Crossword-Solution: STAITHS 7 letters, 1 clue 🏆 scrabble score: 10

The coals, when raised from the pits, are emptied into the waggons placed alongside, from whence they are sent along the rails to the staiths erected by the river-side, the waggons sometimes descending by their own gravity along inclined planes, the waggoner standing behind to check the speed by means of a convoy or wooden brake bearing upon the rims of the wheels.

Any one who has sailed down the Tyne from Newcastle Bridge cannot but have been struck with the appearance of the immense staiths, constructed of timber, which are erected at short distances from each other on both sides of the river.

The coals, when brought above ground, had next to be laboriously dragged by horses to the shipping staiths on the Tyne, several miles distant.

Many still regarded his travelling engine as little better than a curious toy; and some, shaking their heads, predicted for it “a terrible blow-up some day.” Nevertheless, it was daily performing its work with regularity, dragging the coal-waggons between the colliery and the staiths, and saving the labour of many men and horses.

Captain Kettle, bringing coal from Dunston Staiths to Genoa, suffers day after day of boredom, and reads Marie Corelli and Hall Caine with a relish only equalled by the girl typewriters in the second-class carriages of the eight-fifteen up from Croydon or Hampstead Heath.