32 Observalio)is on taking doicn and 



creased height of the waters in the up country, but have a con- 

 trary effect. This position is true at all times of the ebbing, 

 but not of the flowing; a high sea-flood meeting a high land- 

 flood must dam back the latter, and at times two feet higher 

 than at present, when the dam of the bridge is removed. For 

 example: on the 28th of December 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 suffered to rise two feet higher than 

 it can at present, would have caused a greater extent of coun- 

 tr^f to be flooded than suffered at that tune*. 



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

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

 water from London Bridge, and proceed u}i 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 v/ith his oar; it will then be manifest to them what a 

 stinki]ig ditch the river will become at low water. Though an 

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

 porary channel for the navigation at that time, it nuist 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 



* The late Mr. Mylne's Report, Appendix (A 1) and Plate I, 3rd Report, 

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

 contained in this paper. He was employed with a view to the demolition of 

 London Bridge, and was a strenuous advocate for a new one. IJe 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 in- 

 creased velocity on the bed of the Thames, which he anticinatcs, there will, 

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

 ready wrought at London Bridge for the new structure, without the trouble 

 of stopping the receipts of the e.Kcise and customs of the three kingdoms. 

 The fall of water, westward of London Bridge, has dug out the bed 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 up- 

 wards. The maintaining Blackiriars 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 

 cofTcr-dams. 



said 



