We have previously stated that Whitehaven is mainly indebted to the Lowther family for its rise and progress as a trading port. By Sir John Lowther, an ancestor of this house, the lands of the dissolved monastery of St. Bees were purchased for his second son, Sir Christopher, early in the reign of Charles the First; and, as the use of coals first became general at this period, the new proprietor determined on improving his estate by opening a colliery. In this, however, little progress was made till after the Restoration, when Sir John Lowther, his successor, formed a plan for working the mines on a very extensive scale, and with this view obtained considerable grants of unappropriated land in the district, which was secured to him in 1666. Two years later he obtained a further accession of property, including a parliamentary gift of the whole sea-coast for two miles northward, between high and low water-mark. He next turned his attention to the port, which was neither large nor convenient, and by his judicious schemes laid the foundation of the present haven. Since that important epoch it has been greatly and gradually improved, particularly since an act of parliament was obtained to finish the original plan, and to keep it in repair, by a moderate tonnage on shipping. In its present form it is protected and strengthened by several piers, or moles, of compact stonework, three of which project in parallel lines from the land; a fourth, bending in the form of a crescent, has a watchhouse and battery, with a handsome lighthouse at its extremity. At low water, the port is nearly dry, so that the shipping within the moles lie as if in dry docks. Adjoining the harbour, on the west side of the town, is the coal-_staith_, or magazine, where coal for exportation is deposited to the amount of several thousand waggon-loads. Eight or ten, and occasionally twelve, vessels, each carrying a hundred tons and upwards, are commonly loaded at one tide, at an expense of only ten shillings each, so great are the facilities contrived for this purpose. The method is this: the greatest part of the road from the pit runs along an inclined plain, on which are railways communicating with covered galleries, which terminate in large flues, or _hurries_, placed sloping over the quay. When loaded, the waggons run by their own weight from the pit to the magazine, where, their bottoms being struck out, the coals are dropped into the _hurries_, and thence with a noise like thunder descend into the holds of the vessels.