t
required no small degree of ingenuity and perseverance on the part of the
engineer successfully to overcome them.

The Moss, as already observed, was highest in the centre, and it there
presented a sort of hunchback with a rising and falling gradient. At
that point it was found necessary to cut deeper drains in order to
consolidate the ground between them on which the road was to be formed.
But, as at other places, the deeper the cutting the more rapid was the
flow of fluid bog into the drain, the bottom rising up almost as fast as
it was removed. To meet this emergency, numbers of empty tar-barrels
were brought from Liverpool; and as soon as a few yards of drain were
dug, the barrels were laid down end to end, firmly fixed to each other by
strong slabs laid over the joints, and nailed. They were then covered
over with clay, and thus formed an underground sewer of wood instead of
bricks. This expedient was found to answer the purpose intended, and the
road across the centre of the Moss having been so prepared, it was then
laid with the permanent materials.

The greatest difficulty was, however, experienced in forming an
embankment upon the edge of the bog at the Manchester end. Moss as dry
as it could be cut, was brought up in small waggons, by men and boys, and
emptied so as to form an embankment; but the bank had scarcely been
raised three or four feet in height, when the stuff broke through the
heathery surface of the bog and sank out of sight. More moss was brought
up and emptied with no better result; and for weeks the filling was
continued without any visible embankment having been made. It was the
duty of the resident engineer to proceed to Liverpool every fortnight to
obtain the wages for the workmen employed under him; and on these
occasions he was required to colour up, on a section drawn to a working
scale suspended against the wall of the directors' room, the amount of
excavation and embankment from time to time executed. But on many of
these occasions, Mr. Dixon had no progress whatever to show for the money
expended on the Chat Moss embankment. Sometimes, indeed, the visible
work done was _less_ than it had appeared a fortnight or a month before!

The directors now became seriously alarmed, and feared that the evil
prognostications of the eminent engineers were about to be fulfilled.
The resident engineer was even called upon to supply an estimate of the
cost of forming an embankment of solid