The first stone of this great work was laid, without ceremony, by W. A. Provis, Esq. on the 10th of August, 1820; it is a block of marble about three tons in weight, placed in the centre of the sea front of the main pier erected on Ynys-y-Moch. Messrs. Straphan and Hall contracted for the execution of the masonry. On the 20th day of April, 1825, the first main chain was thrown across the strait, in presence of an immense concourse of spectators. At half flood, and about half past two o’clock, p.m. a raft, stationed near the Caernarvonshire coast, bearing a part of the chain intended to be raised, was freed from its moorings, and towed by four boats, down the current of the tide, to the centre of the strait between the pyramids or main piers: when the raft was placed in its proper position it was secured to buoys anchored in the channel for that purpose. This first operation occupied a space of twenty-five minutes. The end of the chain, hanging from the top of the pyramid on the Caernarvonshire side, was then bolted to one end of the chain laid upon the raft, while two powerful blocks were attached to the other end, for the purpose of raising it over the saddle of the Anglesea pier. This being completed, two capstans with twenty-four men at each, and two preventive capstans, employing an equal number of hands, were set to work. To ensure equability in the rotatory motion of the principal capstan, a fifer was at hand who continued to play a lively tune, to which the men stepped with regularity, having been previously trained to do so. At fifty minutes after four o’clock the bolt which completed the whole line of chain was fixed, so that from the first unmooring of the raft to the uniting of those portions of the chain, which have their extremities made fast in the shores of the two opposite counties, only two hours and twenty minutes were consumed. Upon the completion of this important step, upon the success of which all further advances entirely depended, the assembled crowd gave way to much enthusiastic expression of admiration: three of the workmen, in the ardour of the moment, had the great good fortune to succeed in walking across upon the upper surface of the chain, and a shoemaker from Bangor seated himself near the centre of the curve, and there drove the last sparable into one of those useful productions of his art, called clogs.