have done was to turn arches between the original piers, and make it a stone bridge throughout. The same master was said to have built another bridge at La Rochelle, and had evidently gained much experience in such engineering work; and it is perhaps a misfortune that the King's advice was neglected, as a skilled architect, which Peter certainly was not, might have saved the city of London much eventual loss and trouble. Peter was, however, suffered to continue the bridge until his death in 1205, when a commission of three city merchants completed the work in four years. The bridge which these many years of labour had produced was in every way unsuitable to its position, and mean as compared to similar buildings erected elsewhere. Lacking the skill to form proper foundations, Peter had spread them out into wide piers, which formed an almost continuous dam, through the openings in which the water rushed like a mill-race. The result was that the scour soon affected the stability of the piers, which had to be protected round by masses of masonry and chalk in the form of sterlings, which still further contracted the narrow waterways. The passage of the bridge by boat--"shooting the bridge," it was called--was always a dangerous operation; and a writer of the last century speaks of "the noise of the falling waters, the clamours of the water-men, and the frequent shrieks of drowning wretches," in describing it. So imperfectly built was the bridge that within four years of its completion King John again interfered, and called upon the Corporation properly to repair it; and from this time, or perhaps from Peter's death, when the three merchants were elected to complete the work, the Corporation appears to have taken over the responsibility of the bridge; and for this purpose they were endowed with certain properties, which became the nucleus of the present "Bridge House Estates." The increasing dilapidation of the bridge, the debris of fallen arches, and the rubbish and waste material which was suffered to accumulate, still further impeded the natural flow of the water, and little effort at improvement was ever made. Of the three widest arches of the bridge, which were called the navigable locks, the most important had been the one nearest to the city end, which became known as the "Rock Lock," and it acquired that name on account of a popular delusion that in its fairway was a growing and vegetating rock, which was nothing more than an accumulation of fallen ruins, which caught and held the floating refuse carried to and fro by the tides. And thus year after year the river dam became more solid, and the waterfall increased in height until it was said by one who knew them both that it was almost as safe to attempt the Falls of Niagara as to shoot London Bridge.