rebuilding London Bridge. ' 271 



1821, from the freshes, the whole of the up-country was so 

 flooded that the inhabitants of the low-lands adjacent used 

 boats in the streets ; a sea-flood meeting such a flood, and suf- 

 fered to rise two feet hiy;her than it can at present, would have 

 caused a greater extent of country to be flooded than suffered 

 at that time *. 



Those who favour the removal of the dam of London Bridge, 

 should, during the present Lot weather, take a boat at low 

 water from London Bridge, and proceed up the river; and, 

 whilst they enjoy the odour from the banks, contemplate the 

 effects of lowering the water from four to six feet, consequent 

 on such removal, occasionally requiring the boatman to sound 

 the depth with his oar ; it will then be manifest to them what a 

 stinking ditch the river will become at low water. Though an 

 expenditure of a large sum of money might dredge out a tem- 

 poral channel for the navigation at that time, it must neverthe- 

 less be remembered, that the width of the river increases up- 

 wards from London Bridge, and there are no moveable dams, 

 for which purposes the ships below London Bridge are used to 

 keep it clear. The cause assigned for taking down London 

 Bridge is as follows ; " Whereas the great fall of water at 

 certain times of the tide, occasioned by the large starlings and 

 piers of the said bridge, renders the navigation through the 

 said bridge dangerous and destructive to the lives and proper- 



• The late Mr. Mylnc's Report, Appendix (A 1) and Plate 1, 3d Report. 

 London Port, without data, but from a practical tact, confirms the opinions 

 contained iu tliis paper. He was employed with a view to the demolition of 

 London Bridg:e, and was a strenuous advocate for a new one. He contem- 

 plates the inadequacy of the sea-walls, but leaves, like the new bill, the care 

 of them to the respective owners. If we may rely on the effect of the 

 increased velocity on the bed of the Thames, which he anticipates, there 

 will soon after the dam is removed, be the materials of two or three 

 bridges ready wrouglit at London Bridge for the new structure, without the 

 trouble of stopping the receipts of the excise and customs of the three 

 kin-doms. The fall of water, westward of London Bridge, has dug out 

 the l^ed of the river, to a distance of four hundred feet, of twenty-eight feet in 

 depth at the lowest point; and that, eastward from the ebbing and freshes, 

 has dug out the bed of the river to a distance of six hundred feet, of 

 thirty-four feet in depth below the bed at the lowest point; when the dam 

 of the bridge is removed, this power will be principally spent in deepening 

 the river upwards. Tlie maintaining Blackfriars Bridge, even with the 

 present bed of the river, ought to be more an object of solicitude than the 

 destruction of London Bridge ; its piers are in a very dilapidated state,— 

 and it is to be remembered that the piles under them were not driven nor 

 cut off within coffer-dam*. 



Vol. XV. T 



