Mr Stevenson's Description of Bridges of Suspension. 259 
bridge is noticed, and an elevation of it given, in the tith'd volume 
of Hutchinson’s Antiquities of Durham, printed at Carlisle in 
1794. As this volume is extremely scarce, owing to the great- 
er part of the impression having been accidentally destroyed 
by fire, the writer of this article applied for a sight of it 
from the library of his friend, Mr Isaac Cookson of New- 
castle-upon-Tyne, with whose permission a sketch of this ori- 
ginal British chain-bridge is given in Plate VIII. Fig. 1. 
The following account is given by Hutchinson at p. 279. 
<c The environs of the river (Tees) abound with the most pic- 
turesque and romantic scenes ; beautiful falls of water, rocks and 
grotesque caverns. About two miles above Middleton, where 
the river falls in repeated cascades, a bridge suspended on iron- 
chains, is stretched from rock to rock, over a chasm near 60 
feet deep, for the passage of travellers, but particularly of mi- 
ners ; the bridge is 70 feet in length, and little more than 2 
feet broad, with a handrail on one side, and planked in such a 
manner, that the traveller experiences all the tremulous motion 
of the chain, and sees himself suspended over a roaring gulph, 
on an agitated and restless gangway, to which few strangers 
dare trust themselves.” We regret that we have not been able 
to learn the precise date of the erection of this bridge, but, from 
good authority, we have ascertained that it was erected about 
the year 1741. 
American Bridges of Suspension.- — It appears from a trea- 
tise on bridges by Mr Thomas Pope, architect, of New- York, 
published in that city in the year 1811, that eight chain- 
bridges have been erected upon the catenarian principle, in dif- 
ferent parts of America. It here deserves our particular notice, 
however, in any claim for priority of invention with our Trans- 
atlantic friends, that the chain-bridge over the Tees was known 
in America, as Pope quotes Hutchinson's Vol. III., and gives 
a description of Winch Bridge. It further appears from this 
work, that a patent was granted by the American Government, 
for the erection of bridges of suspension, in the year 1808. 
Our American author also describes a bridge of this con- 
struction, which seems to have been erected about the year 
1809, over the river Merrimack, in the State of Massachusets, 
consisting of a catenarian arch of 244 feet span. The road- 
r 2 
