The committee then advertised for designs for a suspension bridge. Mr. Brunel, on hearing through a friend of the proposed competition, went to Bristol; and, after examining the locality, he selected four different points within the limits prescribed by the instructions of the committee, and made a separate design for each of them. His plans were sent in on the day appointed, Nov. 19, 1829, with a long statement, from which the following description of them is taken. The first design was for a bridge of 760 feet span between the points of suspension, the length of the suspended floor being 720 feet. In order to obtain a height of 215 feet above high-water mark (which was the least that the levels allowed of), towers 70 feet high would have had to be built on the cliffs to carry the chains. The total length of chain, including the land-ties, was about 1,620 feet. Mr. Brunel did not approve of this design, as the situation was not favourable to architectural effect, a point to which the committee attached great importance; but he suggested it from its being somewhat more economical in construction than his other plans. In another design, the situation being some way farther down the river than that of the design last mentioned, towers would also have been necessary. The distance between the points of suspension was 1,180 feet, with a suspended floor of over 900 feet. It is probable that Mr. Brunel only proposed this plan because the site came within the limits of deviation, as he does not say anything in favour of it in his report. The two remaining plans are the most interesting of the series, as there can be no doubt that, if Mr. Brunel had had his own way, he would have adopted one of them for execution; and it appears from a little sketch on the top of one of his earliest letters from Bristol, that his first idea for the bridge was that which is carried out in these two designs. The site selected was one where the rocks rise perpendicularly for a considerable height above the proposed level of the bridge, and therefore piers and land-ties were dispensed with, the chains being hung directly from the rock. No masonry was required except for architectural effect.[25] [Illustration: CLIFTON SUSPENSION BRIDGE. Plate I. Fig. 1. Elevation of Drawing Nº 3 of Mr. Brunel’s Designs in the first competition. AD. 1829 Fig. 2. H. Adlard So. Elevation of the Bridge according to the Design on which the works were commenced. AD. 1836.] The principal difference between these two designs is that in the second a short tunnel is avoided at one end. The style of architecture selected for the tunnel-front and the face of the rock, as shown on the drawings sent in to the committee, is Norman. There are also extant many beautiful sketches made by Mr. Brunel for different parts of the design.[26]