ufacturing areas and her coal areas are almost identical.
Taking Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Sheffield,
Leeds, Newcastle, Durham, Bristol, Stoke, Carlisle, Cardiff, Swansea,
Glasgow, Paisley, and Dundee as centres, around each of these lies a
coal area of such richness as amply sustains it in its commercial and
manufacturing pre-eminence. London is almost the only great
commercial centre of Britain that does not lie in the midst of or
quite adjacent to a rich coal and other mineral region. But London is
within easy distance, not only by rail, but also by canal and by
coastwise sailing, of every coal-field and mineral deposit of Britain.
London, however, is an importing and exporting centre rather than a
manufacturing centre.

[Illustration: The coal-fields of England.]

LONDON'S SPECIAL TRADE FEATURES

The commercial supremacy attained by many of the large cities of
Britain is not wholly due to natural causes, or even to ordinary
causes. Much of it is due to extraordinary enterprise and forethought
on the part of their citizens. London, for example, is the centre of
the wool trade of Britain. The woollen manufacturers of Britain use
about 250,000 tons of wool annually, and three fourths of this is
imported. Other cities that lie near the seats of the great woollen
manufactures--Liverpool, for example--have tried to secure a share of
this vast importation of wool, but London, because of the special
attention it gives to this trade, manages to keep almost the whole of
the trade in its own hands. Similarly, London almost wholly
monopolises the trade of England with Arabia, India, the East Indies,
China, and Japan. It is therefore the great emporium for tea, coffee,
sugar, spices, indigo, and raw silk. It also enjoys the bulk of
Britain's trade in fruits (oranges, lemons, currants, raisins, figs,
dates, etc.) and in wines, olive oil, and madder, with the countries
that lie about the Mediterranean. By virtue partly of its situation,
but largely because of the enterprise of its merchants, it absorbs
nearly the whole of Britain's French trade, and of England's trade
with Germany, Belgium, Holland, and Denmark. This includes principally
wines (from France), and butter, eggs, and vegetables. Another great
branch of its trade is that with the ports of the Baltic, including
those of Russia, the imports comprising, besides wheat and wool,
tallow, timber, hemp, and linseed. The tobacco imported from Virginia