PENZANCE  , a municipal

borough, market town and seaport in the St Ives parliamentary division of Cornwall, England, the terminus of the Great Western railway, 3252 M . W.S.W. of London . Pop . (root), 13,136 . It is finely situated on the western shore of Mount's Bay, opposite St Michael's Mount, being the westernmost port in England . The site of the old town slopes sharply upward from the harbour, to the west of which there extends an esplanade and modern residential quarter; for Penzance, with its mild climate, is in considerable favour as a health resort . The town has no buildings of great antiquity, but the public buildings (1867), in Italian style, are handsome . By the market house is a statue of Sir Humphry Davy, who was born here in 1778 . Among institutions there are a specially fine public library, museums of geology and natural history and antiquities, mining and science schools, the West Cornwall Infirmary and a meteorological station . The harbour, enclosed within a breakwater, has an area of 24 acres, with 12 to 16 ft. depth of water, and floating and graving docks .