"North along River Scheldt , where shipping once made Antwerp Europe's richest port, Belgium"

stereograph

PHOTOGRAPHS
Underwood & Underwood
BELGIUM, Antwerp; Europe, Scheldt
paper
overall: 3-1/2 x 7 in.; image: 3-1/4 x 6 in.

Stereograph mounted on gray board with rounded corners; photograph looking north along the Scheldt River in Antwerp, Belgium, people crossing bridge from dock filled with various river vessels, masts from square-rigged vessels are in the far background as well as various churches and city buildings; printed on left "European Publisher,/ Underwood & Underwood (London) Ltd."; printed on right "S649"; "Underwood & Underwood/ New York & Ottawa, Kas. Works, Arlington, N.J." and "SUN SCULPTURE/ UU/ TRADE MARK"; printed on back "You are looking down-stream towards the Dutch frontier twenty miles away. The over-crowded city lies on this (right) bank of the river. It is not unlikely that the left bank may be built up before many years, the new district connected with the old by tunnels as well as bridges, so as to secure up-to-date rapid transit. For between three and four miles quays like these extend along the water-front. The Scheldt is here nearly a third of a mile wide, and even at low tide vessels drawing twenty-five feet of water can come up to the wharves to take on and discharge cargoes. In a single year nearly ten thousand vessels are entered here, about one-fifth of them belonging to Belgian owners, the rest chiefly British and German. Just ahead you can see a row of the huge cranes used for hoisting freight and transferring it from hold to railroad train or vice versa. Immense cargoes of rubber from the Congo district are unloaded here, amounting to about $8,000,000. The outgoing freight is mostly the product of Belgium's busy factories - woolen and linen yarns, silk and cotton textiles, refined sugar, glass-ware, etc. (This is an interesting revival of Antwerp's mediaeval prosperity after a long interval, when the Dutch kept the Scheldt closed to sea-going vessels and ruined the city's trade.) Farther up towards the north there are enormous docks and basins, capable of sheltering five hundred or more vessels at once. The beginning of such magnificent provisions for shipping was made by Napoleon a hundred years ago, when he expected to maintain here a vast harbor for war vessels. The North German Lloyd. Red Star and other popular passenger lines land at quays close by this point where you are now. From Notes of Travel, No. 22, copyright, by Underwood & Underwood." and "North along the river Scheldt, Antwerp, Belgium./ Au Nord le long de l'Escaut, Auvers, Belgique./ Blid nach Norden die Schelde entland, Antwerpen, Belgien./ Al norte a lo largo del rio Scheld, Amberes, Belgiea/ Norrut utmed floden Scheld, Antwerpen, Belgien./ (Russian script, same text)."

2000.53