HAMPSHIRE. 139 



the roadstead, are at all times crowded witli steamers. The stream of travellers 

 which uninterruptedly passes through the town, the transhipment of merchan- 

 dise, and the repair, outfit, and construction of ships have given an impetus to 

 the industry of the place, which is causing it steadily to expand in the direction of 

 Shirley and other neighbouring villages. " Bargate," which separates the lower 

 from the upper town, is the most interesting relic of old Southampton. The 

 Hartley Institution contains a museum, a library, and a School of Art, but 

 geographers are more likely to feel interested in the Ordnance Survey Office, which 

 is intrusted with the publication of the maps of the United Kingdom. Several 

 thousand sheets, varying in scale from 6 feet to 1 inch to a mile, have already been 

 published, but many years must elapse before this gigantic work can be completed, 

 only to be begun de novo, for the surface of the country is perpetually changing, 

 from natural causes no less than through the agency of man. 



The eastern bank of Southampton Water is one of the loveliest and most 

 salubrious districts in England, and no better site could have been selected for the 

 great Naval and Military Hospital of the country, founded immediately after the 

 termination of the Crimean war. Though christened in honour of Queen 

 Victoria, this hospital is popularly named after the ruins of Netley Abbey, which 

 are in its vicinity. It forms an outlying dependency of Portsmouth, which defends 

 the mouth of the Portus Magnus of the Romans, opposite to the Isle of Wight. 

 This great place ot war, whose population fluctuates with the requirements of the 

 naval authorities, consists in reality of three distinct towns, viz. Portsmouth, 

 Portsea, and Gosport, the two former on Portsea Island, on the eastern side of the 

 harbour, the latter opposite. The lines of fortification, however, include several 

 suburbs and even outlying towns. Sottthsea, to the south of Portsmouth, facing 

 the road of Spithead, is a new watering-place, with an aquarium and a fine 

 esplanade. Landporf, the northern suburb, leads to the Lines of Hilsea, which 

 defend Portsea Island. Stokes Bay, with the watering-place of Anglesey, lies 

 between the walls of Gosport and the detached forts. In it is the " measured 

 mile " for testing the speed of Government vessels. Even Porchester, the ancient 

 Roman station on the northern side of the bay, where there are the remains of a 

 Norman castle, and the small port of Farcham, in its north-western corner, have been 

 drawn within the new lines of defence. Portsmouth is now virtually one of the 

 strongest fortresses in the world. The entrance to the harbour is defended by 

 Southsea Castle and Fort Monckton, and by a number of ironclad forts raised 

 upon artificial islands in Spithead Road, and armed with guns of the heaviest 

 calibre. Two lines of detached forts defend the approaches to Gosport, and a chain 

 of most powerful works crowns the heights of Portsdown, to the north of the 

 harbour. These various works of defence are armed with 1,120 guns, and a 

 garrison of 20,000 men is required to man them. They are well calculated to 

 secure the safety of the docks and arsenals, which give shelter to England's most 

 powerful men-of-war and a vast accumulation of naval and military stores. 

 Portsmouth proper possesses but little to interest the visitor, except, perhaps, its 

 garrison chapel, which formed part of the Hospital of St. Nicholas, founded in the 



