CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL No. 98. OF POPULAR LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART. CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1865. THE THAMES EMBANKMENTS. THREE years ago, we took occasion to comment on what had not been done by the metropolis towards the formation of a Thames Embankment. No act of parliament had at that time been obtained, and no one knew whether the 'verdant mud' of our invaluable river was to remain untouched for another generation or two, fouling the water, and tainting the air. We are better off now; and although Mr Bazalgette will not allow mere idlers to roam about the place, go down into caissons, climb up and down the scaffolding, and poke into the holes and corners, there is much that any one may see, from various stand-points here and there, really wonderful as examples of river-side engineering, on the Middlesex side of the Thames between Blackfriars and Westminster Bridges. PRICE 1d. There will be approach-roads, forty feet in width, Then it was that Mr Bazalgette set his brains to work. He had already been intrusted with the Main Drainage Scheme, and now he was appointed engineer of the Thames Embankment. He reported So far as the legislature is concerned, the to the Board how he would proceed. He would matter was managed thus: Those who reside begin at the northern abutment of Westminster within a certain number of miles from St Paul's Bridge, in a line with the beautiful terrace fronting have long paid certain coal-duties, which render the Houses of Parliament. He would run his coals rather a dear article in London, but which embankment in a slightly curved line to the have enabled the corporation to make certain brick pier on the Middlesex side of Charing Cross public improvements in and around the city. The Bridge; at one part (Scotland Yard), four hundred House of Commons, in 1861, agreed that those feet out into the river. He would then run it duties should remain in force several years longer, to the first pier of Waterloo Bridge, so far disto provide a fund for defraying the cost of a regarding the curve of the river as to carry Thames Embankment. In the same year, a com- the embankment, opposite Buckingham Street, mittee of the House examined a huge mass of no less than four hundred and fifty feet within projects for this great work, selected one of them, the old high-water mark. He would carry it to and recommended that the Chief Commissioner of the Temple Gardens (very much against the wish, Works should apply for a bill in 1862, limiting it is whispered, of the Templars), where it would be the scheme to the space included between Black-two hundred feet from the shore. He would carry friars and Westminster Bridges, on the Middlesex the embankment under the arches or levels of side of the river. The year 1862 came, and with it an act of parliament embodying the recommendations of the committee. There is to be a solid embankment from Westminster Bridge to the Temple, and an open viaduct thence to Black-public roadway on the river-margin of the emfriars Bridge, extending one, two, three, and even four hundred feet within what used to be highwater mark. There is to be a public roadway along the whole extent, a hundred feet wide on the embankment, and seventy on the viaduct. Waterloo and Charing Cross Bridges, but with con- bankment, put his low-level sewer underneath, beautiful the embankment will be when finished, and enabling contractors to make tenders for executing the work. way along and about the works themselves, he would be almost equally embarrassed by the wilderness of piles, staging, tramways, travelling-cranes, What odd things these tenders are! For a steam-engines, locomotives, men, horses, carts, timparticular portion of the work, the estimates varied ber, mud, and rubbish. Mr Furness is constructing 3740 feet of the embankment, from Westminster so widely that the difference between the lowest Bridge to Waterloo; while Mr Ritson is responand the highest was no less than L.185,000 sible for 1976 feet, from Waterloo Bridge to Temple (L.495,000 and L.680,000); for, of course, the Gardens. Between them, what used to be called same work and the same materials. As our river- the foreshore of the river, between high-water and banks are none too ornate, Mr Bazalgette wisely low-water levels, is converted into a wild, confused resolved that his embankment should be beauti-mass of mechanism and rubbish. Let us pick our ful as well as useful. The seven thousand way, and see in what fashion the operations are being conducted. feet (a little under a mile and a half) of length will be divided by the bridges into three sections, each of which is to be treated as a separate design, with steam-boat piers and landing-places as prominent features in the architectural effect. These piers and landing-places will be at the foot of the several bridges, and also at intermediate points, and will be the subject of much architectural and sculpturesque display. The beautiful Water-gate at the end of Buckingham Street, attributed to Inigo Jones, is to be brought into requisition at one of the landing-places. The 'dummies' of the principal steam-boat piers will not be allowed to break the line of beauty by their ugliness; they will be partly concealed behind massive granite piers, brought out beyond the general line of the embankment, carried up to a height of thirty feet above the roadway, and pos-river-wall. sibly enriched with bas-reliefs and groups of statuary. One's mouth almost waters to read of such things; accustomed, as we are, to the hideous expanse of mud in those regions. Half-way between Waterloo and Charing Cross Bridges, it is proposed to construct a flight of landing-steps sixty feet wide, projecting into the river, and flanked at each end with massive piers, rising a little above the level of the roadway. At other spots, the straight line will be effectively broken by massive blocks of granite, to carry ornamental lamps, and by seated recesses for promenaders. The roadway at the top will comprise at carriage-way of seventy feet, and two foot-pavements of fifteen feet each. At a short distance below its surface will be an arched subway, to contain gas and water pipes, and perhaps electric wires; and below this, again, will be the low-level sewer, with a vast labyrinth of storm-water chambers, weirs, penstock chambers, intercepting drains, and storm-outlets. The relative levels of these several works will be as follow: the roadway, four feet above high-water mark; the subway, six feet, and the sewer, eighteen feet, below high-water mark. And then, to add to the vastness of the undertaking, there has been an act passed for a railway along the whole line of the embankment, sunk in the bowels of the reclaimed foreshore, but on the shoreward side of the roadway, subway, and sewer. A person standing on Westminster Bridge, and looking over, would gather but little idea of the manner of constructing the Thames Embankment, unless he were told something of the ABC of the matter beforehand. Nay, if he were picking his The first thing, of course, is to build a riverwall, marking out the line within which water is not to come when all is finished. This river-wall is being constructed in two ways-partly on the oldstyle plan of coffer-dams, partly on the new-style plan of caissons. Either will do; and the contractors and engineers exercise their judgment as to which will be the more suitable in particular far down into the bed of the river a double row of parts of the river. A coffer-dam is made by driving ponderous timbers; those in each row being as close together as they can be; and the space between the two rows being filled in with well-rammed puddle-clay. When such a wood-and-clay barrier is thoroughly well made, it keeps out the water with wonderful efficiency. If this is done in sections, the water can be pumped out from behind each section in turn; and thus the bricklayers and masons can set to work to construct the permanent But the caisson system is more remarkable and interesting. Instead of timber-piles, there are forced down into the bed of the river iron caissons. These caissons are oval cylinders, built up piecemeal. The longer axis of the oval is lengthwise of enable the cylinders to fit closely edge to edge, or the river; and there are grooves and tongues which side by side, with each other, to form a continuous straight row-something like the pipes of a mouthorgan, except that they are all about the same length. The cylinders are about twelve feet across in one direction, and seven in the other. They are built up in pieces about four feet and a half high; and as these pieces are placed vertically one upon that is necessary. Each piece of caisson, or section another, each cylinder may be made of any height of cylinder, is forced down by heavy weights placed atop of it. The lowest is carried down so deeply into the bed of the river as to supply a good foundation for the others to rest upon; and every successive layer, when riveted by flanged joints, is weighted down until the whole cylinder can sink no further. The earth from the inside is scooped the caissons to sink further and further. New out by a simple dredging-machine; and this enables lengths are piled one upon another, until the lowermost is driven into the London clay as far as it can go. If his vertical and horizontal joints are made water-tight, the engineer knows that such a cylinder as this, large as it is, may be pumped dry. When this is done, any one going down into a caisson need scarcely get his boots wetted; for the London clay is obstinately impervious to water. The caisson is filled solid with concrete, and the joints between or cylinder being pumped dry, the lower part of it the adjacent caissons are made thoroughly watertight. When a hundred or two hundred feet of such a line of caissons has been formed, a return Nov. 11, 1865.] wall is carried towards the shore, partially enclosing a certain area. The tidal water is allowed to flow out of this area, and is not allowed to re-enter; and there is thus laid bare a muddy expanse, which the embankment-builders will know how to treat. As the works go on, with earth and mud instead of water behind the caissons, the upper sections of each caisson are one by one removed to a level some little distance below low-water mark. The caissons do not themselves constitute the permanent river-wall. The wall is built close to them on the landward side, and rests upon a bed of concrete fourteen feet below low water, and several feet thick. The main part of the wall is brick, but there is a granite-facing from the top down to two feet below low water. The blocks of beautiful Scotch granite used for this purpose average about two tons each. The lower portions of caisson, filled up solid with concrete, will not exactly form part of the wall itself, but are left as outer protection to the footing of the wall. The parapet of the wall, when finished, will be seven feet above high-water level; and as there is a difference of seventeen feet between high and low water in that part of the Thames, we shall be able to see the water twenty-four feet beneath at low tide over the parapet. Yes, the water; for there will be no mud visible all the way from Westminster Bridge to Blackfriars-a very pleasant change assuredly, for which we shall be ready to thank Mr Bazalgette heartily when the time comes. The wall, whether built by caisson or by cofferdam, is the great work; all else is comparatively easy engineering. The vast drained space behind the wall will gradually be filled up with earth, except the spaces requisite for the low-level sewer, the subway, and the railway. And then the embankment-road, and the carriage-way, and the footpavements, and the alcoved seats, and the steamboat piers, and the water-stairs, and the laid-out gardens, and the (possible) handsome houses and shops in certain places, and the transverse and diagonal roads of approach from the Strand and Whitehall-all will come in due time. The amount of material used up, and of plant employed, is enormous. The five steam-boat piers at the three bridges (Westminster, Charing Cross, and Waterloo), and those which will occupy the gap from Waterloo to Blackfriars, will alone absorb a vast amount of granite for the stairs and massive piers. Down to September 1865, Mr Furness has used, for his portion of the work alone, 420,000 cubic feet of timber, 30,000 cubic feet of granite, and 70,000 feet more are ready for immediate use; he has ten large chain-pumps to pump out water, and thirty steam-engines to do labourers' work of various kinds; he has laid upwards of 20,000,000 bricks, and used 280,000 cwt. of cement; he has dug out 250,000 cubic yards of excavated earth, and has thrown in a great deal more. This new earth he obtains from two sources: the Trinity House is anxious to get rid of the mud dredged up every day from the Thames; and the railway contractors are anxious to get rid of the dry rubbish obtained from the vast railway works at Farringdon Street, Smithfield, Cannon Street, Finsbury, and elsewhere. Mr Ritson, in the eastern section of the work, is employing coffer-dams rather than caissons; but the two rival systems are being pushed on with about equal energy; and in 1867 we shall see what we shall see. Already it is clearly ascertained that the Thames is not so foul At as it was two or three years ago; the Main Drainage works at Barking and Crossness carry out to a deep and wide part of the river that refuse which used to afflict the metropolis; while the filthy muddy strip of foreshore is gradually disappearing. the time of writing these lines (October), Mr Furness has nearly finished 1100 feet of the line of caissons, and has filled in nearly 400,000 cubic yards of earth behind it; while Mr Ritson has worked on so rapidly, that he has shut out the water from behind nearly the whole length of his coffer-dams, from Waterloo Bridge to the Temple. As if there were not complexity enough in this remarkable undertaking, there is a new item, in the shape of a railway transverse or at right angles to the line of embankment. Certain people, with money in their pockets, have had the wisdom to believe that a railway will 'pay' from Waterloo Station to Whitehall-perhaps the shortest distinct and separate undertaking that railway-folks have yet ventured upon. It may pay; let us hope it will; but, at all events, the passengers are to be blown through a tube, as they were in the experimental bit of Pneumatic Railway laid down last year in the grounds of the Crystal Palace. The tube will start from somewhere in or near the Waterloo Station, will dive under the Thames, will go under the embankment at the low-level sewer, then under the Inner Circle Railway, and will emerge into light in the vicinity of Scotland Yard or Whitehall. Verily, the engineers and workmen will have enough to do to manage that their roadway, their subway, their low-level sewer, their intercepting drains, their storm-overflows, their approach-roads, and their two railways, shall not clash with one another! The south side of the Thames, too, is to have its share, though only a humble one, in these embanking improvements. Three years ago, Lambeth became jealous; she heard loud talking about the doings over the way, and claimed that, to some extent at least, she should share in the benefit. Accordingly, the government appointed a commission to report on the best mode of improving the South or Surrey side of the river. The commissioners recommended that an embankment should be made from Westminster Bridge to Battersea Park, two miles long; that it should consist of a roadway, four feet and a half above high-water level, and seventy feet wide; that it should be mostly a solid embankment, but should be an ornamental viaduct opposite the new Houses of Parliament, and open arching from the London Gas-works to Nine Elms; that the bed of the river along the whole length of the embankment should be dredged to a uniform level of five feet below low-water mark; and that all the length of southern shore east of Westminster Bridge should be left for future consideration. Mr Bazalgette afterwards declared that the southern side must be embanked sooner or later, all the way to London Bridge; as otherwise the improved wash of the tide and current, occasioned by the Northern Embankment, will knock the wharfs and other projections to pieces. In 1863, an act was passed for the first instalment of a Southern Embankment. It is to extend only from Westminster Bridge to the vicinity of Vauxhall Bridge. There is to be a footway, but not a carriage-way, along the embankment; there are to be new approach-roads to the footway from the existing streets; and the river, by being widened in some parts and narrowed BY THE AUTHOR OF LOST SIR MASSINGBERD,' &c. CHAPTER XL-RUPERT'S MAGIC MIRROR. THE week which Grace Clyffard had meted to her niece as the interval of rest before her day of trial, and that which Raymond also had assigned as the period necessary for the completion of his own designs, had slowly worn away. Every day Mildred had been comforted by meeting with her husband, yet every day cast down by finding him so bent on punishing his wily step-mother. As though, in executing the sacred task of an Avenger, he felt removed from human ills, he seemed to see no dangers in his path, no matter how obvious they might be; and when they were pointed out, made light of them. True, he said, Cator had suddenly come upon him in the cave. What then? The man had scarcely ever seen him in his life; was it likely he should identify a wandering artist, who had let his torch burn out in his enthusiastic admiration of the Cathedral Chamber, with dead Raymond Clyffard? But he must have known that you and I were here together,' urged Mildred anxiously. Yes; but I assured him that, worn out by a long ramble over Ribble, I had been asleep for hours on this yielding sand. The fellow was quite satisfied, I do assure you, love.' Mildred was far from satisfied: but there was something of impatience in her husband's tone she had never observed before, which cautioned her not to dispute the matter. She had that faculty of knowing where contradiction is hopeless, and argument worse than injudicious, which, in a woman, is so rare. This submission to her husband's opinion begat in time (as it will always do, if, O wives of England, you would only try it !) a certain confidence in it. Matters went on upon the fifth night at Clyffe, and stagnated during the fifth day, precisely the same as they had done at first; Lucy continued to be respectful, and even kind; and Mrs Clyffard, according to promise, kept herself so completely out of her niece's sight, that Mildred lost that sense of insecurity which had taken such complete possession of her upon her arrival, and even began to think that nothing after all might happen worse than had already taken place, until the hour of her release came round. She had taken one of the old books from the library, and contrived by its help to pass a weary hour or two. It was a tale written in imitation of those of the Round Table, about errant knights and captive ladies, and perhaps she found some application in it to her own case, which lent an interest it would not have otherwise possessed. At all events, it so far won her attention as to make her put a slip of paper in the volume overnight to mark her place, and on the morrow after breakfast, she turned to it with some curiosity to see how Sir Eglamour or Sir Bedevire acquitted himself under certain circumstances. As she opened the book, she perceived that the paper which she had left therein was no longer blank, but scrawled over by the nameless friend whose handwriting was now become so familiar to her. The hour which you dred draws nigh, but do not fear it. Rupert Clyffard awates you in the rosegarden, but I shall be there too. It is better to go forth at once and meet him, than that your aunt should send you forth. You must get the paper signed according to her wish. Leave your child within doors, and do not refer to your marriage, if you love your life. Like some condemned wretch who, having striven since his sentence to forget his inexorable doom, is suddenly reminded of it when there is not an hour left that he can call his own, so Mildred shivered and sank down in hopeless terror. Why had she lingered in that dreadful house, when escape had so often offered itself? Why cherished the foolish notion that what Grace Clyffard had once designed would not be carried out? Why have promised, no matter in what straits, to play this evil and false part with Raymond's brother? Her husband, indeed, had not said Nay,' but only because he thought to have by this time rendered such an interview unnecessary. Nay, the week was not yet out. It was the morrow which her pitiless aunt had appointed for this dreadful interview. Why, therefore, should she meet Rupert now? knew what help or change the next day and night might bring forth? But yet her unknown Wellwisher, whom she had no cause to doubt, advised her to see her brother-in-law at once. it not well to thus anticipate the commands of Mrs Clyffard at a time when, for all Grace knew, Milly was still clasped in her mother's arms? Who And was The windows of the library looked upon the terrace only; but opening one of them, and putting out her head, she could catch sight of the rose-garden, or rather, for it was a sunk square, of any person who chanced to be walking in it. Yes, Rupert Clyffard was there, in the hunting costume he had worn the previous night, walking rapidly to and fro, and cutting at the leafless plants with his whip-lash. He had evidently not been to bed at all. His face, even at that distance, shewed as though he had not known rest for weeks; and always as his hasty steps brought him to the end of his restricted walk, he looked up anxiously towards a window which she felt was that which had wont to be her own. He was evidently keeping an appointment, as he thought, with some one who had not yet come. Then it came into her mind that he had made some such appointment with herself in that very place the day previous to her elopement with his brother. Mildred hurried back to her own chamber, and muttering something of having left her book behind her, put the child into Lucy's arms, and then returned alone. She well knew that without Milly she would never be suspected by her attendant of any attempt to leave the castle. Rupert was still there, but walking faster and faster, like some poor pent-up animal in its narrow cage. Mildred dared not look again, lest her resolution should give way, but hurried to the western postern, and let herself out. With a firm step, though with a beating heart, she walked along the terrace towards Rupert; but he did not hear her. She would not have used that way had she dwelt in her old room, and therefore he did not look for her in that direction. She had time to observe him thoroughly as he crossed and recrossed the little square. The last time she had beheld him, he had but lately recovered from a Chambers's Journal, THE CLYFFARDS OF CLYFFE. snow. long and dangerous illness, but he had then been 'At last, at last!' he cried triumphantly. Ah, 'Ha, ha, my friend; what! you are listening But in the brief space that he had been absent, 'You heard nothing, Mildred? ears are trustworthy, whereas I hear so many things; voices in the night-air, and at all times our wedding-bells. They give me the headache, dearest; yet, if I heard them not, I should have heartache. "Married to-morrow, married to-morrow, married to-morrow," is what they are always saying. But why not "To-day?"-why not to-day, I say?' He snatched her little wrist, and squeezed it in his trembling fingers as in a vice. But for the unseen presence of her unknown friend, her power of speech would have frozen as before. As it was, she whispered huskily: 'Because we agreed upon To-morrow.' 'That's well; for you never deceived me, 'Why so, Rupert, since she is a young woman still?' Ay, true; Spring with us, dearest, and with all fond lovers, although to the world who are neither 'Well, to most persons-to all, in fact, but you wooed nor wooers, it is still Winter. Is it to-day, or to-morrow, that we two marry? See, I have-I should say, that's my secret. There was once gathered you a posy. Sweets to the sweet, they a secret kept from me by all the world, and now have one of my own. You have heard of secondsay. Now, give me one rose back again, that I may put it in my button-hole; or, since it has no sight; that is nothing to the faculty which I posI can count one, two, three' (he checked the blossom, into my bosom. That is where the true sess. roses bud and bloom. But I do not like those numbers slowly off upon his fingers, but never black clothes, my darling. Why do you wear taking his eyes off hers), 'four for certain, and them?' Such a chill crept over Mildred at these perhaps five living folks; and I foretell that those words as numbed her brain; until that moment, persons will all die early, and two of them young. the thought of her being in widow's weeds had I have seen their faces, still, and pale, and cold. never struck her. Fortunately, Rupert answered Now, where do you think I have seen their faces? for her. 'It is not fit,' he said, 'to mourn the Come now, guess. It's a brave riddle. Not in the dead so long. My father was an old man, too, fire, though there are men's faces there, but those and old men must expect death; it is the young are dead already; not in the air, though there are Your Aunt faces there too, but those are devils. Let me whisper who shrink from the grim mower. in your ear, for I hear creakings-on my razorGrace, poor thing, is likely to die early.' blade. I thought it would astonish you. That has Indeed, Rupert. Why so?' Well, that is between you and me and the been my magic crystal, my patent foreshadowing terrace-wall here. Or, stay; come here into the looking-glass, for many a day. I bought it with yew-tree arbour. I will then tell you some news: my first money long ago, before I wanted it for I will forecast the future. We shall be one to-day shaving. You see I don't shave now, because they or to-morrow; and man and wife should have no have taken away my razors, as they think, and secrets. And, by the by, talking of that, I dreamed with them the most gladsome sight that memory last night-of all the dreadful dreams-that you or sunbeam have got to shew me-the faces of the To men I want to kill. They are not all men. Look were married, and to whom, think you? whom?' They had crossed the rose-garden, and you-for I always carry it about with me-here is stood in the huge arbour, enclosed in thick and a woman's face. Do you not know it?' The madman held her at close walls of yew. arms-length, and griped her hard, but not in anger; he gazed upon her shrinking face with a good-natured smile, as one who asks a riddle. Ia knew you would never guess,' cried he at last; for who would ever think of Raymond? And yet, I dreamed that you were Raymond's wife, not inine; and when I woke-now, listen, for this is what I have brought you here for-I saw my own What's that?' brother's face In an instant, the grave and solemn look with which he had spoken the last few words was replaced by one of keen suspicion, then, again, by one of mocking mirth. 'Yes, I know it, Rupert; but you would not hurt me?' She gazed upon the blade, whereon was mirrored beautiful face indeed-her own-but white with terror, and the lips parted with the beginning of a prayer. Hurt you, my Mildred? Nay, I love you so, that while you speak and breathe upon the steel, her hateful features fade away. But now-see -they come again; the hard blue eyes-the silken mesh of hair in which she trapped my father-the lips that whisper lies-the lily neck that I will squeeze some day. She is blotted out by quite a mist of blood, and then comes Clement-the fat |