LANARKSHIRE, or Clydesdale, a county in Scotland, situated between 55. 20. and 55. 56. north latitude, and 3. 25. and 4. 22. west longitude. It is bounded on the north by the counties of Dumbarton and Stirling, on the east by those of Edinburgh, Linlithgow, and Peebles, by Dumfriesshire on the south, and by the counties of Ayr and Renfrew on the west. In length, from north to south, it is about forty-seven miles; its greatest breadth, from east to west, is thirty-two, and it extends over 942 square miles, or 602,880 English acres, of which about 271,000 acres are under cultivation. It is divided into three wards; the Upper, of which Lanark is the chief town, containing about two thirds of its area, on the east, south, and southwest, the greater part mountainous; the Middle, which has the town of Hamilton in its centre, stretching along the west and north; and the Lower, containing the city of Glasgow, and a small tract around it.

This extensive district presents great variety of surface. Some of the mountains in the Upper Ward, where it is bounded by Dumfriesshire, are about 3000 feet high; and Tintock, on the northern boundary of the hilly district, is nearly 2300. Leadhills, a village on its southern extremity, is 1564 feet above the level of the sea, being the highest iphabited ground in Scotland. But in proceeding along the banks of the Clyde north from Tintock, the face of the country softens down to gentle elevations and depressions, and for twelve miles the river winds slowly through fertile haughs. The Middle Ward is much less elevated, few of the heights being little more than 700 feet above sea level; the town of Hamilton is only about eighty; yet there are no plains of any extent except along the banks of the Clyde, and a considerable part of the surface is covered with moss, in many places to a great depth. Of the Lower, the greater part is a highly ornamented district, particularly the banks of the Clyde, which are thickly planted with villas, the summer residence of the wealthy inhabitants of the city of Glasgow.

The principal river, and, in a commercial point of view, the greatest in Scotland, is the Clyde, from which the county is frequently called Clydesdale. It has its rise in the ridge of mountains which separate Lanarkshire from Dumfriesshire, and, flowing first north and then northwest, through the middle of the county, falls into the frith of the same name above Greenock, carrying with it the waters collected from 1200 square miles. The principal streams which join it on the south are Duneaton, Douglas, Nethan, Avon, and West Calder; and on the north the Medwin, Mouse, South and North Calders, and Kelvin, which separates Lanarkshire from Dumbartonshire. The Clyde is navigable to Glasgow for vessels of more than 300 tons burden, and drawing thirteen feet water; and two miles higher up for smaller vessels. Most kinds of the fish found in the other rivers of Scotland are also found in the Clyde; but it is supposed that the great increase of trade on the river, and the use of the water for the various purposes of manufacture, have been injurious to the fisheries.

Sandstone and limestone are the prevailing rocks in the lower parts of Lanarkshire, and argillaceous schistus in the high grounds. In the Cathkin Hills, near Glasgow, there is a number of basaltic columns, more than forty feet high, inclined at an angle of about seventy degrees. Ironstone abounds in many parts of the county, and is wrought to a great extent, there having been nineteen furnaces in operation in 1835, producing 56,000 tons of iron annually, exclusive of six furnaces in preparation, calculated to make 13,000 tons additional, being more than three fourths of the whole quantity made in Scotland. The great increase in this manufacture has been partly attributed to the hot-blast invented by Mr Neilson of Glasgow, first tried on a large scale in the Clyde iron-works, and immediately thereafter adopted at the Calder works. The use of this improvement is rapidly extending, and is likely to effect a most beneficial change on the production of this valuable metal. On the southern extremity are the well-known lead-mines belonging to the Earl of Hopetoun, from which the village of Leadhills takes its name. These mines now yield annually only 700 tons of lead, being less than the half of the quantity produced [7:13:50] during the war. This deficiency is attributed solely to the want of demand, the ore being still found in abundance. A manufactory of small shot was established about two years ago. In the same quarter gold was discovered in the time of James HL, and afterwards collected in considerable quantities, from which the celebrated “bonnet pieces” of James V. were coined. But coal is by far the most important of its mineral treasures. It is supposed to stretch throughout an area of about 70,000 acres, and, including the different seams, to be about ten feet thick. The field near Glasgow contains eight seams, one of them seven feet thick, the whole amounting to upwards of thirty feet. There are several good seams of cannel or candle coal in different parts of the county. This kind has been long used by the country people for lighting their houses, and is now carried in great quantities to Glasgow and other towns, for the manufacture of gas.

The valued rent of Lanarkshire is L.162,1l8. !6s. 10d. Scots, and the real rent of lands, houses, mines, and quarries, is L.75l,364'. Is. 2d. About two thirds of the county is the property of great landholders, but small properties are very numerous. The number of landholders above L.400 of valued rent is about seventy; and below that sum and above L.10, upwards of 750. These small estates, with those of many of the class immediately above them, are cultivated by their owners; the large ones are letout to tenants on leases, except the enclosed grass lands, a great part of which is let out from year to year for grazing only.

The arable land is for the most part divided into farms of a moderate extent, held on leases for nineteen years; but it is notan uncommon practice to let the grazing lands for two or three crops only, for which a high rent is often obtained. The sheep pastures in the mountain districts yield a rent averaging about two shillings and ninepence per acre, and the arable land about twenty shillings, the best in general being only cultivated. In the lower portion of the Upper Ward, where cultivation is more indiscriminate, the average is not much higher; but in the Middle and Lower Wards the average of arable land may he computed at thirty shillings. Much of the arable land in the first division is dry and fertile; clay prevails in the second and third; and along the banks of the Clyde there are considerable tracts of an alluvial description. Of late years much land has been reclaimed and improved by draining; and incalculable benefit has been derived from the planting of clumpsand strips of trees in exposed situations, although this practice has not yet become so general as its importance obviously demands. The present system of entails, under which a great proportion of the land in this county is held, has been much blamed for retarding such improvements.

As this county slopes to the west almost throughout its whole extent, the Atlantic exerts a powerful influence on its climate. For about two thirds of the year the wind blows from the south-west and west. Intense frosts are of short duration, and snow seldom lies long in the lower districts; but, from the general humidity of the atmosphere, and also of the soil, seed-time and harvest are often late. In regard to heat, there is a considerable difference between the Upper and Middle Wards, the thermometer on the same day commonly standing several degrees higher in the latter than in the former. Its range is from eleven to eighty-five degrees. The quantity of rain that falls at Glasgow varies from fourteen and a half to twenty-eight and a half inches, the average for thirty years being twenty-two and a third; but at Lanark the influence of the Atlantic is less sensibly felt, owing probably to its open and elevated situation. This however may, equally with the great humidity of the other wards, account for the lateness of the harvest. Lanarkshire is therefore, upon the whole, less favourable to the culture of corn than the eastern counties of Scotland.

The dairy is accordingly an object of considerable importance here, and is carried on in all its branches. Besides the dairies kept in and near the city of Glasgow, for supplying the inhabitants with milk, cream, and fresh butter, a great number of cows are kept in the landward districts, the produce of which is applied to making butter and cheese, and the fattening of calves. The cheese is in general equal in quality to the best Dunlop, and brings the highest prices in the Edinburgh and Glasgow markets. Lesmahagow and Carnwath parishes are said to produce the best. Within the last few years several of the Highland Society’s prizes for the best imitation of Stilton and double Gloucester cheeses have been obtained by the dairy farmers of the latter parish. The Ayrshire breed of cattle has hitherto been most prized; but a new species has recently been introduced, and found to be of superior quality, viz. the Lanarkshire newly-improved breed, crossed by the Ayrshire cow and short-horned bull, or vice versa. The draught-horses of Clydesdale have long been famous. They are supposed to have originated from some Flanders or Holstein horses brought over in the seventeenth century by one of the Dukes of Hamilton.

From the earliest period, Clydesdale has been celebrated for its fruit. The Venerable Bede, who flourished in the eighth century, speaks of the “apple-yards of Lanark” as being then famous. Till the beginning of the present century, however, the orchards seem to have been principally confined to sloping banks, and acclivities inaccessible to the plough. But the growing prosperity and wealth of Glasgow, and the obstructions to continental intercourse about the period above alluded to, operated a change so favourable, that some of the richest holm lands were speedily devoted to this species of cultivation. It ises-timated that there areat least 600 acres in orchards, which are gradually extending, although the reduced value and the precariousness of the crop seem to hold out little inducement. The average value of the fruit at the orchards during the war was about L.8000 per annum, but of late years it has not exceeded L.5000. The average price of apples at the orchards in 1835 was under two shillings per sack of about forty pounds. Gooseberries and currants are likewise largely cultivated. In some of the more extensive orchards, they yield L.50 or L.60 annually.

The internal communication by means of roads is in a high state of improvement. The great line of road from Glasgow to Carlisle and London intersects the whole county from east to west; and in every direction it is traversed by roads in the best state of repair. But other modes of communication have been found requisite for the immense trade carried on in Glasgow and the neighbourhood. The navigation of the Clyde has been much improved by deepening and confining the bed of the river, and by canals formed in several directions. These are, the Forth and Clyde Canal, connecting the friths of these two rivers, thirty-five miles distant from each other; this was the first considerable work of the kind undertaken in Scotland, and has been a very useful and successful one; the shares of L.100 were lately selling at L.540: at Stockingfield, a collateral branch proceeds to Port Dundas, at Glasgow: the Monkland Canal, from the coalworks in the parishes of Monkland, to the Forth and Clyde at Port Dundas: and die Ardrossan Canal, which is completed from Port Eglinton, near Glasgow, to the village of Johnston, a distance of eleven miles, and is intended to be continued to Ardrossan, on the coast of Ayrshire, twenty-two miles farther. Railways, too, which promise to fulfil the wonders of the nursery tale of the seven-league boots, have been projected, and some of [7:13:51]them executed. The Kirkintilloch Railway stretches from the canal into the coalfields of Monkland. The Garnkirk Railway is the only one on which locomotive engines are employed. It extends from Glasgow to near Airdrie, where it is joined by the Ballochney Railway. The Wishaw and Coltness Railway, partly executed, is intended to open this mode of communication to near the centre of the county; whilst one on a more extensive scale is in contemplation for connecting the cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. In short, railways, which seem as yet in their infancy, are now being pushed out in all directions from the great emporium of the west, and will no doubt thrive under the fostering enterprise and industry of that great city.

The city of Glasgow, with its manufactures and commerce, has been described in the article Glasgow. The other towns are Lanark (see the article Lanark ), Rutherglen, Hamilton, and Airdrie, with which may be classed the populous villages of Strathaven and Biggar, polling stations for the elections of members of parliament. Hamilton is situated on the Clyde, thirty-eight miles west of Edinburgh, and eleven south-east of Glasgow, with a population of 9513. In the neighbourhood is the seat of the Duke of Hamilton; and three miles below is Bothwell Bridge, noted for the defeat of the Covenanters, on the 22d of June 1679. Rutherglen is a royal burgh, on the Clyde, two and a half miles above Glasgow. Airdrie, situated in the parish of New Monkland, on the great road between Edinburgh and Glasgow, about ten miles from the latter, is rapidly rising into importance. It has been recognised as a burgh under the parliamentary and burgh reform acts. The population of the town in 1831 was 6594, of the parish 9867. There are a number of villages in the vicinity of Glasgow, which, by their situation, belong to that city; and several of considerable extent in different parts of the county. Amongst the latter may be mentioned Carnwath, Carluke, Douglas, Lesmahagow, Stonehouse, Leadhills, and New Lanark. The cotton manufacture, the iron-works, and the collieries, give employment to the greater part of the inhabitants of Lanarkshire. Every great establishment has a considerable village in the neighbourhood, where the workmen reside.

The county of Lanark sends one member to parliament, who is chosen by a Constituency of 3634, of whom above 200 consist of the old freeholders. The city of Glasgow sends two members, chosen by a constituency of 8883; and the royal burghs of Lanark and Rutherglen, and the towns of Hamilton and Airdrie, have a share in the election of other two members; Lanark, Hamilton, and Airdrie, being joined with Falkirk, and Linlithgow and Rutherglen with Kilmarnock, Port Glasgow, Dumbarton, and Renfrew. It has one sheriff, whose jurisdiction extends over all the county, and three substitutes, at Lanark, Glasgow, and Hamilton. Lanarkshire contains forty-seven parishes, of which eleven belong to the Presbytery of Lanark, fourteen to that of Hamilton, and thirteen to that of Glasgow, all in the Synod of Glasgow and Ayr; and nine to the Presbytery of Biggar, in the Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale. The ecclesiastical revenue, exclusive of that of the churches within the city of Glasgow, including the estimated value of the glebes, may be stated, on an average of the last seven years, at about L.l 1,550. The increase of the population has been uncommonly rapid; but it may be attributed chiefly to the city of Glasgow, and the spread of its manufactures.

The following table exhibits an abstract of the population returns of 1831, and a comparative view of the enumerations made in 1801, 1811, 1821, and that year.
[table]

The population amounted in 1801 to 146,699, in 1811 to 191,752, in 1821 to 244,387, and in 1831 to 316,819.

(See Naismyth’s General View of the Agriculture of Clydesdale ; Beauties of Scotland, vol. iii.; The General Report of Scotland ; and Playfair’s Account of Scotland, vol. i.)