The Town-pier--having superseded the old and unpleasant process of boating--is a structure of vast convenience as a landing place, and is besides of excellent design and execution. It consists of insulated columns, or piles of cast-iron, supporting a floor or stage, and extends into the river about fifty feet beyond low-water-mark. In summer this stage is covered with an awning, under which visitors can promenade, sheltered from sun or shower, and enjoy the entertainment furnished by an excellent band of music, which takes its daily station on the Pier. Below the Town-pier is another pier, or jetty, extending nearly a hundred feet into the water, called the Terrace-pier--so called from having attached to it an extensive terrace or promenade, and a beautifully arranged lawn or shrubbery, for the use of those who frequent the pier. During the last ten years, Gravesend has several times suffered very severely from fires, causing great destruction in the more closely-built portions of the town; these calamitous visitations, though deplorable in their immediate consequences, have not been without their beneficial results, by affording an opportunity for widening and improving the thoroughfares in their vicinity, and of which due advantage has been wisely taken. For many years, the steam-boat companies monopolized the traffic from London to Gravesend, their superior vessels, rapid speed, and moderate fare, set every other species of conveyance at defiance; but they have been compelled to admit a formidable rival to their trade, in the all-absorbing railway, which now surpasses them in quickness, and places itself upon an equality in respect to price and accommodation. The North-Kent line passing through Woolwich and Erith, has penetrated into the heart of Gravesend, and by filling up the Thames and Medway canal, made an iron road to the ancient city of Rochester. But, although the skill of the engineer and wealth of the capitalist has thus succeeded in bringing this fashionable watering-place and the old cathedral town into closer connection with our giant metropolis, they have not been able to overcome those natural obstacles to the rapid progress of the locomotive engine--hills and valleys, without having recourse to that most disagreeable of all roads, the subterranean--and the difference between rushing through their sombre excavations, amid the clatter of the machinery and the hissing of the liberated steam, and calmly gliding on the quiet surface of the beautiful Thames, must, we think, be such as to render the journey by the river at all times the most popular with those who travel for pleasure. [Illustration: LONDON FROM GREENWICH PARK.] LONDON, FROM GREENWICH PARK.