is by the cofferdam, a kind of wall of wood formed of piles separately driven in, enclosing the space required, from which the water may then be drawn; but Labelye's method was different, and in England, we believe, at the time, new. He proposed to the commissioners that the foundation of every pier should be laid on a strong grating of timber planked underneath; that this grating of timber should be made the bottom of a vessel, such as is called caisson by the French; that the sides of this caisson should be so contrived as to be taken away after the pier should be finished; that the bed of the river should be dug to a sufficient depth and made level, in order to lay thereon the bottom of the caisson; that wherever the ground under the excavation or pit should prove good, there would be no necessity for piling it; but that, in case the ground under the foundation-pit should not prove of a sufficient consistence, it should be piled all over as closely as necessary; the heads of these piles then to be sawn level, close to the bottom of the pit, and on their tops the grating and foundation of the pier should be laid as is usual in such cases. And this description accurately explains the method followed. The caissons used by Labelye were the largest ever known, containing each one hundred and fifty loads of fir timber. The piers also he proposed should be built in an uncommon manner. Instead

of an outward shell of hard stones, filled in the inside with rubble or brick-work, he determined to build them quite solid, and of large blocks of Portland stone. The first stone of the first pier was laid by the Earl of Pembroke, January, 1739, and whilst the latter was in progress many were the predictions of failure; but Labelye heeded them not, satisfied with his own conviction of success, and the knowledge that with the greater part of his opponents their wish with regard to the work was the father to their thought. Still they tried his temper, if they could not shake his confidence, and some of the principal personages appear to have had the ear of the commissioners; and, indeed, among the commissioners themselves there were some who caused the architect great trouble and anxiety. We need not wonder, therefore, at the tone of gratification in which he records the completion of different parts of his work, showing as they did from time to time the success that awaited the whole. It was on the 23rd of April, he tells us, "the festival of St. George, the first pier was entirely completed, having been executed with all the success that could be desired, without loss either of life or limb, and attended with a much less expense than would have attended any other method of building the piers; to the great mortification of many evilminded persons, especially some disappointed projectors and artificers, who, without knowing what was really intended to be done, or being capable of putting it in execution, roundly asserted everywhere that this method of building was entirely impracticable, or at least would prove so expensive, that the charge of laying the foundation of one single pier would amount to more than the whole amount of the superstructure!" In excavating the foundation for the second pier a copper medal was found, about the size of a halfpenny, in tolerable preservation, having the head of the Emperor Domitian on one side, and a woman with a pair of scales and a cornucopia on the other. Labelye, mentioning the occurrence, says, "it is easily accounted for, if it be true that there was a ferry about this place in the time of the Romans; and there are many things which confirm this opinion." By the time they got to the fourth pier the work proceeded with great celerity, and that part of the bridge was finished in twenty days.

Up to this period the intention of the commissioners was to erect a timber superstructure of very peculiar and ingenious construction, which the curious reader may find engraved in the Gentleman's Magazine' for 1750, and which was the design of a Mr. King. But though they thus far gave way to the busy whisperers who said a stone structure would be too expensive, the whole thing too hazardous, and (very likely) the architect too unfit, they allowed Labelye, as we have seen, to commence in his own mode, wisely considering that, if the foundation and the piers were duly cared for, it would be easy at any time to replace the timber of the remaining part with stone. But an accident gave Labelye the power of carrying out his entire design, and the metropolis a bridge worthy of it. This was the great frost, which, commencing on Christmas-day, 1739, continued with extraordinary severity for several weeks. The Thames soon began to be impassable on account of the floating masses of ice, which, gradually becoming fixed, gave a strangely wild and picturesque character to the scene. The river appeared like a far-stretching snowy field, covered with huge icy rocks. People began to pass to and fro, then booths were erected, until the whole became a kind of continued fair, and the printing presses scattered about were busily employed in diffusing records of so novel an occurrence. The frost was as extensive in its sphere of operations as it was severe. In Ireland persons passed across the freshwater lake Lough Neagh on the ice, a distance of twenty miles. In Poland and Lithuania the very bears and wolves were driven from their hiding-places into the open country, and became a new calamity to the inhabitants. Trees were split, bread and most other eatables had to be thawed by the fire before they could be cut, water still liquid froze in the very act of pouring it from one vessel into another, and stood up in the glass like an icicle; the warm blood stiffened in the veins; persons were found dead on the highways, and some of the poor even in their houses. The damage to the shipping, &c., on the Thames was very great; vessels with valuable ladings sunk, and others, with lighters and boats innumerable, were greatly injured. The works of the bridge were not destined to escape. All the piles then standing, one hundred and forty in number, were torn away from their strong fastenings, and above half of them snapped in two, and other mischief of less importance was done. But the apparent evil was in this case a great good. It set the minds of the commissioners to work to re-consider their purpose. Whilst the frost continued no advance could be made, and, says Labelye, "during that interruption some commissioners observed at the Board that the goodness of the method made use of in building the piers was then sufficiently tested; that the public in general was highly disgusted at the thoughts of having a wooden bridge," and spoke freely of its disadvantages, among which was the liability of" being carried away or greatly damaged by any future heaps of ice, such as was then on the frozen Thames." The subject of the repairs of a wooden bridge was now agitated, and that soon decided the question. Its contractors declined undertaking to keep it in repair at any fixed price. Before the labourers were able to recommence the work, on the discontinuance of the frost in February, 1740, Labelye had obtained the sanction of the commissioners to a bridge of stone, with fifteen arches, and abutments, all on what was then esteemed a peculiarly grand scale; the former, for instance, increasing from a span of 52 feet (excluding the small abutment arches) on each side, to one of 76 for the centre arch, and the piers from 12 feet

broad to 17. The entire length of the bridge was to be 1220 feet, its breadth 40.

The same originality of thought and independence of action that excited the fears of the timid, and appeared to justify the doubts and censures of the hostile, in the commencement, with the piers and foundations, were still more strikingly shown when the superstructure began to appear. "In order to give the utmost strength to the arches of the bridge," says Labelye, "I designed their construction very different from the common way of building such arches; for, in order to destroy or counterbalance the thrust or lateral pressure with which all arches (even the semicircular ones) do endeavour to separate or overset their piers, every arch of Westminster Bridge (except the two small ones at the abutments) is double. The first arch is semicircular, built with great blocks of Portland stone, from three to five feet in height or depth; over which there is another arch built with Purbeck stones, bonded in with the under semicircular arch. This upper arch is of a particular figure or curve, four or five times thicker in the reins, or towards the bottom, than at the key or top. Both these arches, taken together, do form a kind of arch which can be demonstrated to be in equilibrio in all its parts. By means of these secondary arches, and the proper disposition of the superincumbent materials, every arch of Westminster Bridge is able to stand by itself, independent of the abutments or any other arch. I asserted, above twelve years ago, that arches thus constructed must have that property, as a necessary consequence, from a mathematical proposition as clearly demonstrated as any one proposition in Euclid or Apollonius; and the truth of my assertion has since been put out of all doubt, for when, by the settling of the western fifteen-foot pier, in 1747, it became necessary to take down the two adjoining arches, and to rebuild them, all the other arches, even the next to them on each side, stood firm and well (though unsupported on one side); nor were they at all affected by two severe shocks of earthquakes that were felt in London in February and March, 1749, to the great amazement of many, and to the no less confusion and disappointment of not a few malicious or ignorant people, who had confidently asserted, and propagated the notion, that upon unkeying any one of the arches the whole bridge would fall." The "people" here referred to, however, had had a great triumph when the accident Labelye mentions occurred to the western fifteen-foot pier. The Bridge was thought to be almost finished in 1747, and preparations were making for the opening, when suddenly the pier in question began to sink, and it became necessary to take down one of the arches. In a spirit of bitter indignation Labelye records the annoyance this unfortunate and, to him as well as other persons, incomprehensible circumstance caused him. "Notwithstanding most of the considerable bridges of which we have any account have, in the course of their building, met with some accident like this, it is certain that never was an accident so much taken notice of. It was very sincerely deplored by all those who had any good nature or public spirit, and as heartily rejoiced at by those of a contrary disposition, such as the watermen, ferrymen, and a great many others: nay, by some who were fed and maintained by the commissioners with much better bread than they ever deserved or ever could earn." The arch being removed, heavy weights were laid on the pier, consisting of some 700*

All the accounts we have seen but Labelye's own give the weight as 12,000 tons, which he himself refers to as a mistake of the "daily newspapers and monthly magazines."

tons of stone in blocks, and iron cannon condemned as unserviceable; and Labelye was going on to add 1400 tons more when he was stopped by the commissioners, who were frightened by the representations of a "wicked cabal bent upon mischief for mischief's sake." These persons must have been hard pushed for arguments before they could have talked in the following ludicrous style :They told the commissioners that the further loading might not only be dangerous to the adjoining arches, but crush the centres and make them fall into the river, and even draw after them a considerable part of his Majesty's ordnance. These men must have been born diplomatists. Was ever so magnificent a phrase made out of such small materials! This was the only instance in which the commissioners prevented Labelye from following his own designs. After some delay the affair was settled by a sort of compromise, Labelye adopting another plan for the repair. Recent circumstances enable us to add a useful appendix to this narration. An extensive reparation of the Bridge has been for some time going on, having for its object to strengthen the foundations of the pier undermined by the flow of the Thames since the removal of Old London Bridge; to lower the roadway in the centre and raise the approaches; and (there is little doubt) to widen the Bridge, for the preliminary step of lengthening the base of the pier is already in progress. In making these alterations much interest has been excited among professional men by the knowledge that the cause of the sinking of the pier in 1747 would now most probably be discovered. They have not been disappointed. "On the removal of the ground within the sheet piling the projecting part of the timber bottom of the caisson was found to be broken and separated from that part underneath the pier: this had arisen from the space intended for the caisson not having been dredged sufficiently large to receive it, so that it was resting on the slope of the excavation, the centre part being hollow, until the weight of the masonry broke away the sides and allowed the pier to settle on the loose sand and gravel which had run in; the level of the blue clay being nearer the surface at this pier than the adjoining one, the excavation was principally in that material, and its intense stiffness will account for the dislocation that took place in the timber-work."* "* Such was the cause of the accident which gave Labelye so much annoyance and postponed the opening of the Bridge for three years. It was observed that the caissons were found in so perfect a state, that the fir retained even its resinous smell.

The semi-octagonal turrets must not be passed without a few words. Labelye says they were not only built for their evident accommodation to passengers desiring or obliged to stop without interfering with the roadway, or for the relief they afford to the eye in breaking so long a line, but for the additional security they gave to the bridge, by strengthening the parts between the arches, and thereby offering so much more weight to repel the lateral pressure. He calls the common idea, that the more an arch is loaded the stronger it will be, a vulgar error. Presuming that the architect ought to be a fair judge of his own intentions, we may with confidence repel the satire of the French wit or traveller referred to by Pennant, M. Grosley, who, in his Tour to London,' assures us that the cause of their erection was to prevent the suicide to which the English have so strong a propensity, particularly in the gloomy month of November; for, had they been low, he thoughtfully observes, how few could resist the charming

* Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal, May, 1841.

opportunity of springing over! whereas, at present, the difficulty of climbing up these heights is so great that the poor hypochondriac has time to cool, and, desisting from his purpose, think proper to give his days their full length, and end them like a good Christian in his peaceful bed. Maitland mentions a more serious purpose to which these recesses might have been put, and one that gives us a pregnant illustration of the social state of the neighbourhood in the last century. He says they might have" served for places of ambush for robbers and cut-throats," but for the establishment of a guard of twelve watchmen specially appointed for the security of the passage during the night. "We walk the public streets with so much danger in these hours," he continues, "that this provision was extremely necessary." Altogether, Westminster at this time was certainly a pleasant neighbourhood to live in, where you could not move in the day without the danger of stumbling in some deep rut, or of having some carriage-wheel rubbing off its superabundant mud on your clothes as it passed you; whilst at night there were the additional comforts of unlighted ways and lurking robbers; and, night and day, intolerable stenches stealing across your path, in every possible variety, each suggestive of its own agreeable origin. How much do we not owe to the Bridge! But for that structure there is no saying how much longer Westminster would have remained lagging behind its neighbour city in the path of improvement. The writer of the account of Middlesex in the Beauties of England and Wales,' mentions a peculiarity of these recesses, which we have not ourselves tried, but which some of our readers may. He says, "So just are the proportions, and so complete and uniform the symmetry, that, if a person whispers against the wall of the alcove on one side of the way, he may be plainly heard on the opposite side, and parties may converse without being prevented by the interruption of the street or the noise of the carriages."*

The work was finally completed in November, 1750, having been erected, as Labelye informs us, without turning of the whole or any part of the river, without stopping, or even hindering, the free navigation one single moment, and without having any sensible fall under its arches. Great was the triumph of friends, melancholy the disappointment of enemies. By the former it was emphatically designated as the noblest bridge in the world, and the public voice ratified the judgment. A day of public rejoicing, on the occasion of the opening, was named by the commissioners, which, by an odd piece of neglect, was discovered, when too late, to fall on a Sunday. They then determined to commence at twelve o'clock on the Saturday night, and hurry the thing over, so as to avoid scandal. Accordingly on the 17th of November, or rather the 18th, just after midnight, a procession was formed of gentlemen of Westminster, Labelye and his chief assistants, and a large concourse of spectators, who enjoyed the novelty of such a torchlight ceremonial. These were preceded by kettle-drums and trumpets. Guns also fired from time to time. All the next day the Bridge was like a fair. The cost of the whole edifice, including the "several conveniences requisite thereto," was, according to Maitland's work, 389,500l., which was raised from no less than twelve lotteries; but Labelye gives the entire cost, on what he believed to be good information, for all the materials delivered, work done, and labour of all sorts in and about Westminster Bridge, at 218,000l. only. The difference is *Beauties of England and Wales, vol. x., part 4, page 529.