The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-08-31 00:00:00

srattonea in a boat in the middle of the Menai Straits, a
few hundred yards distant from the new bridge on the
south side, and suppose it finished, we shall see a wonder
of the world of this kind ; first, there is the r
rising out of the water fo
after which the bridge

I on the Britannia Rock,
tamed. This rock can be seen
The -breadth of this pier is 62

at low water

feet by 53

ae are 7

t feet in breadth and deepness,l
,
and they rise, stone upon stone. until the pier is 230 feete
high. At the distance of 460 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 outwards, the wall on
our right hand, on the Carnarvon shore, does not extend
its ponderous bulk far back, for the land is high and hold,
and the railway comes along its elevated brow, and at once
lays hold of the bridge. But on our left hand, which is
the Anglesea 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 be-
fore us, across which, in the iron tubes, the railway is
laid, namely, two spaces oft each side of the centre pier
of 460 feet 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 number, each of
them 30 feet on the exterior side, and 27 'nigh in the in-.
terior. 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 buildings, 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 bottom of the tubes, the height is 130. feet,
the tubes being 30 feet on the side, and the pier 70 feet
above the upper surface. 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 25 feet, the breadth of each paw 2 feet 4 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. These 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 was contracted for by J.
Nowell and Ca, at £130,000; but from alterations in the
plans it will cost £200,000. They expect to finish the
masonry by August: 1848. It will CoAtain 1,500,000 cubic
feet of stone,

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