GREAT EASTERN 



3660 



GREAT FISH 



Great Eastern 

 Railway arms 



Great Eastern. British steam- 

 ship, built in 1858 from the designs 

 of Isambard Brunei. The largest 

 steamship built to that date, she 

 was first called the Leviathan. Her 

 dimensions were: length 692 ft., 

 beam 83 ft., draught 25 ft., and 

 gross tonnage 18,915 tons. She 

 was a screw and paddle vessel and 

 cost about 750,000. Her builders 

 were Scott, Russell & Co., Millwall. 

 After several vicissitudes the 

 ship was employed in laying the 

 Atlantic cable. Later she laid the 

 French Atlantic cable, the Bom- 

 bay-Suez cable, and the fourth and 

 fifth Atlantic cables. Sold by auc- 

 tion for 16,000, she was moved to 

 the Mersey and broken up, the ma- 

 terials being sold for about 60,000. 

 Great Eastern Railway. Eng- 

 lish rly. company serving the 

 eastern suburbs of London and the 

 E. counties. 

 Its London 

 terminus is 

 Liverpool 

 Street, and its 

 total mileage 

 2,626. Large 

 towns served 

 by it include 

 Norwich, Yar- 

 mouth, Ips- 

 wich, and Cambridge, and it carries 

 daily an enormous number of 

 persons between London and the 

 E. suburbs, as well as to and from 

 Southend and other places on the 

 coast. The company owns steamers 

 which run from Harwich to Dutch 

 ports and An twerp, possesses hotels, 

 and runs motor-' buses in many 

 districts. Its headquarters are at 

 Liverpool Street, and its works 

 at Stratford ; its capital is about 

 64,000,000. 



The line took its present name 

 in 1862. It was an amalgamation 

 of several companies, these in- 

 cluding the Norfolk, the East 

 Anglian, the East Suffolk and the 

 Eastern Counties. Two lines ran 

 from London, one to Colchester 

 and the other to Cambridge. It is 

 now merged in the London and 

 North- Eastern Rly. See Railways 

 Great Expectations. Twelfth 

 novel of Charles Dickens. It was 

 written to increase the circulation 

 of All the Year Round, in which 

 it appeared between Dec., 1860, 

 and Aug., 1861. Philip Pirrip 

 affords a companion study to 

 David Coppei field. His dilemma 

 between the humble ties of his 

 sister's home and his expecta- 

 tions from a mysterious bene- 

 factor who afterwards turns out 

 to be a convict he had helped 

 on the marshes, convey a whole- 

 some moral. It was at Bulwer 

 Lytton's suggestion that the story 

 was given a happy ending. 



the hall, church, 

 part of Fig Tree 

 Court, and the 

 gateway to Fleet 

 Street perished. 

 Wharves and 

 landing stages 

 and boats and 

 barges were in- 

 cluded in the 



losses,the total ex- 



i tent of which has 

 I been estimated at 

 m&M 10,000,000,asum 

 to equal to at least 



40,000,000 o f 

 ' modern coinage. 



For a long time .the fire was 

 attributed by many people to a 

 Papist plot ; to-day it is agreed 

 that it was due to a strong N.E. 

 wind following a period of ex- 

 tremely dry weather, and the in- 

 flammable nature of the buildings. 

 Fire-engines were as unknown as 

 fire insurance, and the bJ owing up 

 of houses by gunpowder had to be 



plants, and is engaged in the ship- resorted to to stay the flames, 

 ment of wool. The city derives The familiar epigram to the 

 its name from the falls on the effect that the fire began in 



Great Eastern steamship on her first voyage 

 New York, June, 1860 



From a contemporary drawing 



Great Falls. City of Montana, 

 U.S.A., the co. seat of Cascade co. 

 On the Missouri river, 98 m. 

 N.E. of Helena, it is served by the 

 Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul 

 and other rlys. It is the centre 

 of a mining region, producing cop- 

 per, silver, gold, lead, iron, zinc, 

 etc. Great Falls has large smelting 

 works, flour mills, and machinery 



Missouri. Pop. 13,948. 



Great Fire'. London fire which 

 lasted four days and nights of 

 Sept., 1666. It broke out about 

 2 a.m. on Sunday, Sept. 2, near 

 the oven of one Farynor, the king's 

 baker, in Pudding Lane, near 

 London Bridge. A pile of faggots 

 was by the oven, flitches of bacon 

 stood near ; the houses in the lane, 

 one of the narrowest in the city, 

 had projecting storeys, and their 

 woodwork was coated with pitch, 

 Farynor, his wife, daughter, and 

 manservant escaped by the roof, 

 but the maidservant, afraid to risk 

 the climb, was the first victim of 

 the outbreak. 



The flames spread slowly until 

 they attacked the cellars and ware- 

 houses along Thames side. By 

 8 a.m. on Sept. 2 London Bridge 

 was blazing. On the Tuesday 

 Cheapside, S. Paul's Cathedral, 

 and Guildhall were destroyed. By 

 Thursday morning only a sixth 

 part of the city within the walls 

 was left standing, the liberties west 

 towards Temple Bar were burnt 

 out, 100,000 people were homeless, 

 and nearly all that had remained of 

 medieval London was obliterated 

 or doomed. So far as is known, 

 however, only about a dozen people 

 were burnt. 



The area destroyed within the 

 city walls was 373 acres ; without, 

 63 acres and 3 roods. Besides 

 S. Paul's and the Guildhall, 84 

 parish churches, 13,200 houses, 44 

 halls of livery companies, the city 

 gates, Royal Exchange, all the 

 markets except Leadenhall, the 

 gaols, all the Inner Temple except 



Pudding Lane and ended at Pie 

 Corner lacks veracity ; the fire 

 burnt for 20 hours after Pie Corner 

 had been razed ; it ended, in the 

 Cripplegate area, at Cock Lane. 

 It was not until 1668 that the task 

 of rebuilding was taken thoroughly 

 in hand. 



The Monument opposite Fish 

 Street Hill, erected 1671-77, did 

 not originally contain the ascrip- 

 tion of the fire to Popish faction ; 

 this was placed upon it in 1681 

 after the publication of the per- 

 juries of Titus Gates ; the words 

 were finally removed in 1830. See 

 London ; Monument, The ; consult 

 also The Great Fire of London, 

 W. G. Bell, 1920, the first adequate 

 history of the fire, and the Diaries 

 of Evelyn and Pepys. 



Great Fish. Bay or inlet of the 

 Atlantic Ocean. It is off S.W. 

 Africa, in lat. 16 20' S. and long. 

 1148'E. Near the S.W. extremity 

 of Angola or Portuguese W. Africa, 

 it penetrates about 30 m. inland. 



Great Fish. River of Cape 

 Province, S. Africa. For many 

 years it formed the boundary of 

 Cape Colony against incursions by 

 the Kaffir tribes on the E. It 

 drains over 12,000 sq. m. and 

 rises in the Sneeuwbergen Mts., 

 receiving the waters of the Graak, 

 Tarka, and Little Fish rivers, and 

 enters the Indian Ocean at Waterloo 

 Bay, between Port Alfred and East 

 London. Its length is 230 m. 



Great Fish. River of Canada, 

 also called the Back. It rises near 

 the N. shore of Lake Aylmer, N.E. 

 of Great Slave Lake, and, flowing 

 generally in a N.E. direction, dis- 



