PORTLAND BREAKWATER. 193 



be made a grand fortified naval station. In 1847 an Act was passed authorising the con- 

 struction of a breakwater, and in 1849 the foundation-stone was laid by the Prince Consort. 



Nature has provided, in the mighty bank known as the Chesil Beach, practically a great 

 shingle embankment, protection to Portland Harbour on the west and south-west, and the 

 object of the breakwater was to secure, by engineering art, a similar protection to the bay 

 on the south-east side. The Chesil Bank, though now and for long perfectly impregnable 

 to the tremendous rollers of the south-westerly gales, was not always so, and as late as the 



PORTLAND. 



reign of Henry VIII. great breaches had been temporarily effected by the power of the 

 sea. Still it affords a splendid protection, as does now the mighty double breakwater 

 designed by Rendel, and brought to completion by Coode. The breakwater leaves the shore 

 at the north-eastern extremity of the island, and runs out due east to a distance of 600 yards. 

 " This inner limb alone/' wrote an authority in engineering,* " is a splendid achievement of 

 human labour and skill. It has been top-finished by a grand superstructure of hewn granite, 

 and ends in a circular head, which has been completed as a fort and mounts eight guns. 

 The foundations of this massive bastion have been most carefully planned, with especial 

 reference to the safe passage of the largest vessels through the 400 feet gap which the fort 

 flanks on one side. The masonry is continued in a perpendicular line to a point 25 feet 



* Horace Moule in Weldon's " Register of Facts and Occurrences relating to Literature, the Sciences, and 

 the Arts,'' December, 1862. 



65 



