The seat of the manufacture, at present, is at Ghent and Liege, and is confined to a very few extensive establishments, projected by joint stock companies, or Sociétés Anonymes,[9] for the formation of which, there has latterly been almost a mania in Belgium. Four of these establishments, projected between 1837 and 1838, proposed to invest a capital amounting amongst the whole, to no less than fourteen millions of francs. One of them at Liege, perfected its intention and is now in action. A second, at Malines (Mechlin), was abandoned after the buildings had been erected, and the other two at Ghent, are still only in process of completion. Besides these, there is a third at Ghent, in the hands of an individual, calculated for 10,000 spindles. That which we visited belonging to _La Société de la Lys_, may be taken as a fair illustration of the progress which the art has made in Belgium, as the others are all constructed on similar models, and with the same apparatus in all respects. It was originally calculated for 15,000 spindles, but of these not more than one third are yet erected, and in motion, and but 5,000 others are in preparation. The steam engines were made in England, by Messrs. Hall, of Dartford, on the principle known as Wolf’s patent, which, using two cylinders, combines both a high and low pressure, and is wrought with one half to one third the fuel required for the engines, in ordinary use in England,[10] an object of vast importance in a country where coals are so expensive as they are in Belgium.[11] The machinery is all made at the Phœnix works in Ghent, the preparatory portions of it are excellent, and exhibit all the recent English improvements, and in roving they use the new spiral frames. But the spinning rooms show the Belgian mechanics to be still much behind those of Leeds and Manchester, as evinced by the clumsiness and imperfect finish of the frames, although they were still producing excellent work; the yarn we saw being of good quality, but of a coarse description, and intended for home consumption, and for the thread-makers of Lisle. The quantity produced, per day, was quite equal to that of English spinners,[12] and their wages much the same as those paid in Ireland, and somewhat less than the English.[13]