The Sun.
London, England, 1859-09-07 00:00:00

ITS HISTORY,

In examining into this part of the subject it is
necessary to go back some 12 years, when an effort
was made to commence the St. Lawrence and At-
lantic Railway. As one turns to those days, it
seems that Providence has advanced a century. At
that period the railway from Lapraire to St. John's
--which was worked only during the summer
months, and that at the rate of 12 miles per hour—
and six miles of railway to Lachine, formed the
whole of our railway system.
In those days travelling was considered an effort;
in some months of the year the mails took six days
to pass from Toronto to Montreal, and really one
travelled at the risk of life, and the trade which,
before the days of railways, had turned by the Ot-
tawa and St. Lawrence to Montreal, passed
through the State of New York to the commercial
of the Union. In this position of affairs the mer-
cantile community of Montreal projected the St.
Lawrence and Atlantic Railway. Then arose the
question, can the St. Lawrence be bridged ? And
here it is our pleasing, as we believe it to be our
imperative, duty to inform the readers that to a
distinguished merchant citizen of Montreal, the
Hon. John Young, belongs the merit of having
first recognised, agitated, and urged the commercial
necessity of this work.
In the year 1853, under the large and liberal
financial administration of Inspector-General
Hincks (now Governor-General of the Windward
Islands), the Victoria-bridge was included in the
Government policy for the construction of the Grand
Trunk Railway. At this eventful period Mr.
Young's labours began rapidly to fructify, and now
the great idea of his practical brain has assumed a
form and fixedness with which his name will ever be
associated, and which will mark his character for
intellect and energy, not only in his own time and
that of his children, but in the far distant future.
To A. M. Ross, Esq., the chief engineer of the
Grand Trunk Company, is due the conception of the
design and plan of the present magnificent work.
Next we have to introduce the name of Mr. Jas.
Hodges, the engineer who acted on the part of the
contractors, Messrs. Peto, Brassey, and Betts. Com-
mencing in 1854, it will be finished in 1859; but
undoubtedly. its progress has been impeded by the
monetary crisis, which has affected the affairs of the
company, for it might have been fully two years
earlier completed. Thus the amount of work per-
formed in 1856 was equal to that effected in 1854
and 1856. In 1857 but a very trifling addition was
made to the amount of the previous year,. whereas
'in 1858 as much work was done as in the two pre-
ceding years. When we say that the cost of the
bridge is 7,000,000 dollars, we give only a faint idea
of the responsibility of directing so great a work.
The very force on the river during the last season
was a small army. It consists of six steamboats,
72 barges, besides several small craft. These mea-
sured about 12,000 tons. The steamboats were in
the aggregate 450-horse power.
They were manned by
In the two stone quarries were
On various works engaged as artisans
and labourers

500 men
450 „

2,090 „

Total labourers and artisans.. 3,040 „
To this strength.must be added 142 horses, vari-
ously employed, and four locomotives, the amount
of wages being daily 5,000 dols.
In round figores there will be 3,000,000 cubic feet
of masonry, 10,000 tons of, iron in the tubes ;
2,000,000 rivets, each one fastened by a peculiar
process' and 168 acres of painting. The tubes being
painted four times in oil and colour, and each coat
giving 32 acres.
We must not omit to state that during the last
six years the water has been carefully marked in
it ; daily height and temperature. The tempera-
ture of the atmosphere and all meteorological phe-
nomena have been carfully observed.
THE BRIDGE—DESCRIPTION. _

The bridge contains 25 openings of 242 ft., with
the exception of the centre span, which is 330 ft.,
hence the length of the tube is 6,600 ft., approached
by embankments, the Montreal end being 1,200 ft.,
the southern shore of 800 ft., which, including the
abutments, make a total of 9,084 ft., or 'll miles,
nearly. The abutments are at the base each 278 ft.
long, divided into cells of 24 ft., with intervening
tie-walls of 5 ft., but at the top they correspond
exactly with the length of a tube, 242 ft. in length,
and indeed are carried up to the same height, the
tells being filled with gravel. To resist the thrust
of the ice both the abutments and the piers are fur-
nished with a cutwater which meets the pier pro-
per 30 ft. above summer water, the whole height of
the abutment being 36 ft. above summer water, the
centre pier being 60 ft. ; hence the bridge rises in a
grade of 1 in 132 or 40 ft. to the mile, the centre
again being a pure level. The centre pier is 24 ft. in
width, the remaining piers are but 16 ft. These
dimensions are directly under, the girder, for at the
foundation the piers are 22 ft. in width, and at
summer water 16 ft. Tranversely the piers are 33 ft.
limier the girder. Thus the dimensions at the junc-
tion with cutwater is 16x23 ft., extending outwards
to the foundation up stream making the area of the
course whence the cutwater fs commenced 16x90 ft.,
for the foundations vary. In some cases they were
as low as 23 ft. below the water, and to obtain good
and perfect foundations was a work of very great
difficulty.
It had been supposed that the bed of the river
was rock, which the scour of the rapid stream had
kept clear from all deposit ; but it was discovered,
, on the contrary, to consist of boulders packed with
gravel, and that material called hard pan, an indu-
rated clay mixed with stone, varying from six to
ten feet in depth. Nor must we omit mention of the
quicksan.3 which intervened frequently. All this
had to be taken out, so that the bed proper of the
river—the rock—could be reached, on which the
foundations bad to be commenced. This was the
crisis of the work ; for until the masonry was above
water the parties laboured nigut and day. It must
be recollected that during this period the current
was running past the works at 10 and 12 miles an
hour ; for, owing to the contraction of the water
way by the coffer dams, the speed of the river was
thus accelerated. These dams were of two kinds—
floating dams and ordinary coffer dams.
DAMS.

. Before entering upon the subject of the dams,- a
few words' 'about the mode of layino• off the works
is necessary. We have alluded to the elaborate sur-
vey made on the ice by Mr. T. Rubidge in 1&53, by
which the exact and precise depths of the river were
determined; and on the map the location of the
bridge was made, the usual reference points being
Preserved, by wl,.ich the exact site could be obtained
on the ground. The working season of 1853, imme-
diately preceding the winter survey, was passed in
preparation, and it was in the winter following,
1853-4, that the first steps were taken to lay off the
abutments and piers on the line already traced dur-
ing the-summer. This work was done on the ice,
the distances being carefully measured, and on the
centre of the pier being found, "guides" were
framed so that a long iron rod could be rifted and
- let fall in the one spot technically called " jumped,"
until a hole was drilled into the rock, into which, a
bolt was inserted and driven. By these means the
precise centre of the pier was established within a
'
few inches, for in all cases in pumping out the water
front the
dams
the bolt was found, practically
s
eakilig, establishing sufficiently the position of
the pier., It has been said that the dams were of
two kinds,each having its advantagesand disadvan-
tages. The floating; dams were, in themselves, framed
structure: of no mean character, and consisted of
rwo parts- One 'part, which, for the moment, we
c, tll three sides of a square flgure—the sides being
la,;ger than the head—the other piece forming the
square. But in order to turn off the current, the
head of the square was formed of two minor sides
turmed to an angle up stream. They were carefully
and strongly framed ; and being caulked, floated of
themselves. To place these dams in the proper po-
sition, :the piece of three sides was taken by a steam
boat in tow, and when the dam was approximately,
in position, determined instrumentally from the
:shore, a .sluice gate was opened, and the water pass-
ing within it, ;t sank at the required place. The
tail piece was subsequently towed. into position.
Necessarily a great margin as-to area had to be left,
in case of w, ant of success in sinking the crib at the
exact spot. At the foundation the piers were 22
by 90, where as the cribs were 120 by 210, which
area was of pa Tfectly still water. Operations could
accordingly at *once be commenced. A dam proper

was constructed within this workable water, and
on its completion the pumps were set to work. The
othei form of dam was the ordinary cribbing of the
country ; and owing to the rapidity of the stream
unusual care and tact had to be observed in its con-
struction. It was commenced with some prelimi-
nary cribbing, if we may use the word, 20 wide and
100 long, constructed in approximate position as to
the site of the piers and placed transversely to the
stream above the site of the bridge.

The. comparison between these two classes of
dams may thus be made :—The floating dam may
be used several times, indeed one has been used four
times, and it admits of the masonry being completed
in one season, and, what is more, early in the sea-
son, and it has been found to answer best in deep
water. Its disadvantage is that it could not be made
sufficiently strong to resist the shove of the ice in
the winter ; hence it had to be removed before the
severe weather came. Consequently, when the
period arrived to construct the tube, the side of the
pier was naked, and there was no point from whence
the scaffolding to support the tube truss could start.
With the coffer dam this foundation existed, and
hence it was necessary to frame one centre scaffold-
ing only, whereas with the floating dams three such
constructions were necessary, viz., the centre frame,
and the scaffold foundation at the side of each pier.
Nor was this consideration an unimportant one, for
such foundation was obtained by sinking scows and
driving piles around them to keep them in position.
Otherwise the operations were ,identical. From
either dam framing was carried up above the height
of the pier, and on the capping pieces was run a
railway, to admit the passage of a travelling ma-
chine, which, mounted with a crab, admitted a
contrary passage on itself. Hence stones cf
twenty tons were moved. into position as easily
as a pound weight is thrown into a scale.
On the platform of the dam were constructed sheds
to cover the steam engine; the blacksmiths' shop, the
store-room, and carpenters' shop ; and thus the scene
was presented of these isolated areas of an acre and
a quarter dotted along the river, busy with life and
animation, and showing the work in its various
stages. The dam perfected, the staging constructed,
the travelling machine in position, stone delivered
ready for the mason to lay, the anxious moment
commenced—that of pumping out the water and get-
ting in the foundation. Not that the labour was
great in removing the water, but that the applica-
tion of the test, to show the dams were water-tight
and if the water would not force its way up from
below, naturally created anxiety. Nothing could be
better than the pumps used. They were worked
centrifugally, and threw 800 gallons a minute, pass-
ing up stones six inches square—the diameter of the
pipe—and it was, moreover, one of those portable
affairs that a man could take on his shoulder and
move from one place to the other. It was calculated
that these pumps lowered the area of the dam at
the rate of two feet an hour. Therefore, in eight
or ten hours the dam was empty.