176 



BOSTON BRIDGE. 



PART VII. 



bold and skilful, and it is to be regretted that they 

 were not carried out ; for their solidity would not only 

 have proved sufficient for the purposes of a roadway, 

 but probably also of a locomotive railway. In that 

 case, however, we should have been deprived of the 

 after-display of much engineering ability in bridging 

 the straits at Menai and the ferry at Conway. But the 

 plans were thought far too daring for the time, and the 

 expense too great. The whole subject was therefore 

 allowed to sleep for many years, until eventually Telford 

 spanned both these straits with suspension road bridges, 

 and Kobert Stephenson afterwards with tubular railway 

 bridges, at a total cost of about a million sterling. 



BOSTON BRIDGE. [By Percival Skelton.] 



The first bridge constructed by Mr. Rennie in Eng- 

 land, and the earliest of his cast iron bridges, was that 

 erected by him over the Witham, in the town of Boston, 

 Lincolnshire, in 1803. It consists of a single arch of 

 iron ribs, forming the segment of a circle, the chord of 



