That the cutting of the Victoria Channel was doing the "right thing" for Belfast, was clear, from the constantly increasing traffic of the port.

In course of time, several extensive docks and tidal basins were added; while provision was made, in laying out the reclaimed land at the entrance of the estuary, for their future extension and enlargement.

The town of Belfast was by these means gradually placed in immediate connection by sea with the principal western ports of England and Scotland,--steamships of large burden now leaving it daily for Liverpool, Glasgow, Fleetwood, Barrow, and Ardrossan.

The ships entering the port of Belfast in 1883 were 7508, of 1,526,535 tonnage; they had been more than doubled in fifteen years.

The town has risen from nothing, to exhibit a Customs revenue, in 1883, of 608,781L., infinitely greater than that of Leith, the port of Edinburgh, or of Hull, the chief port of Yorkshire.