On the intended Thames Archway* 373 



the river between these shafts : at that time Mr. V. was very 

 confident in considering the strata as regular and undisturbed 

 which his borings had penetrated, notwithstanding my 

 opinion expressed to him on seeing the specimens, that the 

 whole were alluvial, and their continuance horizontally not 

 in the least to be depended on, as mentioned at page 49 of 

 my paper in your Magazine, of which he had three or four 

 copies from me at his request, to distribute among the di- 

 rectors of the concern. The following accounts, which the 

 directors have lately published, show, after more than two 

 years of very expensive trial, that these ideas of mine have 

 been confirmed, as they might have been in a few weeks time, 

 by the borings in the bottom of the river which I recom- 

 mended, first in Dr. Rees's New Cyclopaedia (sect. Thames* 

 in the article Canal), and again in my paper in your Maga- 

 zine above referred to ; and such borings would doubtless 

 have suggested the conclusion, without all this loss of money 

 and time, which the engineer (Ouere, was it Mr. V. or 

 Mr. T. ?) at length came to, viz. : " That an underground 

 tunnel could not be made in that line, unless the fractures 

 were covered by caissons, without which the further pro- 

 gress of the drift would be useless ;" but he continues, " that 

 he had no doubt of being able to make a tunnel over the 

 same line through the river, sufficiently deep into its bed, 

 by means of movable caissons, or coffer-dams, and at a less 

 expense considerably than the original estimate for the un- 

 derground plan: and without any impediment to the naviga- 

 tion of the river." From the expressions of the directors 

 which follow, it is too much to be feared, that the counsels 

 which first prevailed in adopting a deep underground tunnel, 

 rather than one laid as near as may be to the bottom of the 

 water in the river, has still a prevailing influence among 

 them; in which case I venture again to predict, that the 

 expectations of the proprietors and the public, will be ulti- 

 mately and grievously disappointed. 



At the time of writing the short notice of this under- 

 taking, in connection with the navigation of the Thames 

 river, for the Cyclopaedia, I was too much hurried to give 

 the subject that consideration, which its obvious importance 



A a 3 has 



