BREAKWATER AT VENICE. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



TlIE BREAKWATER. 



Breakwaters, Ancient and Modern Origin and History of that at Cherbourg Stones Sunk in Wooden Cones- Partial 

 Failure of the Plan Millions of Tons dropped to the Bottom The Breakwater Temporarily Abandoned Completed 

 by Napoleon III. A Port Bristling with Guns Rennie's Plymouth Breakwater Ingenious Mode of Depositing the 

 Stones Lessons of the Sea The Waves the Best Workmen Completion of the Work Grand Double Breakwater at 

 Portland The English Cherbourg A Magnificent Piece of Engineering Utilisation of Otherwise Worthless Stone 

 900 Convicts at Work The Great Fortifications The Verne Gibraltar at Home A Gigantic Fosse Portland almost 

 Impregnable Breakwaters Elsewhere. 



A BREAKWATER, we are told on the highest authority, is an obstruction of wood, 

 stone, or other material, as a boom or raft of wood, sunken vessels, &c., placed before 

 the entrance of a port or harbour, or any projection from the land into the sea, as a 

 mole, pier, or jetty, so situated as to break the force of the waves and prevent damage 

 to shipping lying at anchor within them. Thus the piers of the ancient Pirteus and of 

 Rhodes; the moles of Venice, Naples, Genoa, and Castellamare ; the piers of Ramsgate, 

 Margate, Folkestone, Howth, and the famous wooden dike thrown across the port of Rochelle. 

 The term, of late years, has been almost exclusively applied to insulated dikes of stone. 

 Of this description of dike for creating an artificial harbour on a grand scale, Cherbourg, 

 Plymouth, and Portland present leading examples. The former, already mentioned in 

 this work, claims our attention. 



The French, happily our good friends to-day, were not always so, and there was a 

 period when the splendid natural harbours, bays, and roadsteads of this country were a 

 source of annoyance to them. While nature had been more than kind to us, their coast 

 presented a series of sandy shores, intermingled with iron-bound coasts, bristling with 

 rocks. De Vauban, the great engineer, was employed by Louis, the Grand Monarqne, 

 to inspect the Channel shores of France, and his natural sagacity- and great knowledge 



