Minutes of Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers Volume 36 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1873 Excerpt: ... site they were to occupy permanently, were lowered to their beds by powerful 'goliaths, ' and as each block was 5 ft. wide, and the distance between the quintuple rows of piles, 7 ft. 6 in., it followed, that as a block was lowered at every bay, the interval between them was 2 ft. 6 in. along the line of works. The blocks were lowered when 10 days old, and were no sooner placed than the spaces between them were filled up with newly made concrete, which, searching its way under the adjacent blocks, and filling in the grooves moulded in their sides expressly to this end, caused the whele mass--held still further together by the centre row of piles--to become ultimately as solid as if it consisted of but a single stone. The upler surface of the monolith so prepared was studded with projecting stones to tie into the superstructure of the concrete above water, which in calm weather was carried up to the level of the platform witheut difficulty. The coping or crown of the pier thus formed an integral part of the hemogeneous mass below. In 1860, the north pier consolidation was carried out, as described, 3,200 ft. from the shere, 'and the south pier was consolidated for a length of 699 ft. on the plan adopted for the shere length of the north pier. In this year, also, steam machinery was erected on shere for the construction of blocks weighing from 10 tons to 20 tons each, which were afterwards thrown from pontoons at random on the outer slope of the rock work adjacent to the head of the north pier; for at this part of the work the waves invariably leveled down the ordinary sized 'pierres perdues '--which were deposited up to the water line at the end of every working season, to protect the sheet piling--to a depth varying from 14 ft., at the pier head, to 5 ft., ...