The corn market is held on Tuesday and Saturday; the hay market and the cattle market on Tuesday. During the year 1873, 81,6'35 fat cattle, 850,638 sheep and lambs, and 30,583 swine were brought to the cattle market. A very large market is held every Thursday morning for the sale of butter, bacon, cheese, eggs, and other articles of coun try produce. Saturday is general market day. Newcastle is well supplied with surface water, the chief place of collection being Hallington, about 20 miles n.w. of the town.
The trade of Newcastle consists chiefly in coal, and in those articles in the production of which great heat is required. The Newcastle coal trade had its origin in the reign of Henry HT. This branch of industry is not now confined to Newcastle, but is spread over the greater part of the sea-board of Northumberland and the whole of Durham. Nearly 82,000,000 touts of coal and coke were produced in the northern coal field in 1876, of which about 7,000.000 tons were shipped, to foreign ports. The number of persons employed in connection with the pits may be computed at 80,000. Since the discovery of the Cleveland,ironstone the manufacture of iron has prodigiously increased in the district embraced by the northern coal field. Tho make in 1876 Was about 830,000 tons.
There are annually produced on the Tyne about 3,000 tons of steel. Large qnantities of lead, the produce of the mines of Alston Moor and Weardale, are brought to Newcastle for manufacture. A very large quantity of unrefined lead is also imported from Spain. Having been refined and desilverized, the lead is rolled into sheets and pipes, or con verted into shot, litharge, red and white lead. The value of these imports is about £1,000,000 per annum. Copper, to the extent of £200,000 worth, is annually got from the copper pyrites used at the chemical works of the Tyne.
At Newcastle the railway system had its origin. IIere, as might be expected, locomo tive and engineering establishments are found upon a great scale. The ordnance works of sir William Armstrong at Elswick, the western part of Newcastle, are well known. Iron ship-building and various branches of engineering are extensively carried on upon the Tyne. Newcastle occupies an important position in the manufacture of soda, bleaching-powder, vitriol, and other chemical products, the annual value of which is about £1,300,000. There are decomposed in the district 200,000 tons of salt per annum.
Earthenware is largely manufactured, window glass and flint glass have declined; im pressed glass is largely manufactured, and plate-glass is made. Glass-staining has attained great perfection. The lire-brick trade is a new industry, which has attained gigantic proportions. About 80,000,000 fire-bricks are annually made, besides gas-retorts and sanitary pipes, which are sent all over the world. About 100,000 grindstones leave the Newcastle quarries annually. Portland and other cements arc made to the extent of 11,000 tons in a year.
The river Tyne, from the sea to Newcastle, forms a natural dock for the accommoda tion of shipping. Three artificial docks have, however, been constructed at a cost of £1,700,000. Within the last 20 years_ improvements upon a large scale have been made by the river Tyne commission. T entrance ntrance to, and many parts of the river deepened by dredging. The depth of water on the bar has been increased from 6 to 33 ft. at low water. In 1876, 10,194 vessels of 2,871,700 tons entered the Tyne ports (New castle, with North and South Shields); and 15,981, of 5,238,120 tons, cleared.
Of the benevolent institutions established in Newcastle there are an infirmary, a dis pensary, asylums for the blind, the deaf and dumb, and two orphanages. The literary and philosophical society, the society of antiquaries, the natural history society, the mechanics' institution, and the institution of mining engineers (to which has been recently added a large hall, as a memorial of Nicholas Wood, an engineer of celebrity) successfully cultivate their several fields of labor. A college of physical science, with four professorships (geology, experimental philosophy, chemistry, and mathematics) was established in 1871 in connection with the university of Durham; and there is also in Newcastle, associated with the same university, a college of medicine.
Lords Stowe], Eldon, and Collingwood, Mark Akenside, and Hutton, the mathemati cian, were natives of Newcastle. Intimately connected with it, though not born in it, were Thomas Bewick, the engraver; Robert Morrison, the Chinese scholar; and George and Robert Stephenson.