pages 162-163

Miscellaneous Industrial Occupations                163

Omitting a considerable number of minor activities, there is, in addition to the above, the vast sphere of industry, part of the very life of working Lancashire, though not a manufacture, indicated by the little word "coal." In their value and importance the Lancashire collieries vie with the cotton-mills, declaring once again how close and constant is the dependence of the prosperity of a great manufacturing district upon its geology. Coalfields lying below the surface leave the soil above them free for the purposes of the farmer and the builder; in other words, for the raising of human food and the development of useful constructive arts. Where there is plenty of coal double the number of people can exist; the enormous population of Lancashire south of the Ribble has unquestionably come as much of its coaliields as of the invention of the spinning-jenny. The prevailing rock in this portion of Lancashire is the well-known new red sandstone, the same as that which overlies all our other best English coal deposits. Concurrently with it, and with the millstone-grit, the measures which have brought so much wealth to the county, extend from Pendleton, two miles from Manchester, to Colne in the north--east, and to St. Helen's in the west, many vast branches running out in various directions from the principal mass.