THE LANCASHIRE INDUSTRIAL REGION lies mainly, though not entirely, upon the Coal Measures which occupy a considerable part of the south of Lancashire, and a small area in the east of Cheshire. The country is generally hilly, but seldom rises to more than 1,300 or 1,400 feet above sea level. The geographical factors which have most influenced the economic development of the region are the abundance of its coal, its large supplies of water, its climate, and its position. The coal is obtained chiefly round the lower slope of the Coal Measures, the principal mines being found in a stretch of country enclosed within lines joining St. Helens, Wigan, Bolton, Bury, Manchester, and Leigh ; along a line drawn from Darwen by Blackburn to Burnley ; along another line drawn from Burnley by way of Bacup, Rochdale, and Oldham to Manchester; and in the east of Cheshire. The total contents of the whole area has been estimated at 4,530,000,000 tons, and there is an annual output of about 24,000,000 tons. Along with coal, iron was formerly found, but the supplies of it are now almost entirely exhausted.
Other geographical factors may best be discussed in connection with the development of the cotton industry, which is the basis of practically all the economic activity of the region. In early times the pursuits of the people in this part of England were mainly pastoral, and the wool of the sheep raised on the Pennines was exported to the Continent. Later on, a woollen industry grew up within the region itself, and by the end of the fifteenth century a number of towns were engaged in it. As land became more valuable for agricultural purposes in the south of England, the Pennine slope became the chief sheep-raising district, and there the woollen industry was encouraged not only by the abund ance of raw wool, but by the plentiful supply of water for wash ing it. When cotton goods came into more general use, partly, no doubt, as a result of the discovery of the Cape route to India, it was not unnatural that Lancashire already interested in the manu facture of textiles, in which her workmen had become expert, should turn, towards the end of the sixteenth century and in the early part of the seventeenth, to the spinning and weaving of cotton. The raw material at first came from the Levant to London, and had to be sent to Lancashire at great expense.
Towards the end of the eighteenth century, the inventions of Ark wright, Hargreaves, and others, which rendered possible the use of water power, led to a great extension of the industry. The Levant was no longer able to supply the raw material required, but the development of the cotton fields of North America fortu nately placed the industry beyond the danger zone. At the same time, Liverpool, which is much nearer the manufacturing districts than London, became the chief receiving port for raw cotton, and this change undoubtedly gave a greater stability to the Lancashire industry. The process of localisation was completed by the intro duction of steam power in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. During the whole period of its growth, moreover, the cotton industry has been aided by the favourable climatic conditions of the region. The prevailing winds blowing from the west and south-west are heavily charged with moisture, and on approaching the Pennines are forced upwards and cooled. The relative humidity of the atmosphere is therefore high, and this is of great advantage in cotton-spinning, as it prevents the cotton, and especially the finer qualities, from snapping, as would be the case with vegetable fibres, if the air were dry. These climatic conditions probably contributed also to the differentiation of processes which gradually took place in the cotton industry. The spinning towns—Oldham, Bolton, Bury, Stalybridge, and others—lie in valleys up which the winds from the ocean may easily blow. Of the weaving towns, on the other hand, Blackburn, Darwen, Accrington, Nelson, Cohie, and others, lie sheltered to some extent, while Preston and Chorley have the rainfall of the Lancashire plain, which is lower than that of the Pennine slopes. Thus, the towns situated most favourably for spinning developed that branch of the industry, while others without these advantages took more naturally to weaving. The political events of the eighteenth century, which led to the growth of the United Kingdom as a great colonial and maritime power, have also had an important influence upon the development of the cotton trade. The fact that British ships were constantly finding their way into every port on the globe facilitated the export of cotton goods, and gave Lancashire the additional advantages of cheap transportation.