THE MADRAS HARBOUR. 



73 



we could outstrip it. "We soon reached our required 24 feet 

 depth, and I need not say that we have seen no more of the 

 sand in the foundation of the north pier. So ends the 

 history of the difficulties of the north pier. 



The history of the south pier would be little more than a 

 repetition of that of the north. In consequence of the famine 

 traffic in the early part of 1877 occupying the whole of the 

 Madras Railway Company's resources, and at the same time 

 rendering a passage of railway trains along the beach imprac- 

 ticable, we were driven to another quarter for rubble stone, 

 which was now brought from Pallaveram by the South Indian 

 Railway. Owing to its less exposure to the northerly seas, 

 the circumstances for the execution of the south surf bank 

 were much more favourable than for the north, and the 

 supply of concrete blocks being ready at an earlier period, 

 it was not necessary to push the rubble bank out so far. 

 Mr. Thorowgood availed himself of these favourable circum- 

 stances with much judgment, and the south pier made a start 

 less open to outside criticism than its predecessor. The first 

 concrete block was set in November 1877, and the work 

 progressed favourably till the beginning of the south-west 

 monsoon of 1878. Then, however, the sand appeared just 

 as it had done at the north pier, and the history repeated itself. 

 What little progress was made in the next nine months 

 was effected by struggling through the sand, but in January 

 1879 the difficulty was passed and has not reappeared. 



It must not be supposed that the executive staff were 

 looking on idly at the work being buried in sand. Many 

 were the ingenious devices for digging it out, and pushing 

 forward the concrete blocks ; but it was not an encouraging 

 task, and the result was small compared with the pains 

 bestowed. 



The two short pieces of the piers which were constructed 

 in this way, by struggling as it^were through the sand, are 



10 



