72 STOPPAGE OF DAGEXHAM BKKACH PART I. 



lying at Gravesend, where its unusual appearance, 

 standing so high out of the water, excited great alarm 

 amongst the sailors. The empty trunk, however, floated 

 safely past, down the river, until it reached the Nore, 

 where it stranded upon a sandbank. 



The Government next lent the undertakers an old 

 royal ship called the Lion, for the purpose of being sunk 

 in the breach, which was done, with two other ships ; but 

 the Lion was broken in pieces by a single tide, and at 

 the very next ebb not a vestige of her was to be seen. 

 No matter what was sunk, the force of the water at high 

 tide bored through underneath the obstacle, and only 

 served to deepen the breach. After the destruction of 

 the Lion, the channel was found deepened to 50 feet at 

 low water, at the very place where she had been sunk. 



All this had been merely tinkering at the breach, and 

 every measure that had been adopted merely proved the 

 mcompeteiicy of the undertakers. The obstruction to 

 the navigation through the deposit of earth and sand 

 in the river being still on the increase, and after the 

 bank had been open for a period of seven years, an Act 

 was passed in 1714, enabling it to be repaired at the 

 public expense. But it is an indication of the very 

 low state of engineering ability in the kingdom at the 

 time, that several more years passed before the mea- 

 sures taken with this object were crowned with success, 

 and the opening was only closed after a fresh succes- 

 sion of failures. The works were first let to one 

 Boswell, a contractor. He proceeded very much after 

 the method which had already failed so egregiously, 

 sinking two rows of caissons or chests across the breach, 

 between which he proposed to erect the piles and 

 drift work ; but his chests were blown up again and 

 again. Then he tried pontoons of ships, which he loaded 

 and sunk in the opening ; but the force of the tide, as 

 before, rushed under and around them, and broke them 

 all to pieces, the only result being to make the gap in 



