KEXT. 



205 



of London, as also the cathedral of Rochester. Chatham is a naval and military 

 town. Its dockyard is the largest in the kingdom, next to that of Portsmouth, 

 and has been constructed in a great measure by convict labour. Extensive 

 lines of fortifications and detached forts envelop the three towns, and no second 

 De Huyter would now dare to sail up the Medway and carry off the vessels 

 sheltered by its fortifications. 



Not the least formidable of these have been erected at the mouth of the 

 Medway, 10 miles below Chatham, on the isles of Grain and Sheppey. The 

 former is in reality only a peninsula, whilst the latter is separated from the rest 

 of the county by a shallow arm of the sea, known as the Swale. Sheernets 

 occupies the north-west point of the island, and its guns command the entrances 



Fig. 102. — EOCHESTEK AXD CHATHAM. 

 Scale 1 : 250,000. 







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^r , 1^ ~W^A 





0-25' 



0*30' 



E.of G. 



2 Miles. 



of both the Thames and the Medway. The site of the town, a quaking swamp, 

 which had to be solidified by piles before houses could be built upon it, is by no 

 means healthy by nature, but by planting pines the sanitary conditions of the 

 town and its neighbourhood have been much improved. Queenhorough, close to 

 Sheerness, has recently come into notice as the point whence a mail-steamer daily 

 departs for Flushing. The stream of passengers, however, flows past this ancient 

 town without leaving any mark upon it. At Sittinghourne the train which 

 conveys them to London joins the main line from Dover. Sittingbourne, and its 

 neighbour Milton, the latter at the head of a small creek, have paper-mills, 

 breweries, brick-kilns, and malting-houses. Facershani, at the head of another 

 creek, like that of Milton tributary to the Swale, has paper-mills, brick-kilns, 



