_Communications._--Railway communications are supplied principally by the Great Eastern railway, of which the main line runs by Stratford, Ilford, Romford, Brentwood, Chelmsford, Witham, Colchester, and Manningtree. The Cambridge and northern line of this company, following the Lea valley, does not touch the county until it diverges along the valley of the Stort. The chief branches are those to Southend and Burnham, Witham to Maldon, Colchester to Brightlingsea, to Clacton and to Walton, and Manningtree to Harwich, on the coast; and Witham to Braintree and Bishop's Stortford, and Mark's Tey to Sudbury and beyond, inland; while there are several branch lines among the manufacturing and residential suburbs in the south-west, to Walthamstow and Buckhurst Hill, Chigwell, Loughton, Epping, Ongar, &c. The London, Tilbury & Southend railway, following the Thames, serves the places named, and the Colne Valley railway runs from Chappel junction near Mark's Tey by Halstead to Haverhill. On the Thames, besides the great docks at Plaistow (Victoria and Albert) and the deep-water docks at Tilbury, the principal calling places for vessels are Grays, Purfleet and Southend, while Barking on the Roding has also shipping trade, and the Lea affords important water-connexions. Elsewhere, the principal port is Harwich, at the mouth of the Stour, one of the chief ports of England for European passenger traffic. Other towns ranking as lesser estuarine ports are: Brightlingsea and Wivenhoe on the Colne, forming a member of the Cinque Port of Sandwich; Colchester, Maldon on the Blackwater, and Burnham-on-Crouch. The Stour, Chelmer, and Lea and Stort are the principal navigable inland waterways.