772 



WOEKS, PUBLIC. 



that promised a fair return for the investment 

 directly in dividends, or indirectly in extended 

 commercial facilities or agricultural products. 

 England and France have not only contributed 

 to the railways of their own countries, but to 

 the provinces dependent upon them. Schemes 

 of irrigation have been aided in Italy, Spain, 

 and the Indies. France has almost entirely 

 rebuilt her capital. Paris, with its new boule- 

 vards, avenues, and sewers, is no longer the Paris 

 of the Eevolution. London, with its metropoli- 

 tan railways, affords a means of distribution of 

 its inhabitants unequalled by any large city. 

 Immense stations, with all the facilities of steam 

 and hydraulic lifts for loading and unloading, 

 new bridges and viaducts, have been construct- 

 ed. A large market has been built at 

 Smithfield, into the cellar of which run the 

 trains of four railways, and through which the 

 trains of the Metropolitan Eailway run every 

 two minutes. Such arrangements would be of 

 great importance to many of our cities, espe- 

 cially to New York ; but, in a sanitary point of 

 view, the value of which can hardly be estima- 

 ted in money, the construction of the Thames 

 embankment, with its sewer, and the general 

 system of sewerage carried out in London, 

 may be considered one of the most important 

 public works of our time. 



The designs for the Thames embankment, 

 both on the north and south sides of the river, 

 were prepared for the Metropolitan Board of 

 Works by their engineer, Mr. J. "W. Bazalgette, 

 and approved and adopted by them. Those 

 for the north side were completed and con- 

 tracts let and the works commenced in Feb- 

 ruary, 1864. The works for the south side 

 Avere commenced in September, 1865. 



In an engineering and architectural point of 

 view, there has seldom been so colossal a work 

 in granite put together with the same com- 

 pleteness. It literally fits with the neatness of 

 cabinet-work, and some of the landing-stages 

 and piers will remain as standards of what 

 such works should be. Some idea may be 

 formed of the magnitude and importance of the 

 undertaking, when we say that a river-wall in 

 granite eight feet in thickness has been built 

 so as to dam out nearly 300 acres of the river ; 

 that this wall is nearly 7,000 feet long ; that it 

 averages more than 40 ft. high, and its founda- 

 tions go from 16 to 30 ft. below the bed of the 

 river. In the formation of this wall and the 

 auxiliary works of drainage, subways, and fill- 

 ing in with earth behind it, there have been 

 used nearly 700,000 cubic feet of granite, about 

 30,000,000 bricks, over 300,000 bushels of ce- 

 ment, nearly 1,000,000 cubic feet of concrete, 

 125,000 cubic yards of earth have had to be 

 dug out, and no less than 1,200,000 cubic yards 

 of earth filled in; the quantities of material 

 are equal to building half a dozen structures 

 like the Great Pyramid. 



The northern embankment extends between 

 Westminster and Blackfriars Bridges, 6,640 

 feet, and the cost of the works as tendered for, 



875,000. The southern embankment extends 

 from Westminster Bridge up the river toward 

 Vauxhall Bridge, and a portion of the works 

 consists in widening and a part in narrow- 

 ing the river. The total cost of this contract 

 is 309,000, the length of the new roadway 

 from Westminster Bridge to Vauxhall Bridge 

 being 5,000 feet, and its width 60 feet. 



The end of the embankment next to West- 

 minster Bridge, and for a long way past White- 

 hall, is finished, with the exception of the 

 roadway. As a steamboat-pier for arrival 

 and departure, it is now open to the public. A 

 noble flight of stone steps, 40 feet wide, will give 

 entrance from Westminister Bridge to this por- 

 tion. As far as it has yet been constructed, there 

 are six piers along the face of the embankment. 

 The landing-place at Temple Gardens will be 

 of its kind unsurpassed. The great frontage of 

 this pier nearly 600 feet the width of its 

 stone stairways, the solidity and height of its 

 abutments or terminals, and, above all, the 

 carved granite arch which will give access to 

 it from the land, will make this station one 

 of the most conspicuous ornaments of the 

 river. 



The Metropolitan Main Drainage. The Ab- 

 bey Mills Pumping-station, at West Ham, near 

 Stratfprd-at-the-Bow, has been opened. The 

 pumping-station at Abbey Mills is a most im- 

 portant portion of the scheme for the main 

 drainage of London. One prominent feature 

 of the design is the attempt which has been 

 made, as far as possible, to remove the sewage 

 by gravitation, and thus to reduce the pumping 

 to a minimum. It is, however, impossible for 

 sewage to fall by gravitation for a distance of 

 ten or twelve miles from districts which are 

 lower than or near the level of the river, and 

 yet at their outfall to be delivered at the level 

 of high water without the aid of pumping. 

 Thus it happens that all the sewage on the 

 south side of the Thames, and the sewage of a 

 portion of the north side, have to be lifted, and 

 for this purpose there are four pumping-sta- 

 tions, two on each side of the river. Of those 

 on the south side, one is situate at Deptford 

 Creek, of 500 nominal horse-power, and the 

 other at the Crossness Outfall, which is also of 

 500 nominal horse-power. Of the two on the 

 north side, the largest and most important is 

 that of the Abbey Mills, which is 1,140 nominal 

 horse-power. The fourth will be the smallest 

 station, of 240 nominal horse-power only, and 

 situated at Pimlico. The Abbey Mills pumps 

 will lift the sewage of Acton, Hammersmith, 

 Fulham, Shepherd's Bush, Kensington, Bromp- 

 ton, Pimlico, Westminster, the City, White- 

 chapel, Stepney, Mile End, Wapping, Lime- 

 house, Bow, and Poplar, being an area of 

 twenty-five square miles and a height of thirty- 

 six feet from the low-level to the high-level 

 sewers. 



The station covers an area of seven acres, 

 divided into two portions by the northern 

 outfall sewer, which passes diagonally across 



