Wharves have taken the place of trim gardens, and the dirty coal scow is now found where the nobleman's state barge formerly anchored.
No man, it is said, can count the national debt of England, but who can give an adequate idea of the number of millions of tons that annually pass through this highway?
The flow of land water through Teddington Weir is annually 800,000,000 gallons. This is the main body of the river within the metropolitan area, not counting the additions it receives from rain-falls and other sources.
Since the removal of the old London Bridge, the tide has been lower upon an average. Shoals have been brought to light, before unknown, and the result has been that nothing but a most constant and unremitting dredging has enabled the Thames Conservancy Board to keep the river navigable.
It requires but a glance at Blackfriar's Bridge to determine how much longer it will take to remove all the gravel from the bed of the river, and leave the solid London clay as its bed.
Every old bridge when removed leaves so many tons of gravel which eventually finds its way to the mouth of the Thames, and there forms shoals.
The channel of the river thus deepened, becomes more and more brackish every year, and it can be but a question of time, as to how and from what source the inhabitants are to derive their water supply for drinking purposes.
At the East India Docks the tide falls fourteen inches lower than formerly, and it is a fact that the low water at London Docks is lower than the low water at Sheerness, sixty miles below.
At present the tide at London Bridge has a rise of 18 feet. This river at almost any tide can float the largest ships, being 33 feet in depth at London Bridge.