This dire superstition is far more primitive than the idol fastened below the parapet of a Chinese bridge; and so, perhaps, we find in these things a parent emotion and its improved offspring. Perhaps: for Superstition rests on dark foundations; we know not precisely where it fades into a belief that is genuinely kinder. III We pass on to some important topics that worry a writer because they cannot be arranged in a neat scheme. Some of them are technical, but everybody will be able to understand their bearing on the main subject. We have seen that fords gave place to bridges very slowly, even in some neighbourhoods where the Church was exceedingly active, as at Rochester.[105] Can you explain why? There were a good many reasons, and among them is the fact that it was a long time before bridges won a good reputation among the people. Wood being abundant everywhere, they were timber bridges at first, and rudely built; many of them were carried away by storms, as Matthew Paris related in the thirteenth century. So people set their hearts on the greater safety of stone bridges; but money was difficult to collect, and stonework cost a great deal more than timber; and no bridge could be built until permission had been gained from the King, often after tedious negotiations. Further, the lands through which rivers flowed were owned at times by rival noblemen, who put a veto on the project, either in a spirit of perverse antagonism or because a stone bridge might benefit one landlord more than another. And it was easy for the stronger man to explain his antagonism in a reasonable manner, for he could say that the cofferdams used in grounding piers diverted rivers from their channels, causing inundations. This objection seems to have been raised pretty often, as many piers were grounded in a very primitive fashion, just by throwing down stones and cement till a bed of masonry rose above water-level.