194 THE SEA. 



below the lowest, water-line of spring-tides. A ship of the line, as is well-known, draws at 

 the utmost 24 feet. An extra foot of perpendicular masonry, therefore, having been allowed, 

 the lower masses of the fort begin to slant outwards, and continue to do so till they reach 

 the firm clay bottom. This lower portion consists of a well-consolidated mass of unhewn stone. 

 The outer, and by far the longer limb, of the breakwater begins to bend away to a point 

 very near due north shortly after leaving the gap, the further side of which is also flanked 

 by a circular head. . . . The whole of this vast outer limb, with the exception of the 

 circular head at its inner extremity and a fort at the other end, consists of nothing more 

 than a stupendous bank of rough unhewn stones of all shapes and sizes, tumbled out of the 

 wagons on the timber staging above. Divers, constantly employed, have effectually pre- 

 vented the chance of any holes being left in the rising mass, and have been able to indicate 

 the precise spot over which a given number of loads were required to be ' tipped/ The 

 security of the bank is further guaranteed by its enormous width at the base ; and although 

 the waves have already rounded many a giant block below the water-line and made it look 

 as if its present place had been its abode ever since the Creation, yet this polishing and 

 grinding is the extent of the effect which they will be able to produce upon a work probably 

 destined to hold its own as long as Portland itself." 



The rapidity with which the breakwater was constructed reflected great credit on 

 Mr. Coode. The actual routine of the construction followed, when the line for the structure 

 had been sounded and carefully marked out, was to commence piling for the railway that 

 was to carry the long trains of wagons filled with the stone; and when a short piece of 

 this was completed, to go on " tipping in " the rubble and rough stone till they made their 

 appearance above water at last ; then the piling was carried forward a few yards more, and 

 the process repeated, and so on by successive stages to the completion of the work. All 

 appears very simple on paper until we learn that it had to be accomplished through eleven 

 fathoms of rough tumbling waves. One night's rough weather often swept away the 

 timber-work that cost many thousands of pounds, and many months of labour to construct 

 and fix in its position in the sea. The piling that had to resist the action of a deep and 

 heavy sea, and to carry also, at a height of 90 feet, a railway for the heaviest traffic, 

 required to be something more than a common framework of timber. Every log used had 

 to be first of all saturated to its very centre with creosote, and this was done in a most 

 ingenious manner. A great boiler, 100 feet long and 7 feet in diameter, was filled with the 

 largest and finest logs procurable ; the mouth being closed with a solid air-tight cover, the 

 air was pumped out, not only from the tube, but from the very pores of the wood itself. 

 When the vacuum was as complete as possible, the creosote was admitted from tanks at 

 the bottom and forced into the timber by hydraulic power of about 300 Ibs. to the square 

 inch. In this the logs remained for two or three days, by which time the creosote was forced 

 into the fibre of the wood. Several of the logs thus prepared were bolted and bound together, 

 till one huge spar 90 feet long, and eight or nine tons in weight, was formed. Then an 

 iron " Mitchell " screw as used in the lighthouses built on sands, already described was 

 affixed at the lower end, and the whole sunk till it rested on the bottom, when it was worked 

 round by a capstan till it was firmly screwed into the clay. Thus secured, they were tolerably 

 safe, though single heavy waves would uproot piles and moorings together, to obviate which 



