190 THE SEA. 



that time most important fortifications have been constructed on the upper works. This- 

 is the greatest breakwater in the world, its length being nearly two and a half miles ; it 

 is 300 feet wide at the base and 31 at the top. The water-space shut in and protected 

 is about 2,000 acres, much of this great area being, however, too shallow for very large 

 vessels. 



Taken in connection with the fortifications, this breakwater has a value greater than 

 any other in the world. At the apex of the angle formed by the junction of the two 

 branches of the breakwater there is a grand fort, and it bristles generally with batteries. 

 and forts, as indeed does Cherbourg generally. Dr. W. H. Russell wrote of it, in our 

 leading journal in 1860 that, "Wherever you look you fancy that on the spot you occupy 

 are specially pointed dozens of the dull black eyes from their rigid lids of stone." With 

 its twenty-four regular forts and redoubts, not including those on the mole, floating- 

 harbours, building slips, navy-yards, arsenals, and barracks, Cherbourg is a most formidable 

 place. 



In England Rennie's great Plymouth breakwater is the most remarkable specimen, 

 among many others. Its dimensions are not as great as that of Cherbourg, but it was,, 

 nevertheless, a vast undertaking. It consists of an immense number of blocks of stone 

 thrown into the Sound, and forms a barrier nearly a mile in length above the surface of 

 the water. This grand work was commenced in 1812, and by the end of the second year 

 about 800 yards of the breakwater began to appear at low water, and the swell was so 

 much broken that ships of all sizes began to take shelter behind it; while the fishermen 

 within its shelter could not judge accurately of the weather outside the Sound, so great 

 was the change. Several limestone quarries near the Catwater were purchased of the Duke 

 of Bedford for 10,000, and some fifteen vessels were constantly employed in removing 

 the blocks, which ranged in weight from one to ten tons. These vessels were of ingenious 

 construction; they had two railways laid along them parallel to each other, with openings 

 in the stern to admit the cars or trucks laden with stones. These were wheeled from the- 

 quarry to the quay, and so on to the vessels, till the lines of rails were filled with trucks. 

 The vessels then proceeded to the works, each bearing its load of stone-laden trucks. On. 

 reaching the breakwater each truck was wheeled to the opening, and the stones tipped 

 ;nto the sea. During the first five years the amount of stone deposited gradually rose 

 from 16,000 to 300,000 tons per annum. The large masses were first lowered, and then 

 smaller stones, quarry rubbish, &c., to fill up the interstices. The structure was completed. 

 in 1841, with the use of 3,670,444 tons of stone* and at a cost of something like a million 

 and a half of money. A distinguished French engineer, M. Dupin, who visited the works 

 during their progress, describes in glowing terms the admirable arrangements, the order and 

 regularity visible in all the proceedings. " Those enormous masses of stone," he remarks, 

 " which the quarrymen strike with heavy strokes of their hammers ; and those aerial 

 roads of flying bridges, which serve for the removal of the superstratum of earth; those 

 lines of cranes, all at work at the same moment; the trucks, all in motion; the arrival, 

 the loading, and the departure of the vessels, all this forms one of the most imposing 



* "An amount of material,'' says a well-known authority, "at least equal to that contained in the Great, 

 Pyramid." 



