CHAPTER II.

THE SILENT HIGHWAY.

THE Thames, the great river of England, which enriches London with the cargoes of its thousand ships, weekly, rises in the southeastern slopes of the Cotswold Hills. For about twenty miles it belongs wholly to Gloucestershire, when for a short distance it divides that county from Wiltshire. It then separates Berkshire first from Oxfordshire, and then from Buckinghamshire. It afterward divides the counties of Surrey and Middlesex, and to its mouth those of Kent and Essex.

It falls into the sea at the Nore, which is about one hundred and ten miles nearly due east from the source, and about twice that distance measured along the windings of the river.

From having no sandbar at its mouth like the Mersey outside of Liverpool, it is navigable for sea vessels to London bridge, a distance of forty-five miles from the Nore, or nearly a fourth of its entire length. The area of the basin drained by the Thames is estimated at about six thousand five hundred miles.

The progress of half a century has made wonderful changes in the river.

Wharves have taken the place of trim gardens, and the dirty coal scow is now found where the nobleman's state barge formerly anchored.

No man, it is said, can count the national debt of England, but who can give an adequate idea of the number of millions of tons that annually pass through this highway?

The flow of land water through Teddington Weir is annually 800,000,000 gallons. This is the main body of the river within the metropolitan area, not counting the additions it receives from rain-falls and other sources.

Since the removal of the old London Bridge, the tide has been lower upon an average. Shoals have been brought to light, before unknown, and the result has been that nothing but a most constant and unremitting dredging has enabled the Thames Conservancy Board to keep the river navigable.

It requires but a glance at Blackfriar's Bridge to determine how much longer it will take to remove all the gravel from the bed of the river, and leave the solid London clay as its bed.

Every old bridge when removed leaves so many tons of gravel which eventually finds its way to the mouth of the Thames, and there forms shoals.

The channel of the river thus deepened, becomes more and more brackish every year, and it can be but a question of time, as to how and from what source the inhabitants are to derive their water supply for drinking purposes.

At the East India Docks the tide falls fourteen inches lower than formerly, and it is a fact that the low water at London Docks is lower than the low water at Sheerness, sixty miles below.

At present the tide at London Bridge has a rise of 18 feet. This river at almost any tide can float the largest ships, being 33 feet in depth at London Bridge.

The river water when found at low tide near the city is much prized for its power of self-purification, and is much in requisition for sea voyages, for the reason that it contains so large a percentage of organic matter.

There are few or no fish to be found in the Thames in the neighborhood of the city or below, owing to the impurities prevailing from drainage and sewage. This fact is particularly to be noticed in the vicinity of the town of Barking on the Thames, where is located the outfall for all the sewage of dirty London. Formerly salmon were very plentiful at the Nore, and the last one there caught sold at fifteen shillings per pound.

The Thames embankment, which was first proposed by Sir Christopher Wren, the architect of St. Paul's Cathedral, is now almost completed. This magnificent roadway, one of the finest in Europe, and which gives the modern observer some conception of what the Appian Way or Via Sacra were in the palmy day of ancient Rome, is fifty feet broad, and three and a half feet above the highest high-water mark. The embankment, which is constructed of Portland stone, and extends on the Surrey side from Westminster to Vauxhall bridge, a distance of nearly a mile, and on the Middlesex shore from Westminster to Blackfriar's bridge, a distance of fully a mile. The embankment is lined on both sides with trees which throw a pleasant shade under the summer sun, and serve to protect the thousands of people of both sexes, who seek in the evening a breath of fresh air always grateful to the tired and sweltering citizen.

At different points, on both sides of the river, the embankment has magnificent stone terraces with stone stairs to enable wayfarers, who seek transportation up and down the river, to get on and off the numerous ferry boats that swarm and ply all over the Thames from Richmond to Rotherhithe.

A description of the Thames tunnel, now closed to the public, may appropriately be included in this chapter. It was commenced by a joint stock company in 1824, after designs by Sir Isambard Brunel. Early in December, 1825, the first horizontal shaft was sunk. The difficulties encountered in the construction of the great engineering work can scarcely be overestimated. For a distance of five hundred and forty-four feet all went well, but at this point the river burst into the shaft, while the workmen were at labor, filling the excavation entirely in fifteen minutes, but fortunately no lives were lost. With great difficulty the water was pumped out and work resumed.

After adding fifty-two feet to the original length of the shaft, the turbid Thames again broke through.

Six men by this accident were smothered in the rush of angry waters, the remaining laborers escaping. Thrice again the river broke into the succeeding excavations, and at length the tunnel was completed to the Wapping side of the river.

Here a shaft was sunk from the surface to meet it. In sinking this shaft, three distinct lines of piles, showing the existence of wharves below the present level of the Thames, were discovered.

March 25, 1843, nineteen years after its commencement, this monument of British stupidity and dogged obstinacy, the Tunnel, was opened to the London public. As an investment it has never paid a dollar; as a convenience it was a swindle on the general public, but for the wild Arabs of London, and the lowest order of shameful women, it rivaled the infamous Adelphi Arches as a rendezvous; calling into existence a distinct class known as "Tunnel Thieves," who, conscious of the fact that strangers would naturally visit this much lauded work, were always waiting in secret hiding places to plunder the unsuspecting visitor of his watch or valuables.

To take the place of this absurd tunnel, a Thames Subway has been devised, starting at Tower Hill, and continuing under the bed of the river to a point near Blackfriar's Bridge. The Thames subway is in a manner similar to the Pneumatic Railway. Shafts are sunk on either side of the river, and vehicles constructed like a horse railway car, are used to convey passengers to and fro under the river, for a fare of two pence per head. These vehicles are lighted by lamps, and a conductor is attached to each car. Powerful engines at either end furnish the force which propels these underground vehicles.