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THE TYNE, A HARBOUR OF REFUGE.

It is a lamentable fact, that the seaboard district of the Tyne is more abundant in shipping disasters and wrecks, than any other portion of the coasts of the British islands.

Out of 681 wrecks that took place last year, on the British coasts, and in the British seas, nearly one-seventh occurred within fifty miles of the Tyne. By a "Wreck Map" for 1850, it will be found

1. That, taking the Tyne as a centre, within fifty miles north and south there were ninety-two wrecks; while, notwithstanding the exposed coast to the north and south of the Thames (the commerce of the world passing), and including the dangerous Goodwin sands, within a similar range, there were only seventy-nine wrecks.

2. That the Mersey, with its extensive commerce and dangerous approaches, taking the same distance, had only fifty-nine wrecks.

3. That the Bristol Channel, and the same extent of coast, had fifty-four wrecks.

4. That Yarmouth, with all the intricacies and dangers of its shoals, and, within the same fifty miles radius, forty-three wrecks.

5. That Harwich, including Dover, the mouth of the Thames, the Goodwin Sands, &c., had, in the same coast extent, seventy-four wrecks.

6. That Dover, as a centre, including in its radius the mouth of the Thames and Goodwin Sands, had sixty-eight wrecks.

7. The Holyhead, and its fifty miles of coast N. and S., had thirty-four

wrecks.

8. That Portland, with its fifty miles, had eighteen wrecks.

9. And that the entire coast of the Channel Islands had but six wrecks, Harwich, Dover, Holyhead Portland, and the Channel Islands, notwithstanding, as we see, their fewer casualties and less danger than the Tyne and its coasts, are constituted harbours of refuge, and received this year from the Legislature, for this purpose, no less a sum than £205,681.

For Harwich, £20,000; for Portland, £30,000; for Dover, £34,000; for Channel Island, £60,000; Holyhead, £61,481. Try this question by a radius of ten miles, and-Harwich had twenty wrecks; Portland, three; Dover, eight; Holyhead, twelve; Channel Islands, all round their coast, six; while the Tyne, within the ten miles radius, had thirty-four.

Yet the Tyne had nothing voted to render it a harbour of refuge, and save the immense mass of property annually lost :-not less, in her last ninetytwo wrecks, than £100,000-as well as many valuable lives regularly sacrificed.

On what grounds are these large votes of public money granted, but to save lives and property where most exposed?

If this be so, then the Tyne, more important, with her 40,000 ships entering and leaving her harbour annually, and more exposed at all seasons (for such is the nature of her trade) to the chances of wreck on her iron-bound coasts, evidently requires, not only similar consideration from the Legislature, but greater-inasmuch as the loss of British property and life is greater than on the coasts of any other port.

The disastrous nature of the gales on these coasts is caused by the want of a secure harbour-a harbour of refuge.

For upwards of 200 nautical miles, from the Frith of Forth to Yarmouth Roads, there is no certain place of shelter, in heavy gales, to leeward.

A vessel caught on the coast by a gale from the N.E,, if drawing more than fourteen feet of water, durst not run to the Tyne-cannot shelter in Burlington Bay in that wind-and could not take the Humber. Boston or Lynn

Deeps, or Yarmouth Roads, she must seek; but even there not safe, she must then press on to Harwich or the Thames, after running along a lee-shore, with destruction impending every mile, for 150 miles, as the only chance of safety. Less security in such a case in attempting Sunderland rather than the Tyne-the dry harbours of Seaham and Hartlepool still less-and Scarborough and Whitby less too than Sunderland. None of them afford shelter to the vessel in her extremity.

If a vessel be caught in an E.N.E. gale, often the heaviest on these coasts, she flies to the southward; but, embayed as she lies, she merely protracts her fate, and goes ashore on the Yorkshire coast, if she weathers it so long. She cannot enter the Tyne though caught at its very mouth :-she must fly from it as from immediate destruction,

In south-east gales, still no shelter from Yarmouth Roads to the Firth of Forth. She must keep her foaming course till she arrives at Leith Roads. It is thus that laden vessels from the Tyne, the Wear, Seaham, and Hartlepool, however far on their voyage to the southward, must pass their ports of departure, too happy to be able to do so, and find security in a Scottish harbour; while a vessel involved upon these coasts in a heavy gale from the east must go ashore if over fourteen feet water. North or south she cannot clear herself-she is embayed. There is now no Yarmouth Roads or Firth of Forth, Thames or Harwich, even after a deadly struggle for ship and life: -no chance-no hope-only despair-in such an extremity.

Does such a state of things not cry aloud for some speedy remedy? Do these facts not demonstrate its nature?

The Tyne a harbour of refuge, these dangers would be nearly all removed.

If Dover, Portland, Harwich, the Channel Islands, and Holyhead, be constituted and maintained as harbours of refuge, chiefly because they are packet-stations, and that passengers and mail property may be secured, (which we do not grudge,) surely the property of British shipowners and British merchants, and the lives of British seamen, should be equally dear to a British Legislature.

By establishing the Tyne as a harbour of refuge, not only would her own immense traffic be secured, but hundreds of thousands of British property saved-as the vessels of the Wear, and all the other northern ports, English and Scotch, would in almost every gale find a certain place of refuge.

The time is propitious for such a work. The projected piers and constructions at the mouth of the Tyne will deepen the water from three to four feet at the bar. Now, by extending these works, and fitting them, not merely for local but for national purposes, you may have, there can be no donbt, from seven to eight feet more water; and then the largest merchant vessels, or ships of war, will seek the Tyne in confidence and find security, where now they only see injury or destruction.

There cannot be a question that an effort, becoming this great object, from all the important communities and interests of the Tyne, would induce the Government and Legislature to give a willing aid. The interests of the merchants and coalowners of Newcastle and Gateshead, the shipowners and others of North and South Shields, the advantage to property on both banks of the river, the increased trade to the port, would bind together these important communities in a great common object; while the influence and interest of the Duke of Northumberland, (himself a gallant sailor sympathizing with sailor)-of the Bishop and the Dean and Chapter of Durham, bound by their secular interests as their religious impulses-the active exertions of the Members for Newcastle, Gateshead, Shields, Tynemouth, and the two counties-would bring to bear upon it an irresistible force. Here no sectional antagonisms could arise, but a concentrated and honourable combination of

men of all parties and of every part of the Tyne and surrounding districts, would appear-not merely for local, but for the higher objects of benevolence and of national advantage.

The River Commissioners are going to Parliament not only for power to construct new works, but for authority to lay a new impost upon shipping in the Tyne.

That interest has got enough to bear already. Raise not pecuniary obstructions while removing material ones. Rather go for a public grant for a great public purpose-for a national port for the security of property and life.

Our own funds, properly applied and invested, with two or three annual grants from the Legislature, will accomplish this great work; and then the Tyne, almost a free port, secure and prosperous, will become what nature originally designed it to be.

Gateshead Observer, November 8th, 1851.

M.

METEOROLOGICAL REGISTER.

Kept at Croom's Hill, Greenwich, by Mr. Rogerson, of the Royal Observatory, From the 21st of October, to the 20th of November, 1851.

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689

GENERAL INDEX TO VOL. FOR 1851.

ENLARGED SERIES.

Abandon bay, 541.

Aborigines of Newfoundland, 263.
Aberbeen sailors' home, 430.
Act of parliament evaded, 289.
Accidents, report of, 644.
African slave trade, 390.

information, 453.

Agamemnon, baths of, 238.
Argia Islands, 238.

Ajax shoal, 331.
Alderney Harbour, 435.

Aldrich, Lieut., expedition of, 545.

Algoa bay, sailing directions, 214.
America sailing match, 499.

Yacht sailing, 558.

American fishing, 291, 299.
nautical life car, 93.
polar expedition, 543.
Arctic ships, 545, 565.
officers, 582.

Angelos point, 375.

Anna bank St., 1.

Antilles, description of, 13, 140.

Antioch, bay of 57, 153.

Arabic vocabulary, 606.

Arctic searching expedition, 158, 324,

385, 529, 569.

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Bell Buoy of Needles, 43.

Belleisle straits, 417.

Bhering strait, expedition to 158.
Bigan Road, 450.

Bilbao bar, signals, 494.

Birds, tallies on, 612.

Bishop rock beacon lost, 251.

Boats in sea-going vessels, 641, 650,
Bodie, Mr. J. on San Juan, 268.
Bonny river, 454.

Bosphorus, first packet to Cape, 53.
screw steamer, 211.

Boston bay, light in, 611.
Bottle papers, 334, 386, 437.
Boutakoff, Capt., compass, 617.
Bradford, Mr., expedition, 545.
British flag used, 387.

Brooks, Mr., on Redcar, 143.
Bruni, a visit to, 464, 525.
Buchan, Capt., 262.

Builth, town of, 9.

Bull roads, eattle at, 506.

Bulwer, on tobacco, 77.

Bungalow island, 451.

Burnabat Skelessy, 239.

Burnett, Capt. J., on globular sailing,
517.

Butman, Capt., 197.

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Carandaga islands, 4.

Carrier pigeons, flight, 615.
Cæsar's landing place, 337.
Celebes, division of, 208.
Celtic philosopher, 7.

Cemetry, Jewish, at Smyrna, 469.
Certificates of survey, 635.
Chapman Light, 613.
Charts, Admiralty, 111.

on transforming plane to Mer-
cator, 424.

incorrect, 450, 491, 492.
China sea, on avoiding, 490.
Christian Cruize, his story, 511.
Church protestant, at Smyrna, 68.
Chronometers, on rating, 624.
Classet, cape, 319.

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Consular fees, regulated, 321.

Cook, Capt., traits of character, 52.
Cooking apparatus, success of, 391.
Corax mount, 239.
Crescent bay, 374.

Cresson settlement, 558.

Croce, Card., took tobacco to Italy, 78.
Cunningham, Mr., on reefing, 55.
Curlew's African cruize, 196.

Currents of Palawan, 5.

charts, Maury, 220.
along Formosa, 450.
in Baffin bay, 174, 580.

Dampier strait, reef in, 42.
Date, on finding, at sea, 165.
Datoo house, Palawan, 7.
Dartmouth light, 612.
Davis, Capt., thanks to, 391.
rock, China, C., 383.

Declaration of survey, 637.

Dempster, Mr., on smoking ships, 438.
Deep sea soundings, 102, 275, 435.
Dervishes, various, 468.

Discipline of merchant ships, 427.
Disco island, 171.

Distances to New York, 415, 423.
Domus on the Taptee, 223.
Donna Maria, accident to, 54.
Dover harbour, progress of, 434.

landing place of Julius Cæsar,

343.

Drake, first introduces tobacco, 78.
Dumarran island, 2, 3.
Dundee, sailors' home, 430.
Dungeness, B., Juan de Fuca, 376.
Duties on tobacco first levied, 79.

East India, mail statistics, 372.

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