manufacturing town of the United States of North America, Essex County, Massachusetts, is situated on the left bank of the Merrimac, 26 miles N. of Boston, and forms the centre of a network of railroads communicating with Lowell, Newburyport, Boston, and other places of importance. Although founded but recently, Lawrence has become one of the chief manufacturing towns in New England, in consequence of the great water-power it derives from the Merrimac. In 1845 the Essex Commercial Company constructed a dam of masonry across this stream, by which a fall of 28 feet was obtained for the whole river. From this dam a canal, from 60 to 100 feet broad, 12 feet deep, and more than a mile long, conducts the water to the various factories situated between it and the Merrimac. The town proper, which is laid out between the latter and a small tributary called the Spicket, has in its centre an open common of 17½ acres in extent, and contains a town-house, gaol, several churches and schools, and a literary institute. The inhabitants are almost all employed in the various factories in the town, some of which are of great size, and one, the Pacific, is said to be the largest in the world. The building has seven storeys, and its flooring covers 16 acres, while the consumption of cotton within its walls amounts to 1,500,000 lbs. yearly, and of wool to the third of that amount. It gives employment to about 2000 persons. The manufactures of the town comprise woollen, linen, and cotton goods of various kinds. Incorporated, 1847. Pop. (1848), 6000; (1850), 8283; (1855), about 14,000.

Lawrence, St. Gulf, an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean, British North America, having Newfoundland on the E., Labrador, Lower Canada, and New Brunswick on the N. and W., and Nova Scotia and Cape Breton on the S.; extending from N. Lat. 46. to 51. 30., and W. Long. 58. to 65. It communicates with the ocean by three channels, the principal of which is between Cape Breton and Newfoundland, 48 miles in width at its narrowest part. The other two channels are much narrower; the Straits of Belle Isle, between the N. extremity of Newfoundland and Labrador, being 10 miles, and the Gut of Canso, betwixt Cape Breton and the mainland, being only about half a mile in width at the narrowest part. The gulf is about 300 miles in length from N. to S., by 240 miles in breadth, and incloses numerous islands, the chief of which are,—Anticosti in the N., the Magdalen group in the centre, and Prince Edward's Island in the S. The estuary of the St Lawrence River debouches into the gulf at the western extremity of Anticosti; although, properly speaking, this firth is an inlet of the gulf as far up as the River Saguenay. Navigation is suspended here during winter and early spring, from the prevalence of ice, which is especially dangerous in the entrances to the gulf. Fogs, also, are very frequent during the prevalence of the E. winds in spring. In summer, however, the W. and S.W. winds render navigation comparatively safe. The fisheries, which are very valuable, are prosecuted with assiduity by the colonists as well as by United States companies. Herring, cod, and mackerel abound.

ST. See CANADA.