436 LIFTING OP THE TUBES. CHAP. XIX. 



platform overlooking the suspended tube, a gentleman, 

 reclining entirely by himself, smoking a cigar, and 

 gazing, as if indolently, at the aerial gallery beneath 

 him. It was the engineer himself, contemplating his 

 new-born child. He had strolled down from the neigh- 

 bouring village, after his first sound and refreshing 

 sleep for weeks, to behold in sunshine and solitude, that 

 which during a weary period of gestation had been 

 either mysteriously moving in his brain, or, like a vision 

 sometimes of good omen, and sometimes of evil had, 

 by night as well as by day, been flitting across his mind. 

 The next process was the lifting of the tube into its 

 place, which was performed very deliberately and cau- 

 tiously. It was raised by powerful hydraulic presses, 

 only a few feet at a time, and carefully under-built, before 

 being raised to a farther height. When it had been got 

 up by successive stages of this kind to about 24 feet, an 

 extraordinary accident occurred, during Mr. Stephenson's 

 absence in London, which he afterwards described to the 

 author in as nearly as possible the following words : 

 " In a work of such novelty and magnitude, you may 

 readily imagine how anxious I was that every possible 

 contingency should be provided for. Where one chain 

 or rope was required, I provided two. I was not satisfied 

 with ' enough :' I must have absolute security, as far as 

 that was possible. I knew the consequences of failure 

 would be most disastrous to the Company, and that the 

 wisest economy was to provide for all contingencies at 

 whatever cost. When the first tube at the Britannia 

 had been successfully floated between the piers ready for 

 being raised, my young engineers were very much 

 elated ; and when the hoisting apparatus had been fixed, 

 they wrote to me, saying, ' We are now all ready for 

 raising her : we could do it in a day, or in two at the 

 most.' But my reply was, ' No : you must only raise the 

 tube inch by inch, and you must build up under it as you 

 rise. Every inch must be made good. Nothing must 



