Wild deer are still found on Exmoor, where there is a peculiar breed of ponies, hardy and small. The Bristol channel and Bridg water bay abound in white- and shell-fish; salmon and herring are also caught, the principal fishing stations being Porlock, Mine head and Watchet.
Coal, from the Mendips, and freestone, largely quarried near Bath, are the chief mineral products of Somerset, although iron, manganese, limestone, and slate are also found. The chief manu factures are those of woollen and worsted goods, made in a large number of towns ; gloves at Yeovil, Stoke, Martock and Taunton; lace at Chard; linen and sailcloth at Crewkerne ; crape at Dulver ton and Shepton Mallet. There are large potteries at Bridgwater, where the celebrated bath-brick is made, and at Weston-super Mare. On the Avon, copper and iron are smelted, while several other rivers provide power for cotton, worsted and paper mills. The bulk of the export trade pasges through Bristol, which is situ ated mainly in Gloucestershire, though it has large docks on the Somerset side of the Avon, and others at Portishead.
Somerset is well furnished with railways. The G.W.R. runs between Frome, Radstock, Bath and Bristol, and from Bristol it curves south-west through Weston and Bridgwater to Taunton, dividing there and passing on into Devon. Branches leave the main line for Portishead, Clevedon and Minehead on the north, and for Witham Friary via Wells, Yeovil via Langport, and Chard via Ilminster on the south. The S.R. main line from London
passes through the south-west of Somerset, running from Temple combe to Axminster in Devon, and the Somerset and Dorset runs from Bath to Shepton Mallet via Radstock.
Area of administrative county and associated county borough is 1,036,818 ac.; pop. 475,120. The county contains 4o hun dreds and two liberties. The municipal boroughs are—Bath, a city and county borough, Bridgwater, Chard, Glastonbury, Taunton, Wells, a city, and Yeovil. The county is in the western circuit, assizes are held at Taunton and Wells and it has one court of quarter sessions. The boroughs of Bath and Bridgwater have separate courts of quarter sessions. Somerset is in the diocese of Bath and Wells, excepting small parts in the dioceses of Bristol and Salisbury. There are six parliamentary divisions—Wells, Frome, Taunton, Weston-super-Mare, Bridgwater and Yeovil, each re turning one member; while the parliamentary borough of Bath returns one member; and the county includes part of the parlia mentary borough of Bristol.
See J. Collinson, History and Antiquities of the County of Somerset (Bath, 1790 ; W. Phelps, History and Antiquities of Somerset (1839) ; R. W. Eyton, Domesday Studies: Analysis of the Somerset Survey (188o) ; F. T. Elworthy, West Somerset Word-Book (1886) ; Victoria County History: Somerset; also various publications by the Somerset Record Society.