THE 



PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE 

 AND JOURNAL. 



I. Some brief Particulars respecting the Strand or JVaterloo 

 Bridge, effected over the Thames, at the Savoy, London, 



W iTH our present number we have given an engraving, by 

 Porter, of this elegant and highly useful embellishment of the 

 metropolis*. The foundation stone v.as laid on the 8th of Octo- 

 ber 1811, and the ninth and last arch was finished on the 28th 

 of November 1815, having thus occupied very little more than 

 four years, a space during which no work of such magnitude was 

 ever known to have been executed in ancient or modern times. 

 Indeed many smaller works of the kind have been several years 

 more in building. 



The superstructure only remains to be executed ; and when 

 the avenues on the north side from the Strand through the 

 Savov, and on the south or Surrey side to the Obelisk in St. 

 George's fields, are made, the bridge v.ill be opened for car- 

 riages and foot passengers promiscuously. This part of the 

 work, however, will require great skill, and cannot be executed 

 without a most serious expense : it will require much ingenuity, 

 for instance, to make the road on the Surrey side of the river, as 

 it is intended, for the sake of easy ascent, that the road shall 

 pass over a series of arches almost as far as the Obelisk j while 

 on both sides of the river the compensations demanded of the 

 Strand Bridge Company for the buildiugs necessary to be pulled 

 down are enormous beyond all precedent. Eight hundred thou- 

 sand pounds have been already expended, and the least cost of the 

 completion of the design will be two hundred thousand pounds 

 more, which we trust there will be no difficulty in raising. 



The whole structure is of beautiful Cornish granite, and the 

 arch stones are mostly from 5 to 7 tons in weight. Blackfriars- 

 bridge, as our readers already know, is of Portland stone; and it 



* To avoid too small a scale, only one half of llie strnctiirc ocoiijiics llic 

 jilate : the other hnlf hoini^ precisely llic bamc. 



Vol. 48. No. 219. Julij ISU;. A 2 is 



