The river Tyne from the sea to Newcastle forms a natural dock for the accommodation of shipping. and for ten miles both banks are lined with quays, docks. and factories. It has four natural docks, the largest nearly a mile long, and including two piers at its mouth; £3,250,000 have been spent on the improvement of the Tyne. Time entrance and many parts of the river have been deepened by dredging, and, though eight miles from the mouth of the Tyne, the tidal river is as much a port for Newcastle as time Thames is for London. An average of 13,000 vessels annually enter and clear at the Tyne ports. which comprise Newcastle and North and South Shields, with a gross tonnage of 16,000,000. The value of exports, consisting chiefly of iron, copper, lead, alkali, and machinery, averages $60,000,000 annually: and imports, including fruits, grain, butter, sugar, metals, and petro leum, average $50,000.000. The total exports from Newcastle to the United States amount to about. $20,000,000. It is the seat of a United States consul.
Newcastle dates from the Roman Pons one of the chain of forts by which the wall of Hadrian was fortified. On time withdrawal of the Romans, the deserted camp became the resi dence of a colony of monks, and the town was called Monkchester. Robert, eldest son of William the Conqueror, commenced to built a castle here in 1079 o• 1080. Hence the modern name of New
Castle. William Rufus finished his brother's castle, surrounded the town with a wall, and gave the inhabitants peculiar privileges. The present castle, which displays better than any other in England the genius of Norman military archi tecture, was erected by Henry Ii, between the years 1172 and 1177. Newcastle being made the rendezvous of the vast armaments which the first three Edwards led into Scotland, 'it was in their time surrounded with new walls of unusual strength and magnitude: portions of them yet remain. During the Civil \Van• it declared for the King, and sustained a ten months' siege by the Scots. The coal trade dates from the reign of Henry III. In 1615, 400 colliers cleared the port, one-half to supply London. Lords Stowel, Eldon, and Collingwood, Mark Akenside, and Hutton, the mathematician. 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 Stephen Son. Population. in 1801, 23,400; in 1851, 87.800; in 1891, 186.300: in 1901, 214,803. Con sult Rendel, Newcastle-on-Tyne: Its Municipal Origin and Growth (London. 1898).