sses,
or voussoirs, similar to those of stone, a principle new in the
construction of cast-iron bridges, and very successful. The whole of
the segmental pieces and the braces are kept in their places by
dovetailed sockets and long cast-iron wedges, so that bolts are
unnecessary, although they were used during the construction of the
bridge to keep the pieces in their places until the wedges had been
driven. The spandrels are similarly connected, and upon them rests the
roadway, of solid plates of cast-iron, joined by iron cement. The piers
and abutments are of stone, founded upon timber platforms resting upon
piles driven below the bed of the river. The masonry is tied throughout
by vertical and horizontal bond-stones, so that the whole rests as one
mass in the best position to resist the horizontal thrust. The first
stone was laid by Admiral Lord Keith, May 23rd, 1815, the bill for
erecting the bridge having been passed May 16th, 1811. The iron-work
(weight 5,700 tons) had been so well put together by the Walkers of
Rotherham, the founders, and the masonry by the contractors, Jolliffe
and Banks, that, when the work was finished, scarcely any sinking was
discernible in the arches. From experiments made to ascertain the
expansion and contraction between the extreme range of winter and summer
temperature, it was found that the arch rose in the summer about one
inch to one and a half inch. The works were commenced in 1813, and the
bridge was opened by lamp-light, March 24th, 1819, as the clock of St.
Paul's Cathedral tolled midnight. Towards the middle of the western side
of the bridge used to be a descent from the pavement to a steam-boat
pier."

Mr. Charles Dickens, in one of the chapters of his "Uncommercial
Traveller," has sketched, in his most exquisite manner, just such old
City churches as we have in Cannon Street and its turnings. The dusty
oblivion into which they are sinking, their past glory, their mouldy old
tombs--everything he paints with the correctness of Teniers and the
finish of Gerard Dow.

"There is," he says, "a pale heap of books in the corner of my pew, and
while the organ, which is hoarse and sleepy, plays in such fashion that
I can hear more of the rusty working of the stops than of any music, I
look at the books, which are mostly bound in faded baize and stuff. They
belonged, in 1754, to the Dowgate family. And who were they? Jane
Comfort must have married young Dowgate, and come into the family