THE TRADE OF PLYMOUTH. 383 
Plymouth has no rivals. The history of the harbour alone is a 
proof that successive generations of seamen, with the ships of the 
past as well as the ships of the present, have found none. 
The merits of the Harbour consist—1st, of its accessibility ; 
2nd, of its safety, including good anchorage; 3rd, of its depth of 
water in favourable situations, where ships are either at anchor or 
discharging and shipping cargo alongside of wharves. 
The accessibility of the Harbour is easily demonstrated by refer- 
ence to the chart of the Channel looking at it from the sea; 
with the Eddystone Lighthouse far out in the track of the ships 
sailing up or down, as a beacon indicating the entrance of the 
harbour; the Rame Head and the Mew Stone, prominent head- 
lands, enclosing it; within which the heights of Penlee and Mount 
Edgcumbe to the westward, and Bovisand and Staddon Heights to 
the eastward, with Drake’s Island, the Hoe, the Citadel, and Mount 
Batten in the background, and the Breakwater stretching its arti- 
ficial protection across the foreground, form a picture of beauty 
intensified to sublimity by the sentiment which it inspires of refuge 
and protection from the perils of a storm. Plymouth harbour is - 
beautiful in a calm sea and a cloudless sky, 
‘‘ When the stately ships go on 
To their haven under the hill;” 
it is sublime in a hurricane. 
The safety of the harbour consists in the good anchorage which 
it affords, not only in one particular spot, but in nearly all parts of 
the harbour.* Good anchorage implies good holding ground for 
the anchor, depth of water sufficient for ships of any size, and 
protection from heavy seas and gales of wind. These are to be 
found in many parts of the harbour (the depth in feet is always 
reckoned at low-water, ordinary spring tides), viz. : 
In Cawsand Bay, which was much used before the Breakwater 
was built, where there is anchorage in 30 to 42 feet of water, on 
sand, mud, and shells. 
In the Sound, where the best anchorage is in 30 to 36 feet of 
water, on soft mud, the anchorage for the royal navy and the 
merchant ships being separate. 
In the Hamoaze, where there is an unrivalled anchorage in great 
depth of water, ranging from 18 to 108 feet, on mud and shingle, 
reserved by Government almost entirely for the use of H.M. fleet. 
* See chart of harbour, p. 275. 
