Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

BARGE LIFE. 123 of which, so far as England is concerned, may be found at Birmingham. Here several waterways meet and a canal reservoir is maintained. 'fhe freight conveyed on these inland navi- gations, including navigable rivers, is, as may be supposed, heavy and bulky ; such as bricks, ore, coal, and lime, straw, sand, and manure. At Paddington Basin, where the Grand Junction Canal may be said to end, you may see many examples of this water-borne merchandise. Here is a sailing-barge, with tall mast and picturesque brown sail, which has voyaged up the Thames, and entering the Regent’s Canal through Limehouse Dock, has been towed through London until it rests at this wharf. Its cargo is a load of broken cockle-shells for powdering the gravel paths of Hyde Park. Next to this vessel lie half a dozen or so towing barges which have brought heavy loads of bricks from the country ; yonder lie a fleet which will transport refuse from dust-carts out of the town; hard by are waiting other barges to float away with street sweepings and stable-manure to be used on the land. Not long since, salt used to be brought to London by barge, but the salt wharf at Paddington now appears to have passed into other hands. On the Thames you would find cargoes of clay, probably from Poole in Dorsetshire, floating quietly up to the Potteries at Lambeth. The clay may be brought by vessels to the docks far clown the river, and then be borne by lighters or barges higher up the stream ; but barges are also built to sail the sea, and the barge itself may have conveyed the raw material round the coast to the place of manufacture. Glass bottles from the Continent have often been conveyed to this country by sea-going barges. Those brown sails, looking so picturesque at the mouth of the Thames, are not outspread for the river alone. A characteristic feature of a freight barge, either with or without sails, is of course that it is a flat-bottomed boat very suitable for conveying heavy and bulky goods,^ if speed be no object. In canals where sails are unavailable, the barge is still usually towed along by a horse walking gravely on the tow-path beside the water ; but steam has made its appearance on the quiet inland waterway as elsewhere, and trains of barges may • be seen tugged along on other inland waters as well as on the PASSING UNDER LONDON BRIDGE.