The Belfast and Ballymena Railway, with Branches to Carrickfergus and Randalstown, received the sanction of parliament in the session of 1845. The object of this undertaking is, to connect the port and town of Belfast with the rising and rapidly improving inland town of Ballymena, whence a railway is projected to Coleraine, to meet the Londonderry line, thereby opening a direct communication with the west and north-west parts of the kingdom. The Branch to Randalstown will meet the Castledawson Branch of the Armagh and Portrush line, by which a communication will be opened into the very centre of the kingdom. The Ballymena line is in course of rapid progress towards completion, and is expected to be opened for traffic in November, 1847. The total expenditure upon the line up to November, 1846, was £125,519 8s. 11d.

The Belfast and County Down Railway Company were incorporated by act of the session of 1846. The object of this undertaking is to connect the town of Belfast and the assize, market, and borough town of Downpatrick, with a Branch to Newtonards. This company have purchased the Belfast and Holywood atmospheric line, and will construct a line to the latter place, in conjunction with their trunk line. No works have, as yet, commenced upon any part of this line, but the company have advertised for contracts, to construct the line up to a point in the vicinity of Newtonards.

CONVEYANCES.

In an old Almanac, imprinted in Dublin, for the year 1742, we find the following:-"The Belfast Stage Coach sets up with James Smith, at the Unicorn, in Capel-street. In Winter it takes three days, and leaves Dublin at 8, and Belfast at 7 in the morning. In Summer it will take only two days, and set out from each place about 5 in the morning. This Coach will always run with 6 able horses. Sets out from Dublin every Monday, and from Belfast every Thursday."

The first mail-coach, between Belfast and Dublin, commenced running on the 5th of July, 1790. The fares by this conveyance were, in 1793, as follow:-from Dublin to Drogheda, 11s.; to Dunleer, 13s. 9d.; to Castlebellingham,

15s. 7d.; to Dundalk, 18s. 4d.; to Newry, £1 2s. 9d.; to Loughbrickland, £1 6s. 5d.; to Dromore, £1 10s. 1d.; to Hillsborough, £1 11s. 11d.; to Lisburn, £1 13s. 3d.; and to Belfast, £1 16s. 3d. This coach proceeded to Donaghadee, by way of Newtonards, the fare to the former place being £2 2s. 3d. In 1809, the first passenger coach commenced running between Downpatrick and Belfast, the fares by which were, for the inside, 11s. 41d., and for the outside 7s. 7d.

The public conveyances by road, at the close of 1841, were four coaches to Dublin, three to Armagh, one to Ballynahinch, two to Ballymena, one to Carrickfergus, two and a car to Londonderry direct, one to Londonderry by way of Coleraine, one and an omnibus to Comber, one and a car to Donaghadee, one and a car to Downpatrick, one to Dungannon, one to Enniskillen, one to Killyleagh, one to Kilrea, two to Larne, one to Magherafelt and Cookstown, two and a car to Portaferry, one to Portglenone, and six cars to Bangor.

The first steam boat that crossed the channel to this port was from Liverpool, in 1819, but it was not till 1824 that steam-boats were employed in the transmission of merchandize. At the close of 1841, steamers sailed thrice a-week direct for Glasgow; every Tuesday for Stranraer and Glasgow; every Wednesday for Dublin; every Monday for Dublin, Falmouth, Plymouth, and London; thrice a-week for Liverpool; every Tuesday for Carlisle and Whitehaven, and every Monday and Friday for Fleetwood.

There are now, at the close of 1846, steam-packets trading regularly to and from this port as follow:-for London four screw steamers, the Pearl, Emerald, Lady Sale, and Sea Queen. There is also another building, Erin's Queen, which will be on the station early in the ensuing year.-For Liverpool, the steamers Sea King, Windsor, and Tynwald, three times each week.-For Fleetwood, the Prince of Wales, and Princess Alice, three times each week.-For Glasgow, the Thetis, and Aurora, four times each week. There is a fine new vessel nearly ready, the Lyra, which will also soon be on this station.-For Carlisle, the Newcastle, once every fortnight. For Whitehaven, the Queen, or Earl of Londsdale, once each week.-For Ardrossan, the Fire-fly and Glow-worm,

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three times each week.-For Stranraer, the Albion, once a fortnight. For Dublin, the Royal William, once each week.

MANUFACTURES.

Belfast owes much of its importance and its prosperity to the linen trade of Ulster, of which it has long been, and still is, the grand depot. Although we find mention of Irish linen in England as early as 1272, (Temp. Hen. III ;) as appears by Maddox's History of the Exchequer, when there occured a quarrel between two thieves who had stolen some of it at Winchester, yet we do not find it to have been particularly encouraged, as a branch of national manufacture, until 1637, when it was so by Lord Strafford, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. In 1678, an act of parliament was passed, prohibiting the importation of linen from France, but this act was subsequently repealed by James II., who gave every encouragement to the French manufacture. In 1699, Mr. Lewis Crommelin, who, with a colony of about seventy French refugees, had settled in the neighbourhood of Lisburn, after the repeal of the edict of Nantes, obtained a patent for the establishment of the linen trade there, and the Irish parliament, by their vote of the 30th of October, 1707, confirmed the establishment of the trade in Ulster. In 1711, a Board of Trustees of the linen and hempen manufacture was established by act of parliament, and on the 13th of October, in the same year, this Board was summoned to Dublin, by the Duke of Ormond, the then Viceroy, when the charter of their appointment was read to them. In this year also, linen scarfs and hat-bands were first introduced and worn at funerals, in Ireland, in order to encourage the manufacture of the fabric.-In 1725 machinery was first invented for, and applied to, the operation of washing, rubbing, and beetling linen at Ballydrain, in the parish of Shankhill, or Belfast. The value of linen exported in 1730, was estimated at £400,000. In 1743, bounties were first granted on the exportation of Irish linen.—The only acid used in the process of bleaching, up to 1761, was buttermilk, and, in 1764, Dr. James Ferguson, of Belfast, received from the Linen Board a premium of £300, for the successful application of lime

in the bleaching of linen. In 1770 he introduced sulphuric acid; in 1780 potash was first used, and, in 1795, chloride of lime was introduced. In 1784, the value of brown linen sold in the markets of Ulster amounted to £1,214,360, and for some years preceding, and subsequent to, the Legislative Union, the exports amounted to £2,600,000, of which nearly one-half was the produce of the county Antrim. The business of the linen trade of the whole kingdom was, for a long time, transacted solely in Dublin, by factors resident there; but the serious inconvenience experienced by the numerous bleachers of Ulster, in consequence of the remoteness of the principal mart, prompted them to the establishment of a Linen Hall at Belfast, and in 1785, that spacious and handsome quadrangular building, the White Linen Hall, was erected, at an expense of £10,000.

In 1825, the celebrated Damask Manufactory of Mr. M. Andrews, at Ardoyne, was established. The elegance of the fabric soon extended its reputation, and obtained royal patronage, an extensive order having been executed for his late majesty William IV. Linens and sheetings of the stoutest fabric, for the London market, are likewise manufactured in this establishment. The proprietor obtained the gold medal of the Royal Dublin Society, for specimens of his productions shewn at their exhibitions of national manufactures, held in Dublin, in May, 1835. Mr. Robert Roddy, of the linen and damask warerooms, Donegall-street, Belfast, was also awarded medals of the Royal Agricultural Improvement Society, and the Royal Dublin Society, for specimens of the production of the Ardoyne looms exhibited by him.

In 1832, the bounty on the exportation of Irish linen was discontinued. In 1835, as appears by the return of the Railway Commissioners, there were shipped from Ireland 70,209,572 yards of linen, the value of which was £3,730,854.

In 1830, the spinning of linen yarn by machinery was first introduced here by the enterprise of the Messrs. Mulholland. In 1841, the steam-power mills engaged in the most important trade of Flax-spinning, in Belfast and its vicinity, amounted to twenty-five. The principal one of these, that of the Messrs. Mulholland, in York-street, employs 1020 persons; annually

consumes 800 tons of flax, and produces yarn to the estimated value of £80,000 to £100,000 a-year. The annual expenditure, in wages alone, amounts to nearly £16,000. A large addition has been made to this mill during the present year, which, when completed, will cause an increase of one-fourth in every department of this magnificent and truly valuable concern. The town contains within itself the appliances for producing, from the elementary process on to completion, the various fabrics of the linen and hempen manufacture, from the finest cambric to the coarsest canvas. In addition to the many flax-spinning mills, large factories exist for weaving shirtings, drills, Osnaburghs, sacking, and other linen fabrics.

From 1785 till 1824, minute statistics were made and preserved of the yearly condition of the linen trade; but since 1825, when the commercial intercourse between Ireland and Great Britain was resolved into a coasting trade, the statistics either ceased to be made or became confounded and of no practicable utility. In the beginning of the reign of William III., the annual value of the linen exported from Ireland was only £6,000. During the effluxion of the eighteenth century, up to about 1796, the trade made steady and rapid progress; and then, when the annual value of exported linen was about £3,697,503, the trade reached a culminating point; yet in 1809, though the number of yards exported was 2,800,837 fewer than in 1796, the annual value, in consequence of advance in price, was £5,853,917. Subsequently to 1809, the trade very materially declined; about the years 1820-1824, it sunk comparatively low; and during some subsequent years, it continued low, though fluctuating; but during the last sixteen or seventeen years, it has revived and progressed; and now it is once more in a decidedly prosperous condition,-more prosperous, perhaps, than at any previous period of its history. At present the annual value of the linen cloth manufactured in Ulster cannot be less than £4,000,000. The number of persons employed in all branches of the manufacture is about 170,000; it may be safely asserted, that 500,000 derive their subsistence from it. The annual amount of wages may be calculated at £1,200,000;