The Sun.
London, England, 1864-01-25 00:00:00

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THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, JANUARY 25, 1864.

WHERE CAN WE MEET AF TER THE
PANTOMIMES ? My dear Fellow, Gentlemen sup
at EVANS', Covent-garden.

The Railway Works at Blaekfriars.

sign of yield or weakness of any kind. When the spans of
the main girders join above the groups of columns their
junctions will be concealed by massive ornamental castings,
which will be relieved with gilt and colour. In the same
style the termination of the girders at each end will be '
ornamented with exeeedingly bold and massive castings.
On the Surrey side of the river the enormous range
of buildings which are being erected are intended
mainly for a goods station—a great central depot
for all the traffic that will be brought from the Great
Northern by the connexion of the Metropolitan Railway and
that coming from the south. Abutting on the deep water of
the river, the company have here got a range of waterside
premises which are not surpassed on any part of the Thames
and the necessity for taking their line at a high level to meet
their railway bridge, has enabltd them to build what may
almost be termed acres of fire. proof warehouses under their
river-aide station. All goods coming by water aro loaded
on trucks in these warehouses, and thence raised in batches
by one of Sir William Armstrong's powerful hydraulic lifts
to the level of the line above, and thence despatched with-
out further change to any part of England north or south.
From this point of the river-side station on the Surrey side
the line passes through, and has or will have stations at the
Borough, Elephant and Castle, Camberwell-gate, Camber-
well-road, and thence the main line continues due south to
Chatham, Dover, or, in fact, anywhere over the south of
England, while the Metropolitan line is extended round by
Brixton, Clapham, Wandsworth, South Lambeth, and Bat-
tersea, into Victoria, making junctions en route with all the
southern lines. North of Blackfriars the trains will run
into the Metropolitan Underground line, and thence to Pad-
dington, and so on by the Great Western and West London
Junction round by Notting-hill, Kensington, Brompton,
Chelsea, Battersea, and by Battersea-park over the Victoria-
bridge into Victoria-station, thus completing one perfect
inner circle of railway, which embraces nearly all the chief
districts in the metropolis. But the Victoria station can
by no paeans accommodate this threatened addition to its
traffic. Already there is more traffic in and out of that
station daily than at any other station, and one Thames
bridge is not enough for it. A short line, therefore, ie
proposed to be built from the south side of Battersea, so as
to give the Chatham and Dover an independent Thames
bridge of their own into Victoria station. This will
make the tenth new bridge across the Thames begun on
completed within the last four years, eight of which are for
railways. By next June it is expected that the city branch
will be ready for its traffic into Earl-street, and by next
Christmas the circle will be completed by the routes we
have named, and the distances of this unwieldly metropoli•
lie reduced, in point of time, to as manageable dimensions
as those of a country town. This, however, is not likely
to be the only new line into the metropolis, and to the pro-
moters of those who hope to follow we would say, in the
interest of the public, go and see the new stations which
the Chatham and Dover are about to give their passengers.
They are models of convenience, of cheerfulness, and even
comfort. They are models, in fact, of what such stations
should be, but which the public have never got till now.
To the engineers, Mr. Cubbit and Mr. Turner, is due the
praise of having designed the stations en such a compre-
hensive and liberal scale, and the contractors, Sir Morton
Peto, Mr. Betts, and Mr. Crampton, have carried out the
designs splendidly.

London is never likely to be known as one of the most
beautiful of European capitals, but the nature edits great
public works now being completed, or about to be com-
menced, must surely make it the most wonderful metropolis
in the world. Between the railways and the Board of Works
there will withia the next five years be Carried out in the
metropolitan district alone a greater variety of the most
stupendous engineering works than not only any other
capital, but any other country in the world can show. The
Main Drainage and Thames Embaakments ere in them.
selves achievements which from their cost, difficulty, and
usefulness, would suffice to crown the fame of any capital
which should carry them out successfully, though these are
mere items in the long list of engineering labours now plan-
ning or being executed in London. The Holborn valley
viaduct will be a gigantic work ; extension of the under-
ground railway into Finsbury another; the Charing-cross
bridge is acknowledged to be a magnificent specimen of iron
work; that for the rail Way into Cannon-street will, it is
said, equal it. If Mr. Fowler carries out his high-level
bridge at Limehouse visitors up the river will enter London
under an iron gateway, compared to which that at Menai
will be an ordinary structure ; while further on the railway
at Blackfriars will span the river with a bridge which, as
far as is yet known, will have no superior. From its size
and strength, from the solidity of its workmanship, and the
rapidity of its construction, this Chatham and Dover Rail-
way bridge is long likely to be regarded with wonder. Only
last May the first stone of the bridge was laid—in another
month the first of its gigantic lattice girders will be in place
ready for testing, and by June next i: is hoped that all will
be complete and the city traffic flowiag in to the temporary
station in Earl-street. The subsoil at this thoroughfare
is all made ground, and one in which it has been
exceedingly difficult to find a 'Toper foundation for
the massive arches on which the line will thence
be carried high over the level of Ludgate-hill, across
the site of the old Fleet Prison anirown an incline to the
station of the Metropolitan Railway in Victoria-street. In
seeking for a good foundation in Earl-street the workmen
have come upon the remains of what was evidently the old
Roman river wall many feet below the present surface, and
nearly 200 ft distant from what is now the soath bank of
the Thames. As this wall was exceedingly difficult to re-
move,it was thought better to utilize it where it was ; it has
accordingly been used as part of the foundations, which
here can only be obtained by a perfect structure of piles
and transverse beams forced under ground and filled in be-
tween with concrete.
The railway bridge which is to connect the great goods
station on the south side of the river with the station in
Farringdon-street and Victoria-street is one of the most
important of the works by which these changes are being
brought about. The length of this structure between the
abutments is just 997 ft, and its width 65ft, it being intended
for four lines of rails, not only on the bridge itself but for
some distance over its approaches on either side. The
whole structure is carried at a uniform level of 32ift above
high water. The two shore abutments are of great solidity.
They were built in wrought-iron caissons, and contain no
less than 223,000 cubic feet of solid masonry, the founda-
tions being taken 30ft below the surface and down into the
London clay. From these abutments four piers carry the
main girders across the river, the two spans at the shore
ends being 169 ft wide, the two next to these 194 ft, and the
centre span of all 205 ft, the longest sing:e span we believe,
excepting that of the Britannia-bridge, that has yet been
attempted in this country. It is in the piers, however, that
the moat striking features of this great work consist. The
permanent way of the bridge being carried entirely on three
immense lattice girders, each so-called pier, in reality, consists
of three distinct structures or piers,one fox each girder,which
are built quite separate and independent of each other. These
single plates consist of columns of masonry built in circular
caissons or wroughtiron tubes 18ft in diamater,and which are
forced down never less than 30ft, and sometimes as much as
40ft below the actual bed of the stream. On each of these
columns of masonry, at 6ft above high water mark and
springing from handsomely ornamented pediments, rise a
group of four massive cast-iron columns, which united have
a total diameter of 14ft. These are joiner together at their
summits by a massive and baldly ornamented capital about
4ft high, making the total height of the columns from the
masonry about 26ft. The cast-iron columns are then built
in solid with the hardest description of bricks laid in cement,
and over all are built the wrought-iron main girders. Thus,
then, though each one of these groups of stone and iron
columns form a pier, yet each pier consists of three
distinct columns of stone, surmounted by four distinct
columns of iron. The caps of these four columns, by unit
ing them together, virtually make one column of them, and
the transverse fastenings between the three piers in like

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manner unite their strength; and over all come the main
longitudinal girders which carry the railway, stiffening the
whole into one rigid piece—the ends only of each span being
left free on rollers, to meet the contracticn and expansion
caused by variation of temperature. Just now the whole
system by which this remarkable structure is being raised
can be seen more perfectly than has yet been the case since
the works commenced. On the Surrey Fide the massive
groups of cast-iron columns arefiniehed,and peer out grimly
through the net-work of timber, more like the beginning
of some colossal Egyptian temple than any modern railway
work; while on the City side, the last of the great circular
caissons, or iron tubes, aro being sunk, and one can look
down and see where the men are quietly at work in a
gloomy sort of twilight, nearly 40ft below the led of the
river. When Messra. Joliffe and Banker, the contractors
for London bridge, succeeded, after 13 months of unremit-
ting labour and pumping, in getting their first cofferdam
water-tight and empty, all the civic authorities went in state
to see the wonder; had luncheon there, and drank the
health of the engineers who had wrought this marvel in so
short a time. How much the science of engineering has
advanced since that may be judged from the simple fact
that from the time of commencing to sink one of the three
caissons at Blackfriars till the men are at work in a dry
chamber far below the bed of the river, occupies from first to
last only a month ! If the corporation now hive any
curiosity to dine far beneath the bed of old Father Thames,
they have only to signify their wish, and in a month from
that time their salle-d -manger in the London clay can be
made ready for them beneath any part of the tideway they
y choose. k Columbus'se
be a
simpler
which this apparently difficult
engineering ,feat is accomplished. may be briefly
mper than Ye
theyti way in
described thus :—Over the site of the intended column for
the pier the traveller brings the first oi•cular wrought-
iron joint of the tube. It is lin thick, 18ft diameter, 15ft
long, and weighs 27 tons. It has a sharp edge at the bottom,
but a fiat flange or rim at the top, for the next joint to be
laid on it. This is lowered between four guiding piles to the
bottom of the river, and the next joint, of the same weight
and size, put over it, when the divers go down and, placing
bands of vulcanised indiaruber between the rims or flanges,
screw them both so firmly together as to be perfectly water
tight. As the joints above are added one by one, the weight
of the whole tube sinks it equally
through the mud and
gravel till it will go no further, when a new
process com-
mences. A steam pump, of Mr. Woodford's patent—one
of the simplest and most powerful machines of the kind
ever invented—is set to work, and pumps the water out of
the tube in a single hour, when raen
go down and begin ex-
cavating the earth out of the tube, which goes lower and
lower as they work, joint upon joint being added on above
as it sinks at the rate of 4ft a day. At last the increasing
density of the London clay resists the weight of the tube ;
it is then loaded equally, but very heavily, all round its
interior on wrought iron ledges left for the purpose with
masses of iron ballast, which again take it lower and lower,
till at last, when some 30ft into the London clay, no pres-
sure above or excayationbelow will move it:more. One that
had reached its bearings was weighted with 900 toes of rails
at the top without getting it down half an inch. When so
fixed the iron tube is about 65ft long, reaching from high
water 30ft into the clay, and the gloomy circular aperture
then precisely resembles in size and depth the present ap-
pearance of the month of the terrible Hartley pit shaft.
The last labour is then to excavate a circular chamber at
the base of the tube some 24ft in diameter, and 3tt deep,
which is filled up with concrete, when the hardened bricks
are laid in cement up to Oft below low water mark,
when the blocks of masonry begin. These blocks have
been chosen from the largest atones of old Westminster -
bridge, and after being laid they are fastened together
with brass cramps and dovetailed in, like the keystones of
an arch,so as in strength to be equal to a single block of 18ft
diameter and 4ft thick. All of the iron caissons that can be
seen above low water is then removed, and the groups of
iron columns built and fastened together in the way we have
described. Most of these piers and columns being ready,
and all on the south side complete, the work of building the
main centre girder has already been commenced there.
These girders are to be wrought iron and on the lattice
principle, somewhat similar, but much larger than those at
the sides of Mr. Hawkshaw's bridge at Hungerford, to
resist tension and compression. They will be 16 feet deep;
but the centre one, as having to bear the transverse iron
beams which unite it to the outer girders, will be made of
extra strength. The two outer ones will at each span be
tested with a strain of 400 tons—the inner ono up to 800
tons, and the weight of wrought iron used in the three will
be no less than 3,500 tons. The scaffolding required for the
erection of these main beams has to be almost as strong as
the beams themselves. More than 70,000 cubic feet of
timber have been used in constructing it. The mixed wood
and iron lattice framework which our readers may now see
at the top of all is what is called the American truss. It is
precisely similar to the framework by which all the railways
, • in Canada and America are carried over the broadest rivers.
This has been constructed, with the staging underneath it,
to support the first span of the girder while being built, and
its strength may be judged when we say that this scaffold-
ng has been loaded to a ton and a half per foot without

ek)z,

PR1CE...... ...4d.
STAMPED ....sd.

per annum for the purpose of purchasing books, repairing
damaged books, and meeting casual incidental expenses.
Each recreation room will be supplied with the principal
daily and weekly papers, magazines, &c., the expense of
which will be covered by the Government grant and the
subscriptions of the officers, non-commissioned officers and
men. The snbscriptions are not under any circum-
stances to exceed is. per month for an officer, 6d. per month
for a sergeant, 4d. per month for a corporal, and 3d.
per month for a private. The battalions at the camp at
Colchester have now opened their rooms, and at each of
them refreshments can also be obtained.
The Rev. Mr. Henderson has been appointed Presbyterian
minister at the camp at Colchester, and has arrived at that
station. A detachment, consisting of 1 sergeant and 20
rank and file of the 2d battalion 6th Regiment, has left the
camp for Portsmouth, for the purpose of being employed as
a guard over convicts in the West Indies. A draught of 35
rank and file of the Ist battalion sth Regiment has also left
the camp en route for Shorncliffe, to join the service com-
panies of the regiment at that station.