NOETHUMBEELAND. 295 



boundary, it is a separate town, aspiring to be called the "Brighton of the North." 

 The promontory upon which it rises is crowned with an old castle, now converted 

 into barracks, and the ruins of a priory, and affords a wide view of the sea. 



Neiccastle, on the northern bank of the Tyne, is supposed to be the modern 

 representative of the Roman Pons ^Ui, and remained a military town through- 

 out the Middle Ages, of which fact the keejj of its castle, built by Robert 

 Shorthose, and portions of the city walls remind us. It was frequently besieged, 

 and often changed hands between Scotch and English, according to the fortunes 

 of war. The old town, around its Norman keep and the venerable church of St. 

 Nicholas, whose spire is carried aloft by four flying buttresses, has retained 

 narrow winding streets, but the new town on the hills has wide streets and manv 

 houses built of limestone or Scotch granite. At the head of its finest street rises a 

 column surmounted by a statue of Earl Grey. The high-level bridge, which crosses 

 the valley of the Tyne at a height of 110 feet, and is 1,327 feet in length, is the most 

 stupendous monument of Newcastle. It is one of the great works of Robert Stephen- 

 son, whose colossal statue stands in front of the railway station. The Wood Memorial 

 Hall contains the collections of the Literary and Philosophical Society and of the 

 Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers, and the " keep " has been con- 

 verted into a museum of Roman and British antiquities. But that which most 

 strikes the visitor to the metropolis of coal is its machine factories, potteries, 

 chemical works, and foundries, and the intense activity of its port. The Armstrong 

 gun foundry at Ehicick occupies nearly a whole suburb to the west of the town, 

 and rivals in importance the great Government works at Woolwich. Though its 

 resources have been little called upon by the military authorities of England, 

 foreign Governments have freely availed themselves of them, and Elswick, between 

 1856 and 1876, has supplied to them over 4,000 pieces of ordnance of nearly every 

 pattern now in use. 



The spectacle presented by the river port below Newcastle is full of animation. 

 On all sides we perceive long strings of vessels moored to the shore, beneath high 

 scaffoldings, to the very extremity of which travel the railway trucks laden with 

 coal, there to be tilted up, so that their contents may discharge themselves into 

 the hold of the vessels lying below. In the course of four hours a steamer of 

 1,200 tons burden has taken in its full cargo of coal. Thirty-three hours after- 

 wards it arrives at London, w^here ten hours are occupied in unloading it. Another 

 thirtj^-four hours and the steamer is back at Newcastle, ready for another cargo. 

 Thus in three days and six hours the whole of this commercial transaction is 

 completed. The application of steam to machinery, and the great improvements of 

 the mechanical arrangements for loading vessels which have been made since the 

 middle of the century, have vastly benefited the coal merchants of Newcastle. A 

 steamer with a crew of 21 men now carries as large a quantity of coal in the 

 course of a year as was formerly done by 16 sailing colliers manned by 144 men. 



In good seasons the ports of the Tyne export close upon 6,000,000 tons of 

 coal, and their commerce, whilst much inferior to that of Liverpool or London, 

 surpasses that of every continental port, including even Hamburg, Antwerp, and 



