The Express.
London, England, 1847-08-18 00:00:00

WALES.

THE ENORMOCS BRIDGE which is in course of
erection across the Menai Strait, has been thus desbribed
by correspondent of the Manchester Examiner s--" If we
I suppose ourselves stationed in a boat in the middle of
the Menai Strait, a few hundred yards distant from
the new bridge en the south side, and suppose it finished,
we shall see a wonder of the world of this kind ; first, there
is the middle pier rising out of the water founded on the
Britannia rock, after which the bridge is named. This
rock can be seen at low water. The breadth of this pier
is 64 feet by 63 feet and a quarter of an inch. The
blocks of stone are seven and eight feet long, by three
and four feet in breadth and deepness, and they rise, stone
upon stone, until the pier is two hundred and thirty feet
high. At the distance of four hundred and sixty feet on
each side of this centre pier there rise, near the water's edge,
two other piers of the same gigantic breadth and height ;
while on each side of these two piers, at the distance of 250
feet, there rise two walls. Continuing outward., the wall on
our right hand, on the Carnarvon shore, does not extend its
ponderous bulk far back, for the land is high and bold, and
the railway comes along its elevated brow and at once lays
hold of the bridge. But on our left band, which is the Au-
glesea shore, the wall is the forehead and end of a mighty
embankment, on which the railway is raised to the level of
the bridge, There, then, are the four spaces before us,
across which, in the iron tubes, the railway is laid, namely,
two spaces on each side of the centre pier of 460 tat
each —(let the reader measure 460 feet on a street or
on a road, and he will wonder at the vastness of this
structure) • and two more spaces of 250 feet respectively, at
each end. 'The tubes are eight in numbur, each of them 36
feet on the exterior aide, and 27 feet high in the interior.
Each is 14 feet wide, and they are laid in couples parallel to
each other. In the whole, with the breadth of the piers and
the landward budding", the length of the bridge is one-
third of a mile. In height the three piers are, as already
said, 230 feet. Measuring from low-water mark to the bot-
tom of the tubes, the height is 130 feet, the tube. being 30
feet on the side, and the pier 70 feet above their upper sur-
face. As ornaments to the two walls which rise upon
,
each shore, are four lions, two at each end of the
bridge. The lions contain about 8,000 cubic feet of
stone. They lie couched, and yet the height of each
is 12 feet' the greatest breadth across the body is 9
feet; the length 2-5 feet • the breadth of each paw two
feet four inches. The tubes are made of plates of iron of
various thicknesses, riveted together. The iron increases in
thickness as we proceed towards the centre. The roofs of
the tubes are formed of cells, and also the floors. 'I hese
cells are formed of iron plates set on edge, the cells of the
roof being within a fraction of one foot nine inches square,
and those of the floor being one foot nine inches wide, and
two feet three inches deep. The rails on which the trains
run are laid on these cells of the floor. The flat bottom,
the two upright sides, and the flat roof of each tube are
formed of plates, the thinnest of which is a quarter of an
inch, and the thickest three quarters of an inch. The
weight of each of the four long tubes will be about 1,300
tons; the weight of each of the four short ones about 600 tons.
In the whole there will be at least 7,600 tons of iron used.
The masonry will coat 200,000/. They expect to finish the
masonry by August, 1848. It will contain one million and
a half of cubic feet of stone."