Irish sea on the west, bordering on the north with part of Cumberland and Westmoreland; bounded on the east by the West Riding of Yorkshire, and on the west by Cheshire; extending 45 miles in length from north to south, and 32 miles in breadth from east to west; comprehending six hundreds, 60 parishes, 27 market-towns, and about 240,000 inhabitants.

The eastern parts of the province are rocky, and in the northern districts we see many single mountains remarkably high, such as Ingleborough-hill, Cloughbo-hill, Pendle-hill, and Longridge-hill. Nor is there any want of wood in this country, either for timber or fuel; with Wierdale forest and Bowland forest to the northward, and Simon's wood in the southern part of Lancashire.

This country is well watered with rivers and lakes. Among the former we number the Mersey, the Ribble, the Wier, the Lon, the Ken, and the Irke. The Mersey springs among the mountains of Derbyshire, is swelled by several streams, winds along the borders of Lancashire, which it divides from Cheshire, and runs into the sea at Liverpool. The Ribble, rising in Yorkshire, enters this county at Clithero, washes the town of Preston, and having received the smaller streams of the Hadder, the Whalley, the Darwent, and the Lea, disembogues itself into the Irish sea at Lethum. The Wier is a continuation of the Calder, which derives its source from the forest of Wierdale, in the northern part of the county, and, being augmented by divers smaller streams, runs into the sea at Cockerham. The Irke is an inconsiderable rivulet, that forms the beginning of the Irwel and Merley, which are its continuations; and is noted for producing the fattest eels in England.

Among the lakes or meres of Lancashire, we reckon the Winamere, and the Kennington-mere, which, tho' neither so large nor so well stored with fish, yet affords plenty of excellent char. There was on the south side of the Ribble another lake called Marton, several miles in circumference, which is now drained, and converted into pasture-ground. In this operation, the workmen found a great quantity of fish, together with eight canoes, resembling those of America, supposed to have been used by the ancient British fishermen. Besides these meres or lakes, this county abounds with marshes and mosses, from which the inhabitants dig excellent peat or turf for fuel, as well as marle for manuring the ground, and trunks of old fir-trees, supposed to have lain there since the general deluge. Some of these are so impregnated with turpentine, that, when divided in... Lancashire, to splinters; they burn like candles, and are used for that purpose by the common people. There is a great variety of mineral waters in this county, some periodical springs, and one instance of a violent eruption of water at Kirkby in Furness. The most remarkable chalybeate spas are those of Latham, Wigan, Stockport, Burnley, Bolton, Plumpton, Middleton, Strange-ways, Lancaster, Larbrick, and Chorley. At Ancliffe, in the neighbourhood of Wigan, is a fountain called the Burning Well, from whence a bituminous vapour exhales, which being set on fire by a candle burns like brandy, so as to produce a heat that will boil eggs to a hard consistence, while the water itself retains its original coldness. There is at Barton a fountain of salt-water, so strongly impregnated with the mineral, as to yield five times as much as can be extracted from the same quantity of sea-water. At Rogham, in Furness, there is a purging saline fountain; and in the neighbourhood of Raffal, where the ground is frequently overflowed by the sea, a stream descends from Hagg-bur-hills, which, in the space of seven years, is said to convert the marle into a hard freestone fit for building. The air of Lancashire is pure, healthy, and agreeable, except among the fens and on the seashore, where the atmosphere is loaded with putrid exhalations producing malignant and intermittent fevers, scurvy, rheumatism, dropsy, and consumption. The soil is various in different parts of the county, poor and rocky on the hills, fat and fertile in the valleys and champaign country. The colour of the peat is white, grey, or black, according to the nature of the composition and the degree of putrefaction which the ingredients have undergone. There is a bituminous earth about Ormskirk, that smells like the oil of amber, and indeed yields an oil of the same nature, both in its scent and medicinal effects, which moreover reduces raw flesh to the consistence of mummy: this earth burns like a torch, and is used as such by the country people. The metals and minerals of this county consist of lead, iron, copper, antimony, black lead, lapis calaminaris, spar, green vitriol, alum, sulphur, pyrites, freestone, and pit and cannel coal.

The level country produces plenty of wheat and barley, and the skirts of the hills yield good harvests of excellent oats; very good hemp is raised in divers parts of the province; and the pasture which grows in the valley is so peculiarly rich, that the cattle which feed upon it are much larger and fatter than in any other part of England. There is not any part of the world better supplied than Lancashire with provisions of all kinds at a very reasonable rate; such as beef, veal, mutton, lamb, pork, poultry, and game of all sorts, caught upon the moors, heaths, and commons, in the hilly part of the shire. Besides the sea-fowl common to the shires of England, such as ducks, eiders, teal, and plover, many uncommon birds are observed on the coast of Lancashire, the sea-crow, variegated with blue and black, the puffin, the cormorant, the curlew, the razor-bill, the copped wren, the red-throats, the swan, the tropic bird, the king's fisher, &c.

Lancashire was erected into a county-palatine by Edward III., who conferred it as an appanage on his son John of Gaunt, thence called duke of Lancaster; but the duchy contained lands that are not in Lancashire, and, among other demesnes, the palace of the Lancaster Savoy, and all that district in London, which indeed belong to it at this day. The revenues of this duchy are administered by a court which sits at Westminster, and a chancery-court at Preston, which has a seal distinct from that of the county-palatine. The title of Lancaster distinguished the posterity of John of Gaunt from those of his brother, who succeeded to the duchy of York, in their long and bloody contest for the crown of England.—Lancashire sends two members to parliament for the county; and 12 for the six boroughs of Lancaster, Preston, Newton, Wigan, Clithero, and Liverpool.