Identifier: earthitsinhabita04recl (find matches)
Title: The earth and its inhabitants ..
Year: 1882 (1880s)
Authors: Reclus, Elisée, 1830-1905 Ravenstein, Ernest George, 1834-1913 Keane, Augustus Henry, 1833-1912
Subjects: Geography
Publisher: New York : D. Appleton and Company
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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been compelledto grow in height by placing story upon story. Nevertheless, even London canshow a few of those huge edifices in which thousands of human beings live, floor * In 1875 London Bridge was crossed daHy by 20,000 vehicles, and by 170,000 persons on foot,t Charles Dickens. LONDON. 177 above floor, within a narrow area. Such is the gigantic Midland Hotel at theSt. Pancras station, a huge mass of brick and iron, with towers, pavilions, andtriumphal gateways ; such also are the other hotels constructed for the convenienceof travellers contiguous to the great railway termini. These palaces tower hio-habove the surrounding houses, but they are scarcely sufficiently capacious toaccommodate the crowds that flock to them. So prodigious is the extent of London that there exists no point of vantagewhere the whole of it can be seen spread out beneath us, even though theprospect be not obscured by fog or smoke. From the top of the Monument Fig. 93.—Railways of London. Scale 1 : 350,000.
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3 Miles. raised in the centre of the City we merely see the roofs of numberless houses, thesteeples of hundreds of churches, and a crescent-shaped reach of the river, with itsbridges, steamers, and forests of masts, lost on the horizon. From Primrose Hill orthe heights of Hampstead or Highgate, on the north of London, we look down uponthe parks, gardens, and villas, beyond which extends the ocean of housessurmounted by the cupola of St. Pauls ; but the Thames and its port are beyondthe reach of vision. From Greenwich, or from the tall tower of the CrystalPalace, other portions of the metropolis can be seen or divined, but the greater partof London is always excluded from the immense panorama. In order to obtain atrue idea of the prodigious size of the City we must necessarily explore its various 178 THE BEITISH ISLES. quarters, all differing in aspect and population. London, unlike Paris in thisrespect, has no collective personality. It is not, strictly speaking, a town at all,possess

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