The Thames Estuary

Abstract

THERE are rivers mightier and nobler than the Thames: broad and stately floods, masses of moving waters, which impress the onlooker with a sense of immense and overwhelming power. Even within the narrow limits of the British Isles, the Thames has no priority of length and size. But there are few waterways anywhere in the world which rival it in historical interest and significance, or in the wide range of its commercial activities. The Thames is as much a part of the fabric of English history as is the great city on its banks, for which it is the main avenue of communication with the outer world and the chief means of transport for its trade. It is impossible to imagine London without the Thames, or to picture what the English capital would have become if it had continued to be identified with Winchester or York. To the Londoner, the Thames is a source of local patriotic pride. It is his heritage, his especial possession. “Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel ?” So Prof. Rodwell Jones, with every justification, adopts the unofficial designation of the mariner and calls it the “London River”.

The Geography of London River.

By Prof. Ll. Rodwell Jones. Pp. x + 184 + 4 plates. (London: Methuen and Co., Ltd., 1931.) 21s. net.