(HAP. XIX. MR. STEPHENSON'S ANXIETY- 435 



of spectators, whose sympathy and anxiety were but too 

 clearly indicated by the unbroken silence with which 

 the whole operation had been accompanied." By mid- 

 night all the pontoons had been got clear of the tube, 

 which now hung suspended over the waters of the Strait 

 by its two ends, which rested upon the edges cut in the 

 rock for the purpose at the base of the Britannia and 

 Anglesey towers respectively, up which the tube had 

 now to be lifted by hydraulic power to its permanent 

 place near the summit. The accuracy with which the 

 gigantic beam had been constructed may be inferred 

 from the fact that, after passing into its place, a clear 

 space remained between the iron plating and the rock 

 outside of it of only about three-quarters of an inch ! 



Mr. Stephenson's anxiety was, of course, very great 

 up to the time of performing this trying operation. 

 When he had got the first tube floated at Conway, and 

 saw all safe, he said to Captain Moorsom, " Now I shall 

 go to bed." But the Britannia Bridge was a still more 

 difficult enterprise, and cost him many a sleepless 

 night. Afterwards describing his feelings to his friend 

 Mr. Gooch, he said : " It was a most anxious and 

 harassing time with me. Often at night I would lie 

 tossing about, seeking sleep in vain. The tubes filled 

 my head. I went to bed with them and got up with 

 them. In the grey of the morning, when I looked 

 across the Square, 2 it seemed an immense distance across 

 to the houses on the opposite side. It was nearly the 

 same length as the span of my tubular bridge ! " When 

 the first tube had been floated, a friend observed to him, 

 " This great work has made you ten years older." " I 

 have not slept sound," he replied, " for three weeks." Sir 

 F. Head, however, relates, that when he revisited the 

 spot on the following morning, he observed, sitting on a 



1 * The Britannia and Conway Tu- 

 bular' Bridges.' By Edwin Clark. 



2 No. 34, Gloucester Square, Hyde 

 Park, where he lived. 



Vol. II. p. 683-4. 



2 F 2 



