The grand obstacle was a deep rapid tide-stream with high banks. To have erected a bridge of the usual materials would have obstructed the navigation; and any attempt to erect piers in the shifting bed of the sea must have inevitably proved a failure. Telford therefore recommended the erection of a suspension-bridge; and the plan, after due consideration, being approved by government, the work was commenced in 1820, carried on with great spirit, and in 1826 brought to a most successful termination. It is partly of stone, partly of iron, and consists of seven stone arches. These arches connect the land with the two main piers, which rise on an elevation of fifty-three feet above the level of the road, over the top of which the chains are suspended, each of which measures from its fastenings in the rock, one thousand seven hundred and fourteen feet. The topmasts of the first three-masted vessel which passed under the bridge were nearly as high as those of a frigate, but they cleared twelve feet and a half below the level of the roadway. The suspending power of the chains is calculated at two thousand and sixteen tons; and the total weight of each chain is one hundred and twenty-one tons. Since the day it was first opened, the Menai Bridge has been the wonder of every traveller, an object of pilgrimage for scientific men of all countries, and a source of daily advantage to the United Kingdom, which no other work would have supplied. "The visiting of the Menai Bridge," says Mr. Smith, in his _Guide to Snowdonia_, "forms a new era in the lives of those who have not had that pleasure, and is a renewed luxury to those who have. There is something to be admired at every step: the effect of a passing carriage; the vibration caused by the mere application of the hand to the suspending-rods; the depth of a hundred feet to the level of the water; the fine view of the Straits in both directions; the lofty pillar erected in honour of Lord Anglesey; the diminutive appearance of persons on the shore; the excellence and strength of the workmanship, the beauty of the arches over the road through the suspension-piers, and the echo in them, all conspire to fascinate and detain the spectator. There is so much elegance, beauty, and magnificence, in this grand work of art, that it harmonizes and accords perfectly with the natural scenery around; and although in itself an object of admiration, still, in connexion with the features of the landscape, it heightens the effect of the general view."