MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 35 



their details, under the sole superintendence and supervision of his relative, 

 Mr. G. R. Stephenson. With such nicety were all the arrangements respect- 

 ing these plates conducted, that, under the directions of that gentleman, 

 every plate and piece of iron was punched in England before it was sent out 

 to Canada; and elaborate and detailed drawings and instructions were sent 

 by the same hand, to show the method of connection. On the arrival, there- 

 fore, of each separate cargo of iron in Canada, little remained to those upon 

 the spot but to fasten together the various pieces, and place them in their 

 order and position as directed. 



The Victoria Bridge, with its approaches, is only about 60 yards short of 

 two miles, being five and one-half times longer than the Britannia Bridge 

 across the Menai Straits. The bridge proper consists of 24 spans of 242 

 feet each, and one in the centre of the river, itself an immense bridge 

 of 330 feet. The spans are approached by a causeway, on each side of the 

 river, each terminating in an abutment of solid masonry, 240 feet long, and 

 90 feet wide. The causeway from the north bank is 1400 feet long, and that 

 from the south bank 700 feet. The iron tubes, within which the road runs, 

 are 60 feet above the high-water level of the St. Lawrence, and the total 

 weight of iron in the tubes is upwards of 100,000 tons. 



ON THE SEWERAGE OF LONDON. 



London has justly boasted of being the best-drained city in the world, and 

 pointed to her two thousand miles of subterranean passages, through which 

 the sewage of two millions of inhabitants flowed to the sea, as a prouder 

 wonder than the labyrinth of Crete. The object of all London drainage up 

 to the present time, however, has been to make the Thames the great main 

 sewer of the metropolis; all the sewers of the eity, on both sides of the 

 river, running due north and south, and all discharging into the Thames 

 within a distance of about six miles. Most of the sewers, moreover, owing 

 to their low level, are so completely tide-locked, that it is only at dead low 

 water that they can empty themselves at all, and thus for twelve hours this 

 sewage of both sides of London is pent up, and gives off its miasma, 

 through an elaborate system of drains, into every street and house. But as 

 the sewage can only escape at dead low water, the returning tide in the river 

 churns it up and down, keeping all its abominable " flotsam " and "jetsam " 

 opposite the city, until the tide turns, when it runs out, and is replaced by a 

 quantum of some two million gallons of fresh filth, to be operated on in a 

 similar manner. The consequence is, that the Thames itself has been con- 

 verted into a mere open sewer of the worst kind. 



This evil has been greatly increased by the very perfection to which the 

 drainage of the city has been carried of late years. Within the last ten 

 years, seven or eight hundred miles of drains have been built to remove the 

 mischief of private cess-pools, attached to almost every house, and which 

 had grown into a nuisance of the most flagrant character. But this accuracy 

 of cleanliness for each house only aggravated the horrors of the river, inas- 

 much as it increased the amount of sewerage to the extent of two hundred 

 thousand gallons daily, containing three hundred tons, at least, of organic 

 matter, which in this case is the mildest term for filth of the most loath- 

 some description. 



About three years ago, the waters of the Thames, which had gradually 

 been getting more and more full-flavored, began to give off a stench so dread- 



