lxxv 
West Park and Kew , 1841-1865. 
en route , having been cut in two by another boat. Nothing 
daunted, Mr. Stamp had it back and the two pieces 5 scarped/ 
thus reducing its length by a few feet. It was then again 
committed to the Thames, and safely landed on the river bank 
opposite Sion House, from whence it was transferred to the 
mound, in the top of which a suitable well had been sunk for 
the reception of the butt. The question of the proper person 
to entrust with the hoisting had been discussed with the Com- 
missioners, when my father’s suggestion of application being 
made to the Lords of the Admiralty for an experienced man 
from one of the ship-building yards was overruled in favour 
of the Clerk of the Works of the Office. The decision was 
unfortunate. The method adopted was to erect a derrick 
over the well, sling the spar, securely guyed, raise it horizon- 
tally to the required height, and then by depressing the end 
bring it to a vertical position and lower it. The occasion was 
a memorable one ; a large party, including Royalty, was 
assembled to witness the operation, which resulted in a puff 
of wind striking the spar when in mid air, and bringing 
it and the derrick to the ground, where the spar lay broken 
into three pieces. I was present on the occasion and shared 
in full my father’s vexation and bitter disappointment. 
The hardest task remained, the communicating the Com- 
missioners’ regret, together with his own, to the generous 
donor of the spar, who promptly answered with the offer 
of sending a longer one on his return to British Columbia ! 
This he did, and in 1861 a spar about 250 years old, when 
felled 159 feet long, and 20 inches in diameter at the butt, 
rigged and ready for erection, was., landed at the same spot 
as the former one had been. On this occasion the Director’s 
suggestion was followed, the First Lord of the Admiralty 
(the Duke of Somerset, who as Lord Seymour had been 
first Commissioner of Works, &c.) was applied to, and a 
gang of riggers was supplied from Deptford Dockyard. These 
carried the spar to the mound, there laid it down with its butt 
in position in the base of the well (which was reached through 
a cleft in the mound), and then tilted it up to the perpendicular, 
f 2 
