Height of rails above high-water mark 104 0 Quantity of masonry in the towers and abutments { 1,365,000 { cubic feet. Weight of one of the iron tubes for the largest } span to be lifted 100 feet } 1,800 tons. Value of each of the largest of the iron tubes, not } including expense of raising it } £54,000 The cost of the scaffolding now in use about the } bridge has exceeded } £50,000 It would, we conceive, be impertinent to dilute the above facts by a single comment. THE CHIEF ENGINEER. As the selection of an engineer-in-chief, competent to determine the best line for a projected railway to take, the mode in which it should be constructed, and, lastly, to execute his own project--deviating from it with consummate judgment according to the difficulties, physical, moral, and political, which, sometimes separately and sometimes collectively, suddenly rise up to oppose him--is a point not only of vital importance to the success of the undertaking, but in the undertaking is the _first_ important point to be decided, it would, we were aware, have apparently been the most regular to have commenced the present chapter with this subject. We conceived, however, that instead of there detailing the qualifications necessary for the duties required, it would save us very many words, and our readers as much time, if we were to defer the consideration of that subject until a brief outline of those duties should, without comment, practically explain the qualifications required. If the United Kingdom had only projected the construction of one or two great arterial railways, we might naturally have expected that the few competent engineers necessary would readily have been obtained; but when we consider the number of railways that were simultaneously created, the surveys, plans, sections, and other preparations that were necessary, the magnitude of the works of various descriptions that were to be constructed in each, it must evidently to many be a subject of astonishment that there should have been found on the surface of our country not only the amount of engineering talent necessary for the execution of such vast works, but an amount which may truly be said to have exceeded the demand. The curious historical fact, however, is, that the amount of engineering talent thus suddenly required existed not on _the surface_ of our country, but, on the contrary, many hundred fathoms _beneath it_. The brilliant talents that were required were “black diamonds,” without metaphor embedded in the bowels of the earth. Science called her spirits from the vasty deep, and in obedience to her commands there arose out of the shafts of our coaleries, and from beneath the bottom of the Thames--