pages 160-161
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160                 Illustrations of Lancashire

Lancashire staples. Gunpowder is manufactured near the foot of Windermere; and at Prescot and thereabouts the people employ themselves, as they have done now for nearly three centuries, in manufacturing the delicate "works" and "movements" required for watches. Not without significance either, in regard to the general capabilities of the county, is the preparation at Newton by Messrs. McCorquodale of the whole of the requirements of the Government, both for home use and in India, in the way of stationery and account-books. For the Government alone they manufacture forty millions of envelopes every year. They also execute the enormous amount of printing demanded by the L.& N.W. Railway Company. The great ship-building works at Barrow now need no more than a reference. The magnificent Atlantic Inman steamer, the City of Rome, a ship with a gross tonnage of 8400, and propelled by, upon the lowest estimate, 8500 indicated horse-power, was launched here in June 1881. After the ill-fated Great Eastern, this was the largest vessel then afloat. All has come into existence since about 1860, when the population of this out-of-the-way Lancashire village was under 4,000, though now nearly 50,000, a growth without parallel except in the United States.