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consequence of the facilities afforded by this system for raising the supplies, the country has gone on for nearly a century in adding to the load of its debt, until nearly half its income is now absorbed in the unprofitable expence of paying the interest due to the national creditors. In 1701 the national debt was only £6,748,080; in 1819 it was £791,867,313, and the interest about £30,000,000. Revenue.] Taxation has kept pace with the accumulation of debt All the ordinary articles of consumption, every transfer of property, every species of luxurious expence is subjected to heavy taxes. The most productive branches of the revenue are the excise, the customs, and the stamps, particularly the first. The amount of the revenue for the year ending 5th Jan. 1813, was £69,240,123; of which England yielded £59,014,416; Ireland £5,705,815, and Scotland £4,519,892.

Army.] The army on the peace establishment, in 1815, consisted of 129,000 men; but during the late war, the troops immediately belonging to the nation amounted to more than 600,000, and the whole number of men in arms throughout the British possessions was computed at above a million.

Navy.] The navy of Great Britain is far superior to that of any other nation on the globe. In 1811 it consisted of 254 ships of the line, 34 fifty gun ships, 280 frigates, and 523 smaller vessels. For this immense fleet the number of seamen and marines amounted to 180.000, a number which no other country, ancient or modern, could have supplied.

Manufactures. The manufactures of England are of vast extent and give employment to a large portion of her population; and such is the ingenuity of her numerous artizans, such are the contrivances invented for the abridgment of labor, such is the minuteness with which the industry of the country is divided; such the perfection to which the workmen, by patient perseverance, each in his own particular task, have brought their respective arts; and lastly, so great is the capital which has been accumulated during ages of successful industry, that England, notwithstanding her heavy taxation, and the high wages which are paid for labor, is still enabled in all the countries to which her commodities are exported, to undersell the foreign manufacturer in his own market, and to inundate almost every country in the world with English goods. The principal manufactures are those of cotton and woollen goods. Next to these are the hardware manufactures of iron and steel, copper and brass. The silk and linen manufactures are carried on in England, but not to any great extent. The manufacture of stockings is an important branch of industry in several counties, especially in Nottinghamshire. English earthenware is finished with beauty and taste, and in great variety, principally at the potteries in Staffordshire; and glass is manufactured in various parts, chiefly in Newcastle, Sunderland and Bristol. China ware of a very superior quality is made in Derby and Worcester. In London every sort of fine and elegant manufacture is carried on.

Commerce.] The commerce of Great Britain extends to every portion of the globe. It consists almost entirely in the exchange of her manufactures for the rude produce of other countries. The value of the imports in 1814 was £24,362,124, and of the exports £37,847,874. There are employed in carrying on this extensive trade about 17,000 vessels, of the burden of about 2,100,000 tons, and navigated by 130.000 men and boys.

Fisheries. England has extensive fisheries both at home and abroad. Salmon are caught in most of her rivers, and the seas around her coasts yield herrings, mackerel, pilchards, white fish and an abundance of shell-fish. The Newfoundland fisheries at one time employed a considerable number of vessels. The whale fishery both in the North and South seas is prosecuted to a great extent.

Islands.] The isle of Wight is situated opposite the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by a channel varying in breadth from two to seven miles. At the distance of about 70 miles from Wight to the S. W. arises the little isle of Alderney, off the Cape la Hogue on the French coast, and still farther to the S. W. and S. are Guernsey and Jersey with the small island of Sark interposed between them. Returning to the English shore, we first descry off Plymouth sound Eddistone Lighthouse, on a rock beat by all the fury of the ocean, the waves sometimes washing over the very summit in one sheet of foam. About 30 miles to the west of the Land's End, appear the isles of Scilly, said to be 145 in number, besides innumerable dreary rocks. The island of Anglesca lies off the N. W. coast of Wales, and the isle of Man, the last of the English isles worthy of notice, is in the Irish sea at about an equal distance from England, Scotland, and Ireland.

SCOTLAND.

Situation and Extent.] Scotland is bounded W. and N. by the Atlantic ocean; E. by the German ocean; S. E. by England, from which it is separated in part by the river Tweed; S. by Solway frith; and S. W. by that part of the Irish sea called the North Channel. It lies between 54° and 59° N. lat. but including the Shetland and Orkney islands, it extends to 61° 12'. and between 1° and 5° W. lon. but the Western islands extend much farther. including all the islands it contains 30,238 square miles, of which 638 are occupied by lakes and rivers.

Divisions] Scotland is divided into 33 counties, which are subdivided into 877 parishes.

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Rivers.] Scotland has numerous rivers, which are for the most part short and rapid. Their banks, in the upper part of their course, generally display the finest and most picturesque scenery; the falls and cascades, which are everywhere frequent, greatly adding to the effect. The principal rivers which discharge themselves into the German ocean, beginning in the south, are the Tweed, which forms for a few miles the boundary between England and Scotland; the Forth, which discharges itself by a broad mouth into the Frith of Forth after an E.S.E. course of 200 miles; the Tay, the largest river in Scotland, and celebrated for its salmon fisheries; the North and South Esk, the latter forming the harbor of Mou rose, and the former falling into the ocean three miles farther to the north; the Dee and the Don, the first forming the harbor of Aberdeen, and the mouth of the second be

ing two miles farther north; the Spey, a grand impetuous river, which rises nearly in the centre of Scotland, and after a northeasterly course of 96 miles rushes furiously into the sea; and the Ness, a short river, issuing from Loch Ness and connecting it with the bottom of Murray frith at Inverness. The only considerable river on the western coast is the Clyde, which rises near the sources of the Tweed, and discharges itself into the frith of Clyde, after a northwest course of 70 miles.

Sea Coast.] The coast of Scotland is very extensive, and deeply indented with long narrow arms of the sea. From Berwick, at the S. E. extremity of the kingdom, it bends N. W. to the frith of Forth, which is an extensive bay or estuary separated by a peninsula from the frith of Tay. From the mouth of the Tay, the shore proceeds N. N. E. to Kinnaird's-head. Between that promoutory and Duncansby-head there is a vast bay of a triangular form, the base or eastern line of which is 70 miles. This bay is subdivided into the friths of Murray, Cromarty, and Dornoch, separated from each other by narrow peninsulas. The north coast, between Duncansby-head and Cape Wrath, along the Pentland frith, is bold, rocky and dangerous. Along the western shore are many openings or inlets, where the sea runs far iuland, forming safe and commodious harbors. The frith of Clyde is a capacious bay bounded on one side by the mainland and on the other by the islands of Arran and Bute. Thence the coast extends southward to the Mull of Galloway, the southwest extremity of Scotland. Between that point and the bottom of the Solway frith, lie the deep bays of Wigton and Glenluce.

Lakes] The lakes or lochs of Scotland are numerous and extensive, and have long been celebrated for the grand and picturesque scenery by which their shores are embellished. Of these the chief in extent and beauty is Loch Lomond, which is 30 miles long, and in some places 8 or 9 broad, and is every where studded with romantic islands. It discharges its waters through a short ouflet, at its southern extremity, into the month of the Clyde. From the bottom of Murray frith a valley extends in a S. W. direction completely across the island to the sound of Mull, and is filled with a chain of long narrow lakes and rivers, which, with a single interruption, form a natural water communication from the German ocean to the Atlantic. At the S. W. extremity of the chain is Loch Linhe, 40 miles long, which at one end communicates with the sea, and at the other receives from the N. E. the waters of Loch Lochy through the river Lochy. From Loch Lochy the distance is only 2 miles to Loch Oich, which discharges itself through the river Oich into Loch Ness. Loch Ness is 22 miles Jong and communicates through the river Ness with the Murray frith.

Among the other remarkable Scottish lakes are Loch Erich' Loch Rannock, and Loch Tay, all of which are near the centre of Scotland and discharge themselves into the ocean through the river Tay: Loch Awe, which lies to the N. W. of Loch Lomond, and discharges itself into Loch Etive, an arm of the sea. Loch

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Leven, in the castern part of the island, communicates with the frith of Forth through the river Leven. Loch Katherine hes a few miles to the N. E. of Loch Lomond.

Canals. There is a canal 2 miles long, called the Caledonian canal, extending from Loch Lochy to Loch Oich and completing a navigable communication across the northern part of the island. But the most remarkable inland navigation in Scotland is the great canal from the Forth to the Clyde. It commences on the Clyde below Glasgow and proceeds in an E. N. E. direction 35 miles to the Forth. In its dimensions it is much superior to any work of the kind in England. The English canals are from three to five feet deep, and from 20 to 40 feet wide, and the lock gates from 10 to 12 feet; but they answer the purpose of inland carriage from one town to another, for which alone they were designed. The depth of the canal between the Forth and the Clyde is seven feet; its breadth at the surface 56 feet; the locks are 75 feet long, and their gates 20 feet wide; and the summit level is at the amazing height of 155 feet above the medium full sea mark.

These two canals, with the waters which they connect, divide Scotland into three parts, styled the northern, middle and southern divisions.

Mountains.] The principal range of mountains is the Granpian chain, which commences at Loch Lomond near the mouth of the Clyde, and extends in the form of a semicircle with its concavity towards the S. E. to the eastern coast, terminating near Aberdeen at the mouth of the Dee. The principal summits in this range, beginning in the S. W. are Ben Lomond, near the lake of the same name, Ben Ledi, Ben More, Ben Lawres, Shihallion, and Ben Vorlich,all between 3,000 and 4,000 feet high. Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Great Britain, is near the head of Loch Linhe on the east side. It is 4.350 feet above the level of the Cairngorm, celebrated for the crystals found on it, called Gairn gorms from the name of the mountain, is 60 miles to the N. of Ben Nevis, and rises to the height of 4060 feet.

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Face of the Country.] The Grampian mountains divide the country into two parts, called the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland. The Highlands or northern division, consist generally of an assemblage of vast and dreary mountains, interspersed with innumerable,small lakes, and sometimes with fertile vallies, especially towards the south. A few of the mountains are clothed with green herbage, but in general they are covered with heath, vegetating above peat, rock or gravel, and they frequently termi nate in summits of solid rock, or in vast heaps or cairns of bare and weather-beaten stones. The principal exception to these remarks is the eastern district, extending on the coast from the termination of the Grampian mountains around Kinnaird's Head and westward, beyond the mouth of the Spey, including the counties of Aberdeen, Banff, and Elgin. This district has the characteristics of the Lowlands; in some other parts also, there are occasionally gentle hills consisting of arable soil, and sometimes flat lands of superior quality, especially along the estuaries of the

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