SCHUYLKILL PERMANENT BRIDGE. 45 



7250 tons on its foundation, which is twenty nine feet below 

 low water mark, and at high tide, 38 to 40 feet deep, was 

 began on Christmas day, in a severe winter, in a depth of wa- 

 ter uncommonly forbidding, and in forty days carried up from 

 necessity, during the inclemency of the season, to near low 

 water mark ; the point aimed at in our original design, for, 

 the work of an earlier and more temperate period." 



" We knew our work v/as difficult enough ; and the only 

 sti-ucture of the kind in this country. But we did not know 

 that it was so singular a proof of the effects of persevering 

 industr\'- in any country. In a letter from William Weston Esq. 

 to Richard Peters^ he Avrites : — 



" Gainsborough fin England) 



4th May^ 1803. , 

 " I most sincerely rejoice at the final success that has 

 rroAvned your persevering efforts, in the erection of the west- 

 ern pier ; it will afford you matter of well founded triumph, 

 when I tell you, that you have accomplished an undertaking 

 unrivalled by any thing of the kind that Europe can boast of. 

 I have never in the course of my experience, or reading, 

 heard of a pier founded in such a depth of water, on an ir- 

 regular rock, affording little or no support to the piles. That 

 the v/ork should be expensive — expensive beyond your ideas 

 — I had no doubt ; the amount thereof, with ail the advanta- 

 ges derived from experience, I could not pretend to deter- 

 mine ; and if known, would only have tended to produce he- 

 sitation and irresolution in a business, where nothing but the 

 most determined, unceasing perseverance, could enable you 

 to succeed. However, now *' all your toils and dangers o'er" 

 I heartily congratulate you on the result : not doubting but 

 the completion will prove as honourable to you as beneficial 

 to the stockholders." 



"We give this extract for the satisfaction of the stock- 

 holders ; -who must be convinced, that their money has been 

 applied to an object of great difficulty and magnitude ; in 

 which expence was neither to be calculated or spared." 



