West Derby hundred completes the county. This was in Saxon times called Derbei, and was a recognised division; the river Mersey on the one side, and the Irish Sea on the other, have not a little contributed to render this one of the most important districts in England. Liverpool, with its miles of docks and its connection with every part of the world, has become the recognised second port in the country. In the north-east corner of West Derby are the extensive coalfields of Wigan. A considerable portion of the hundred is as yet untainted with the smoke of the manufactory. Many of the parish churches are of great antiquity; amongst them may be named Ormskirk, Leigh, Wigan, Winwick, Warrington, Childwall, Walton-on-the-Hill, Prescot, Sephton and Huyton. Burscough Priory was in the parish of Ormskirk, and Liverpool had its ancient castle. Having thus briefly (but at as great a length and in as much detail as the nature and scope of the series of County Histories will allow) described the County Palatine, we may at once proceed to deal with its history as a not unimportant section of the United Kingdom. [Footnote 1: "Recent Results of the Investigation into Local [Rochdale] Erratic Blocks," by S. S. Platt.] [Footnote 2: H. Colley March, F.S.A., "The Early Neolithic Floor of East Lancashire," p. 7.] [Illustration] CHAPTER II. PRE-ROMAN LANCASHIRE. Notwithstanding what has been written upon the so-called "glacial nightmare," it still remains an undisputed fact that at some far-distant period the whole of Lancashire was sunk beneath a sea, the waters of which carried along with them huge masses of ice, which, in their passage southward, deposited boulders which they had borne in their chill embrace for hundreds of miles. The hills which rose above the sea were covered with perpetual snow, and the valleys between them were filled with glaciers, which in many instances left a terminal moraine.