CHAP. VT. WATERLOO BRIDGE. 179 



objections to Mr. Dodds's design, as well as to the plan 

 proposed by him for founding the piers ; and they 

 showed that his estimate of cost was altogether insuf- 

 ficient. The result was, that no further steps were taken 

 with Mr. D odds' s plan ; but when the Act authorising the 

 construction of the bridge had been obtained, the com- 

 mittee again applied to Mr. Rennie ; and on this occasion 

 they requested him to furnish them with the design of a 

 suitable structure. 1 The first step which he took was 

 to prepare an entirely fresh chart of the river and the 

 adjacent shores, after a careful and accurate survey 

 made by Mr. Francis Giles. In preparing his plan, he 

 kept in view the architectural elegance of the structure 

 as well as its utility ; and while he designed it so as to 

 enhance the beauty of the fine river front of Somerset 

 House, by contriving that the face of the northern 

 abutment should be on a line with its noble terrace, he 

 laid out the roadway so that it should be as nearly upon 

 a level with the great thoroughfare of the Strand as 

 possible, the rise from that street to the summit on 

 the bridge being only 1 in 250, or about two feet in all. 

 Two designs were prepared one of seven equal arches, 

 the other of nine ; and the latter being finally approved 

 by the committee as the less costly, it was ordered to be 

 carried into effect. 



The structure as executed is an elegant and substantial 

 bridge of nine arches of 120 feet span, with piers 20 feet 

 thick ; the arches being plain semi-ellipses, with their 

 soffits or crowns 30 feet above high- water of ordinary 

 spring tides. Over the points of each pier are placed 



simonious economy. Our opinion 

 therefore is, that the arches of the 

 bridge over the Thames should either 

 be plain ellipses, without the slanting 

 off in the haunches so as to deceive 

 the eye by an apparent flatness which 

 does not in reality exist, or they should 

 be of a flat segment of a circle formed 

 in such n manner as to <nve the re- 



quisite, room for the passage of the 

 current and barges under it." 



1 In June, 1810, we find him ac- 

 cepting the direction of the new 

 bridge at 1000/. a year for himself 

 and assistants, or 11. Is. a day and 

 expenses; but on no account were any 

 of his people to have to do with the 

 payment or receipt of moneys. 



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