\paperw3360 \margr0\margl0\ATXph16380 \plain \fs20 \f1 \fs22 Industrialisation radically changed the landscape of Britain, provoking phenomena that would now go by the name of po
llution. In fact the blaze of furnaces against a night sky became a popular subject for many artists of the period. When \b \cf4 \ATXht13221000 Victoria \b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 came to the throne in 1837, the industrial Midlands had already earned themselves
the name of the Black Country. It consisted of ugly buildings, smoky new towns, and mazes of roads and canals with \b \cf4 \ATXht10901000 railways\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 soon to come. A report written in 1843 described an ôinterminable villageö where the tra
veller would ônever be out of sight of numerous two-storied houses...for the most part not arranged in continuous streets but interspersed with blazing furnaces, heaps of burning \b \cf4 \ATXht10721000 coal\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 in process of coking, piles of
ironstone calcining, forges, pit-banks, and engine-chimneys; the country being intersected with canals and the small remaining patches of the surface soil occupied with irregular fields of grass or corn, intermingled with heaps of refuse of mines or sla
g from the blast furnaces...ö. Around the Lancashire cotton towns the landscape consisted of bare hills and chimneys, and in Manchester itself the air was thick with smoke. The same area was also devoted to glass and chemical manufacture, and by 1830 s
moke carrying ænoxious vapoursÆ from the alkali works had blackened the surrounding countryside and killed the hedgerows. \ATXnt901 Even London\ATXnt0 had its share of problems. Until well into the 18th century, vile effluent was discharged raw into t
he Thames, thus contributing to the shockingly unsanitary conditions of the city. Journalists had described the river as ôa sewer with a tide in itö. Major outbreaks of cholera were the most obvious results of the complete neglect of the basic necessit
ies of urban sanitation. Things got so bad that during the æGreat StinkÆ of 1858 the sitting of Parliament could continue only with the aid of sheets soaked in chloride of lime hung over the windows to combat the stench.\par
