The true Democrat., 1854-11-08
MORNING, NOVEMBER 8, 1854.

weight of locomotives, passenger carriages, luggage vans, and mineral and cattle trucks across an arm of the sea, or still broader river.
 MT. Stephenson daopted the tubular form after careful experiment, as the one best calculated to sustain the immense pressure to which the bridge would be exposed. We recolect when the tubes were foatedup the straits to the pro- posed site of the Britannia bridge upon huge decked barges, how impossible it was thought 1t would prove, to raise them from the level of the water to an altitude greater than that of the highest mast of the largest ship that navigated that inlet of the sea, but the work was accom- plished by the calculations of science, without the aid of the fabled screw of Archimedes, and its ponderous tubes, one after another, ascended to the place, and an iron way was formed over the mighty chasm.
 The success of the engineer in the building of the Britannia bridge has fully justified him in deciding upon the adoption of the same plan for the Victoria bridge, which will be construct ed on twenty-four piers, with spans or spaces, for the navigation, exclusive of the two abut- ments from whence the tubes spring on either side. The center space or span will be 33O feet wide, and each of the other twenty four spans will be 23O feet wide. The width of the two piers nearest to each abutment will be fifteen feet, and as the piers approach the center span, the width and strength of each will be increased until they reach the two center piers, when it will amount to eighteen feet. The abutments from which the tubes spring will be each of them PAP feet long and 90 feet wide, and from the north shore of the St. Law renee to the north abutment there will be a solid stone embankment of rough masonry 12- % feet in length raised like an artificial rock to resist the current. The stone embankment leading from the south shore of the river to the south abutment, will be half this length, or GOO feet The length of the bridge itself from abutment to abutment, and its total length from river bank to river bank. will be 1O284 feet, or about 50 yards less than two English miles.
 There enumerations may seem tedious, but they are necessary, especially for those at a distance, to enable the mind to grasp the mag nitude of this mighty causeway. The Sum. mer average depth of the St. Lawrence varies from l4 feet near the centre, to feet near the banks and the current runs in this part, at the rate of from z to 10 miles an hour. The clear distance between the under surface of the cen ter tube and the average level of the river is to be 60 feet and the height will diminish toward either side with grade at the rate of in 13O or 40 feet Ill the mile; so that at the outer or river edge of each abutment, the height will be 136 feet above the summer level
 On the 24th of July last we received an in- vltatiOn to the laying of the first stone in the bed of the river, for the construction ol the first pier of the bridge, and now, oil the 14th of September when we write, pier No. l has aris- en several feet above the level of the river, and the process Of binding the blocks may be seen and understood. Each stone of the structure is clamped to its fellow by bands of iron, and the interstices are filled with molten lead and the strongest Roman cement. The result will be the construction of masonry as durable as that of the Coliseum or the Appain ways, which has stood the wear and tear of time and of traffic for more than 2,OOO years, and which still continue to exist as monuments of the skill and industry of man. It IS thing worthy of note, that in new and rising country, only known to civilized men for two or three hun dred years, monuments should arise to mark the progress of the age and to compete in the worlds esteem with similar works constructed two ort three thousand years ago. and if the rap i'd and mighty St. Lawrencei is mastered by such works, then indeed is the achievement one worthy to be chronicled.
 Unless unforeseen difficulties arise the first railway train will pass over the broad St. Law renee by the summer of 1858. The commer- cial advantages will consist in the fact thal the Victoria bridge will bring into direct communi- cation, without break of guage or bulk, the ex~ haustless products ofCanada West, and of Michi- gan. Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and all the west ern States of the nation. Reciprocity will have opened the door of international communca- tion, and the requirements of traffic will be chiefly and eXpediously met by the iron road and its tubular bridge. A few years hence and this very bridge will become one of the great est attractions to the tourist and the traveller.
 The Colossus of Rhodes, under which the pgmy shallops of former ages could pass: was esteemed one of the wonders of the old world But an iron bridge spanning river two miles in width, giving safe passage to hundreds oi tons of weight between its iron sides, and per mitting ships of the largest tonnage to pass be- meath its elevated arches, Is an achievement still more remarkable for the new world, and is worthy of the young giant rising in the west If the Coliseum, and the Pantheon, and the Piraeus, and the Pyramid, have attracted vis tors from every land, so in future days will the Victoria bridge; and Montreal will hereafter reapmuch of the benefit which must follow the com n otiOn of so miohtv a work