Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/448

 *

to be removed, and from the more expensive character of their warehouses. Here vessels of upwards of a thousand tons register are docked and undocked without difficulty, by night as well as by day, an advantage peculiar to this establishment. The more recent docks, such as the Victoria and Millwall, also on the north side of the Thames, but below the others, occupy a much larger space, though the amount of business as yet carried on in them is comparatively limited, especially as regards the value of the goods imported. The Victoria, situated immediately below the East and West India Docks, extends from Bow Creek to Galleon Reach, a distance of nearly three miles, and embraces an area of about six hundred acres of what was known as the Plaistow Marshes, although only sixteen acres are as yet occupied as a half-tide basin, seventy-four acres as the inner or main wet-dock, and about twelve acres of canal, intended to intersect the eastern lands of the Company. These docks were formed in 1850 at a cost of about 1,600,000l., increased by various additions and improvements, and notably by amalgamation, a few years ago, with the London and St. Katharine's Docks, all of which now form one company. The only entrance to the Victoria Docks from the Thames is at present from Bow Creek, by means of a lock three hundred and twenty feet in length, eighty feet in width, and twenty-eight feet in depth. In the main dock there are six jetties, five of which have warehouses erected upon them, and on the north side there is an enormous shed capable of containing no less than one hundred thousand tons of guano, the