THE PROVINCIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

LXXXVII.-•-•CENTRAL ENGLAND: STAFFORDSHIRE AND DERBYSHIRE :-GEOGRAPHY.

THE counties of Stafford and Derby together form a diamond or double triangle, of which Staffordshire comprises the lower and south-western, and Derbyshire the upper and northeastern portion. The area of Staffordshire is 1,138 square miles, or 728,468 statute acres ; that of Derbyshire is 1,030 square miles. The population of Staffordshire was in 1851, 608,599, and in 1861, 746,943, an increase of 23 per cent. in the 10 years. That of Derbyshire was in 1851, 296,084, and in 1861, 339,327, an increase of 15 per cent.

Staffordshire is "in shape something like an elongated and compressed pear, with the exception that both ends are rather tapering." Its northern angle is formed by Cheshire on the north-west, and Derbyshire on the north-east ; its southern angle by Warwickshire on the south-east, and Shropshire on the south-west. Its south-eastern boundary is continued from the frontier of Worcestershire by Warwickshire, and these two counties together form its south-eastern base ; while on the northeast the boundary line separating it from Derbyshire is diversified by the rivers Trent and Dove into alternate peaks and indentations, of which the apexes are near Barton-on-Trent, Uttoxeter, and Ashbourne respectively. The western frontier as far northwards as Drayton is covered by Shropshire, which forms one long sweeping bay on that side of the county, and then forms, with the adjoining county of Cheshire, a western angle or shoulder at the same place. The greatest length of the county (from north to south), from Axe-Edge Common, at the junction of Cheshire, Derbyshire, and Staffordshire, to the neighbourhood of Bendley, in Worcestershire, is 60 miles ; its greatest breadth, at right angles to the length, from the junction of the Dove with the Trent below Burton, to the neighbourhood of Drayton, is 38 miles. The shape of Derbyshire is very irregular, perhaps it is most like an inverted boot, with a projecting strap at the top of the boot leg, forming the extreme southern portion of the county. The instep of the foot is formed

by Cheshire on the north-west and Staffordshire on the west, which latter county forms the front of the leg and strap. The hollow of the foot is scooped out by Yorkshire, and this latter county (on

the north-east), together with Nottinghamshire (on the east), forms the heel, the back of the leg being shaped by Nottinghamshire, and the back of the strap, down to its junction with the boot-leg, by Leicestershire (on the south-east). The greatest length of the county (from north to south) is 56 miles ; the greatest breadth (from east to west) is 34 miles.

Staffordshire has suffered much in reputation as to picturesqueness from its neighbourhood to the sister county of Derby. But "though fully one-half the shire is disfigured by fire and smoke, its other half possesses its share of picturesque scenery,—scenery of that peculiarly diversified character which is so common in our midland counties." Its elevations do not rise to the highest class of hills, the northern half possessing the highest ground, and the greater part of the southern being occupied by a coal-field, "which, next to that of Newcastle, has been the longest worked and the most productive in England." The northern part of the county "consists chiefly of wild moorlands, formed by long ridges, extending from north-west to south-east, separated from each other by deep dells or by valleys watered by the tributaries of the Trent, and gradually subsiding towards the banks of that river." The boundaries of these moorlands and the intervening valleys are generally marked "by steep and wooded escarpments," and the valleys are "ornamented with beautiful parks and groves." The principal summits are Cloud End, Biddulph Moor, Mow Cop (1,091 feet), Buuster Hill, High Roches, Moredge, Ecton Hill, Weyer Hill (1,154 feet), and Swinecote or Swinscoe Hill, in the northern part of the county. "On the eastern side, between Abbot's Bromley and Burton-upon-Trent, are the higher grounds of Needwood Forest ; and south of the Trent, towards the centre of the county, between Stafford and Lichfield, are the high grounds of Cannock Chase, one part of which (Castle Ring) is 715 feet high. The western side of the county is occupied by a tract of high ground, which separates the waters which flow westward by the Severn into the Atlantic from those which flow eastward by the Trent and the Humber into the North Sea."

"Nearly the whole of the county is included in the new redsandstone district of central England," but the most northern part lies beyond ; and there are some isolated districts, occupied by the coal measures or other subjacent formations, which rise through the red sandstone. Gypsum is quarried in Needwood Forest, and in the adjacent part of the valley of the Dove, and is used in the pottery manufactures ; and limestone is quarried near Newcastle, in the pottery district. Brine springs abound near the Trent, particularly in Weston, near Stafford, where salt works have been established." The Dudley or South Staffordshire coalfield extends about twenty miles in length from north by east to south by west, and ten miles in breadth from west to east. The hills south-east of Dudley consist of one mass of very pure basalt (called Rowley Rag) and amygdaloid. Trap rock (greenstone) is found near Walsall. In the southern part of the Dudley coal-field is an extensive bed called the Main Coal, "thirty feet thick, but this dips to the south, and crops out at Bilston." There is also another (triangular) coal-field in the northern part of the county called the Pottery-coal-field, stretching from Lane End, in the Potteries, to Congleton, in Cheshire, its greatest breadth being eight or ten miles. The high moorlands of the northern part of the county "consist partly of millstone grit and shale, partly of carboniferous, or mountain limestone. The millstone grit occupies the central and western portion, cropping out from beneath the Pottery and South Lancashire coal-fields, and overspreading the intervening county. The mountain-limestone district comprehends the eastern moorlands, and extends across the upper valley of the Dove into Derbyshire. There are several lead mines and copper mines in this district."

Staffordshire lies almost entirely in what is strictly the basin of the Humber, the principal tributary of that estuary, the Trent, having its source in three springs on the northern border of the county, near Knyppersley Hall. Thence it runs by Trentham (the Duke of Sutherland's seat), Stone, and Rugeley, to Burton, where it becomes navigable, and quits the county two or three miles below that town. Its course thus divides the north-eastern part of the county from the rest. The principal tributaries of the Trent are the following :—The Lyme (from Newcastle-underLyme), which joins the Trent on the right bank, not far from its source ; the Sow, which rises about six miles north-west from Eccleshall, near the western border of the county, is joined on its left bank by the Meuse brook, and flows through the town of Stafford to its junction with the Penk (a stream rising near Wolverhampton), four miles below which it joins the Trent on its right bank ; the Blyth, which, rising in the Potteries, joins the Trent on its left bank five miles below Rugeley ; and the Tame, which, rising in Essington Wood, four miles north-west from Walsall, flows fifteen miles south-east to Aston (a suburb of Birmingham). where it is joined on its right bank by the Rea brook, which flows through Birmingham, and then, passing eastward, and receiving on its right bank the united streams of the Cole and the Blyth, turns northward, and receiving, at Tamworth the Anker on its right bank, flows into the Trent. The whole course of the Tame is about forty-two miles, chiefly in Staffordshire. The Dove (which, during nearly its whole course, separates the counties of Derby and Stafford) rises near the northern extremity of Staffordshire, and flows south south-east near Longnor, Ashbourne, and Uttoxeter, into the Trent below Burton, its length being nearly forty-five miles. One of the tributaries of the Dove is the Manifold, which for four miles is a subterranean stream, and is joined underground by another subterranean stream, the Ramps. Another feeder of the Dove is the Churnet, which in one part expands into a sheet of water or lake, and afterwards flows by Leek and Alton.

The western border of the county belongs to the basin of the Severn, which flows for about two miles across the south-western corner near Over-Arley. The Stour (which joins the Severn at Stourport) has a course of about fourteen miles within the southern border of this county. The rivers of Staffordshire abound in fish. Salmon is caught in the Severn, and occasionally in the Trent.

But Staffordshire is not dependent on its rivers for water navigation. It is one of the best provided in the kingdom with canals,. which connect all the important towns of this and the neighbouring counties, from which they respectively receive their names. The railway communication is also now ample.

The air of the county is much sharper than that of those to thesouth, and more subject to continuous rains ; so that the harvests are later and more precarious. The most fertile and best cultivated lands are the southern and central parts of the county. But its industrial resources lie, to a great degree, underground, and consist of iron and coal, bringing with them the manufactures dependent on their aid or proximity. The number of collieries in the southern portion was, in 1866, 512; in the northern, 107. In that year the coal produced in the two districts was 12,399,7811 tons. Staffordshire is losing its long-continued pre-eminence as an iron-supplying district, partly from the exhaustion of the mines, partly from the disastrous strikes. In North Staffordshire in 1866 there were 28 furnaces, and in South Staffordshire 112 in blast, which yielded 742,960 tons of pig iron. In the two districts there were then 2,373 puddling furnaces, "which turn out a vast amount of manufactured iron, in which this district has always stood foremost, and which depend chiefly upon the native iron ores." The characteristic of the iron districts in the day-time is that "for miles there is nothing but a repetition of smoke, dirt, and flame." At night, however, there is a wild unearthly spectacle in the countless fires which rise from the bowels of the earth in every direction, and cast a lurid gleam over the natural darkness. A great part of the North Staffordshire coal-field supplies the Potteries in that district.. "Porcelain-making was commenced here in 1760, though brown earthenware was made at Burslem about the end of the sixteenth century." The name of Wedgwood will, of course, always be inseparably connected with this branch of industrial and artistic manufacture. "More than 10,000 persons are employed in the 200. pottery establishments now in existence," besides the accessary manufactures. It is curious that not one of the requirements forthe Pottery manufacture is found in the district itself except coal, and yet no rival attempts in other parts of the kingdom have as. yet been successful.

Derbyshire, one of the pet counties of the tourist, forms in a. picturesque point of view a connecting link between Staffordshire and Yorkshire. Its southern and mouth-eastern portions are comparatively flat—like the southern districts of the former county— but the level rises gradually until in the north-western portion we have in the Peak district what is really a continuation of the Moorlands of North Staffordshire, and the commencement of the great desolate moors which stretch into Yorkshire as far as Sheffield. The distinguishing attraction of the Derbyshire hill district is "not so much the elevation of the hills, the most lofty of which are only about half the height of those in Wales and Scotland, as their romantic grouping, and the bold and varied arrangement of the dales and cloughs, offering exquisite landscape pictures."

The Peak district constitutes part of that range of highlands—the backbone of England—which "separates the waters which flow into the sea on the eastern side of the island from those on the western side." This ridge or chain "enters the county at or near its northern extremity, and the principal ridge runs in an irregular line south south-west, until it enters Staffordshire a few miles south-west of Buxton." One of its elevations, the northern summit of Axe-Edge Hill, rises to 1,751 feet ; Lord's Seat, to the east of the principal ridge, rises to 1,700 feet. "This ridge divides the basin of the Mersey from that of the Trent. From this the principal ridge of the chain lateral ridges are formed, one of which, branching off near Axe-Edge Hill and running south-east, separates the basin of the Derwent from that of the Dove"—the natural gateway into Staffordshire. "The ridge which forms the eastern boundary of the basin of the Derwent, and which extends in a winding course about 67 miles," is a branch of the great backbone in Yorkshire, which after skirting the boundary line of the two counties, "enters Derbyshire, and proceeds in a south-eastern direction across the east moors of the county into Nottinghamshire." The summit of Ox-Stones, in this ridge, between Sheffield and Hathersage, is 1,377 feet high.

The elevation called the Peak, "which is the centre of the Peak district, is an esearped plateau of millstone grit, of about three miles in length, in the corner between Yorkshire and Cheshire, having for its principal points Kinderscout, 1,981 feet ; Madwoman's Stones, 1,800 feet ; and Edale Moor." "The valleys are frequently richly wooded, the broadest and the deepest being in the higher parts of the Peak." The hills or reeks which bound them are often of a precipitous character, and in the narrow valleys the projections on one side have often corresponding recesses on the other.

"To the south of Chapel-en-le-Frith" (on the north-west frontier of the county) "the Manchester and Buxton Railway may be roughly taken as the division between the millstone grit and the limestone, the former being well seen in Comb's Moss, from which it becomes gradually of less importance." Proceeding southwards in the same quarter, to "the south-west of Buxton, which is finely placed at the point where the limestone emerges from under the millstone grit, is Axe-Edge, a long prolongation of grit. To the south of a line drawn from Buxton, Chapel-en-leFrith, Castleton, Hope, and Hathersage, extends a large area of mountain limestone, as far south as Ashbourne and Uttoxeter, and eastward to Matlock, Cromford, Ambergate, and Belper, and almost as far as Derby itself," this eastern boundary thus forming a line from north to south, through nearly the centre of the county. "The river Amber forms the boundary line (superficially) between the limestone and the coal measures of the Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire fields ; and a line drawn from Yorkshire through Chesterfield, Dromfield, Alfreton, and Heanor, to Sandiacre (in the latitude of Derby) will mark out the western extent of this coal-field." To the east of it, in the north-eastern shoulder of Derbyshire, lie "the magnesium limestone and lower Penuian strata, which overlie the coal-field, and form a picturesque ridge of tableland, principally known by the name of Scarsdale, and extending from Barlborough, on the north, to Bolsover and Pleasley, where it enters Nottinghamshire." "Physically speaking, the coal-field is very pretty, consisting of open valleys and wooded uplands, which, on the whole, are not so much disfigured by the appliances for iron-making and coal-getting as in most colliery districts, except, perhaps, in the neighbourhood of Clay Cross." The Erewash valley (the geographical division between Derby shire and Nottinghamshire) intersects the coal-field on the south from Sandiacre to Ilkeston and Codnor Park, leaving a portion of the field in Nottinghamshire." "To the south of the limestone and coal districts, occupying the remainder of the county, is the new red sandstone. This part of the county is generally flat, though by no means deficient in picturesque beauty, and contains the most productive land, though it is of somewhat cold soil. To the south of the Trent and west of the Soar the ground is broken and varied, particularly as it approaches Leicestershire.

A considerable quantity of gypsum is worked in Chellaston, between Derby and Melbourne, for the purpose of being made into plaster of Paris." The rivers of Derbyshire rise mostly in the north western and more elevated parts of the county, with a course towards the south or south-east. So it is with the Derwent (with its affluent the Wye), and the Dove (with its feeders). The Rotter, which drains the parts about Chesterfield, has a north-east direction. In the extreme north-west there are a few streams that flow westward, and ultimately swell the waters of the Mersey.

The Derwent rises in a place called "The Trough," on the borders of Yorkshire and Derbyshire. In its southward course it is joined by several streams, the Wye, one of its feeders (rising near Axe Edge), being the stream on which Bakewell stands ; and after this junction (receiving the Amber on its left bank) it flows to Derby, from which town it has a winding course of twelve miles into the Trent, its whole course being from 60 to 65 miles. The Dove rises in the slope of Axe-Edge Hill, divides the counties of Derby and Stafford, and after a course of 20 milts receives near Ashbourne the Saw°, a stream which rises near Warkworth, and being also joined by the Churnet, from Staffordshire, and other smaller streams, falls into the Trent just below Burton. Its whole course is 45 miles. It frequently overflows its batiks in the spring, fertilizing the neighbouring lands. The Trent crosses Derbyshire in a direction nearly north-east. It is at first a border river to the county, then after receiving the Dove it runs nearly due east through Derbyshire for about eleven miles to the border of Leicestershire. It then becomes a border stream between the last county and those of Derby and Nottingham for about ten miles, and then receiving the Erewash, quits Derbyshire. The Goyt, rising near Axe Edge, flows north north-west, bordering Derbyshire and Cheshire for fourteen miles, and then receiving the Etherow (a Yorkshire and Cheshire stream), and continuing its border course, flows into the Mersey at Stockport. Derbyshire is also well supplied with canals and railroads.

Most of the soils in the county may be classified as clays and beams of various degrees of fertility. The climate varies considerably with the different elevations, but, on the whole, is cold ; the rainfall is much greater in the northern than in the southern districts. A large proportion of the lands is in permanent pasture, and the cheeseof Derbyshire (often sold for that of Cheshire) has some fame. The county has some rich meadows along the course of the rivers. Many horses are bred in the county. Lead is found abundantly all over the mountain districts. There are 33 iron furnaces in blast, "chiefly at Codnor Park, Butterley, Staveley, and Clay Cross, which in 1866 made 199,867 tons of pig iron. The number of collieries is 150, from which nearly 5,000,000 tons are annually raised." Derby claims to have erected the first silk-mill in England, and Cromford to have established the first cottonmill. "At Darley, near Derby, are the 'Boar's head' Mills of Messrs. Evans, where the thread bearing that appellation is made in very large quantities ;" and at Belper and the neighbouring villages are extensive manufactures of silk hosiery.