a 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 73 miles in length and 41 in breadth, comprehending 6 hundreds, 63 parishes, 27 market-towns, 39 villages, about 43,000 houses, and about 262,000 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, Clough-bokhill, Pendle-hill, and Longridge-hill. Nor is there any want of wood in this country, either for timber or fuel; witness 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 lakes or meres of Lancashire, we reckon the Winander-mere, and the Ringington-mere, which, though 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 morasses and moors, from which the inhabitants dig excellent peat or turf for fuel, as well as marl 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 into 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 country, some periodical springs, and one instance of a violent eruption of water at Kirkby in Furness. The most remarkable chalybeate springs are those of Latham, Wigan, Stockport, Burnley, Bolton, Plumpton, Middleton, Strangeways, 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 six 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 Hagbur 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 intermitting 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. Lancashire, 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, easterlings, 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.

The chief manufactures of this county are woollen and cotton cloths of various kinds, tickings, and cotton velvets, for which Manchester is particularly famous. The principal rivers are the Mersey, which parts Cheshire and this county; and the Ribble, which rises in Yorkshire, and enters this county at Clitheroe, running south west by Preston into the Irish sea. Besides these there are many lesser streams. The navigation made by his grace the duke of Bridgewater in this county, is highly worthy of notice. This was begun so lately as about 20 years ago; it bears vessels of 60 tons burden, and is carried over two rivers, the Mersey and the Irwell. The trough, or adit, which was necessary to be made, in order to drain the water from the coal-mines, is rendered navigable for boats of 6 or 7 tons burden, and forms a kind of subterraneous river, which runs about a mile and a half underground, and communicates with the canal. This river leads to the head of the mines, is arched over with brick, and is just wide enough for the passages of the boats: at the mouth of it are two folding doors, which are closed as soon as you enter, and you then proceed by candle-light, which casts a vivid gloom, serving only to make darkness visible. But this dismal gloom is rendered still more awful by the solemn echo of this subterraneous water, which returns various and discordant sounds. One while you are struck with the grating noise of engines, which by a curious contrivance let down the coals into the boats; then again you hear the shock of an explosion, occasioned by the blowing up the hard rock, which will not yield to any other force than that of gunpowder; the next minute your ears are saluted by the songs of meriment from either Lancashire sex, who thus beguile their labours in the mine. You have no sooner reached the head of the works, than a new scene opens to your view. There you behold men and women almost in the primitive state of nature, toiling in different capacities, by the glimmering of a dim taper, some digging coal out of the bowels of the earth; some again loading it in little waggons made for the purpose; others drawing those waggons to the boats. To perfect this canal, without impeding the public roads, bridges are built over it, and where the earth has been raised to preserve the level, arches are formed under it: but what principally strikes every beholder, is a work raised near Barton-bridge, to convey the canal over the river Mersey. This is done by means of three stone arches, so spacious and lofty as to admit vessels failing through them; and indeed nothing can be more singular and pleasing, than to observe large vessels in full sail under the aqueduct, and at the same time the duke of Bridgewater's vessels failing over all, near fifty feet above the navigable river. By this inland navigation communication has been made with the rivers Mersey, Dee, Ribble, Ouse, Trent, Darwent, Severn, Humber, Thames, Avon, &c. which navigation, including its windings, extends above 500 miles in the counties of Lincoln, Nottingham, York, Lancaster, Westmoreland, Chester, Stafford, Warwick, Leicester, Oxford, Worcester, &c.

Lancashire was erected into a county-palatine by Edward III. who conferred it as an appendage 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 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 five boroughs of Lancaster, Preston, Newton, Wigan, Clitheroe, and Liverpool.