THE SILENT HIGHWAY.
HE Thames, the great river of England, which enriches London with the cargoes of its thousand ships, weekly, rises in the southeastern slopes of the Cotswold Hills. For about twenty miles it belongs wholly to Gloucestershire, when for a short distance it divides that county from Wiltshire. It then separates Berkshire first from Oxfordshire, and then from Buckinghamshire. It afterward divides the counties of Surrey and Middlesex, and to its mouth those of Kent and Essex.
It falls into the sea at the Nore, which is about one hundred and ten miles nearly due east from the source, and about twice that distance measured along the windings of the river.
From having no sandbar at its mouth like the Mersey outside of Liverpool, it is navigable for sea vessels to London bridge, a distance of forty-five miles from the Nore, or nearly a fourth of its entire length. The area of the basin drained by the Thames is estimated at about six thousand five hundred miles.
The progress of half a century has made wonderful changes in the river.