GOOLE  , a

market town and port in the Osgoldcross parliamentary division of the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, at the confluence of the Don and the Ouse, 24 M . W. by S. from Hull, served by the North Eastern, Lancashire & Yorkshire, Great Central and Asholme joint railways . Pop. of urban district (19o1) 16,J76 . The town owes its existence to the construction of the Knottingley canal in 1826 by the Aire and Calder Navigation Company, after which, in 1829, Goole was made a bonding port . Previously it had been an obscure hamlet . The port was administratively combined with. that of Hull in 1885 . It is 47 M. from the North Sea (mouth of the Humber), and a wide system of inland navigation opens from it . There are eight docks supplied with timber ponds, quays, warehouses and other accommodation . The depth of water is 21 or 22 ft. at high water, spring tides . Chief exports are coal, stone, woollen goods and machinery; imports, butter, fruit, indigo, logwood, timber and wool . Industries include the manufacture of alum, sugar, rope and agricultural instruments, and iron-founding . Ship-building is also carried on, and there is a large dry dock and apatent slip for repairing vessels .

Passenger steamship services are worked in connexion with the Lancashire & Yorkshire railway to

Amsterdam, Antwerp, Bruges, Copenhagen, Rotterdam and other north European ports . The handsome church of St John the Evangelist, with a lofty tower and spire, dates from 1844 .