Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1885-05-07
NEWCASTLE.
A Picturesque City Whose wealth Is
i'm Coal.

In spite of the simultaneously malod-
orous murk that Overcasts Newcastle and
nelghborhood it is picturesque, and, for
that matter, so is Pittsburg. But then
the center of smoke and flame in the
United States is modern. Ancient and
modern Newcastle come in piquant con-
trast, hard by the elliptical railway arch.
st. Nicholas fying-buttressed steeple is
anonymously grated on the arch, and
the bullying old houses of the side and
sand-hill look like jolly old burghers
lounging in dingy shirt-sleeves, with
modern dudes superciliously scrutinizing
through their eyeglasses, in juXtaposi-
ton with the prim plate-glassed piles of
offices, the expansion of the towns trade
has caused to be their neighbors.
Coal lies at the bottom of the wealth
of Newcastle, though, as we shall
presently see, man has done much to
make the mouth of the Tyne what it is.
For miles both banks are lined with ship
yards, with smoky factories, and most
excellent docks. Here is a picture of a
trip, say from Blaydon to North and South
Shields. The population along the river
from these points, including Newcastle
and Gateshead, mnst number half mil
lion. A tumble of smoke-dried brick and
stOne-wOrks, of new brick-works fast
blackening, OF huge sheds or colliery
staith, rafting black avalanches of coal
down hinged shoots, or dropping coal
trucks from giddy heights through traps,
rising above the shipping on either hand.
Cranes swing, yellow water cascades into
the river, fire-gloWing steam engines send
out angry white puffs, chimney stacks
pour out black coils, machinery clanks,
tools rattle with a ceaseless savage energy.
There are foundries, fort-like blast
furnaces, torrid pudding FORCES, whirring,
rolling mills, chain and anchor
works, potteries, chemical works, fetid
manure works, grind-stone wharves. saw
mills, Oil-mills, cement works, Bessemer
steel plants, brick works, coke ovens,
patent slips, iron and wooden ship-build-
ing yards, craving docks, timber docks
and docks crammed with shipping of
every flag, for the TYNE stands second
only in importance as a port to the
Mersey.
''But what we are chiefly concerned to
see," says Escott, ''in this coal-blackened
antique Northumberland capital, with its
past and its infinite future,
its old buildings, venerable churches,
hoary traditions, its inventions, improve
ments, and devices of yesterday, its busy
plottings and contrivances for tomorrow,
is the influence exercised by science upon
the course of the river" The Tyne is no
longer the stream which nature made it.
It's bed is deeper, its channel changed. !
Headlands and promontories have been
removed and millions of tons of soil have
been uplifted from its depths in order that
ships of heavy burden may float up to
the walls of the town. The width of the |
river has been increased from $50 to 400 |
feet A point seventy-five feet above
high water, which prevented those in
charge of vessels from seeing vessels APP |
preaching on the inner side, has been cut
away The docks have been enlarged,
and new one with increased water |
space of nearly 100 acres, surrounded by
3 $50 lineal feet of deep water quays has
been built In consequence of these i'm
in twenty years the average
tonnage of vessels has risen from 149 |
5ons to more than neutrality-suspicious.
San Francisco Chronicle.