GALASHIELS', the chief seat in Scotland of the Scotch tweed manufacture, occupies 2 m. of the narrow valley of the Gala, immediately above the junction of that river with the Tweed. It is 33i m. s. of Edinburgh, and 4 n. of Melrose on the Waverley line. At its railway station are the junctions of a line to Selkirk, and of one that lies up Tweed valley to Peebles and the Caledonian. In 1630, G. was erected a burgh of barony. By the reform act of 1869, it is now a parliamentary burgh, and along with Hawick and Selkirk sends a member to parliament. It is governed by a council of 15— of whom one is provost and four arc baffles. The parliamentary and municipal bound aries are coterminous, but they exclude about one eighth of the population. In 1871, the pop. within the burgh was 9,678, but the pop. of the whole town was above 11,500. The town has no drainage system, and draws its water for domestic purposes chiefly from wells in the alluvial subsoil. Its principal claim is its manufacturing enterprise.
It had, In 1873, 20 woolen factories containing 94 " sets " of carding engines, power-looms, 413 hand-looms, 68,800 spindles—employing 3,400 hands, and capable of turning out annually about £450,000 worth of goods. The product is almost exclusively the well-known woolen cloth called Scotch tweed. The mills are almost dependent on steam for motive power. The town has the largest and best appointed skinnery in Scotland. The boundary line between Melrose and G. parishes intersects the town, and the burgh boundaries embrace portions of both parishes. This has been a cause of great confusion in the administration of the public health act, and of the new educa tion act.