When the construction of the Cherbourg breakwater was resumed, the wooden cone system was abandoned, and the stone was simply sunk from vessels of peculiar construction. The breakwater was completed under Napoleon III., at a cost exceeding two and a half million pounds sterling. The actual breakwater itself was finished in 1853,(61) but since that time most important fortifications have been constructed on the upper works. This is the greatest breakwater in the world, its length being nearly two and a half miles; it is 300 feet wide at the base and 31 at the top. The water-space shut in and protected is about 2,000 acres, much of this great area being, however, too shallow for very large vessels. Taken in connection with the fortifications, this breakwater has a value greater than any other in the world. At the apex of the angle formed by the junction of the two branches of the breakwater there is a grand fort, and it bristles generally with batteries and forts, as indeed does Cherbourg generally. Dr. W. H. Russell wrote of it, in our leading journal in 1860 that, “Wherever you look you fancy that on the spot you occupy are specially pointed dozens of the dull black eyes from their rigid lids of stone.” With its twenty-four regular forts and redoubts, not including those on the mole, floating harbours, building slips, navy-yards, arsenals, and barracks, Cherbourg is a most formidable place. [Illustration: CHERBOURG, FROM THE SEA.] In England Rennie’s great Plymouth breakwater is the most remarkable specimen, among many others. Its dimensions are not as great as that of Cherbourg, but it was, nevertheless, a vast undertaking. It consists of an immense number of blocks of stone thrown into the Sound, and forms a barrier nearly a mile in length above the surface of the water. This grand work was commenced in 1812, and by the end of the second year about 800 yards of the breakwater began to appear at low water, and the swell was so much broken that ships of all sizes began to take shelter behind it; while the fishermen within its shelter could not judge accurately of the weather outside the Sound, so great was the change. Several limestone quarries near the Catwater were purchased of the Duke of Bedford for £10,000, and some fifteen vessels were constantly employed in removing the blocks, which ranged in weight from one to ten tons. These vessels were of ingenious construction; they had two railways laid along them parallel to each other, with openings in the stern to admit the cars or trucks laden with stones. These were wheeled from the quarry to the quay, and so on to the vessels, till the lines of rails were filled with trucks. The vessels then proceeded to the works, each bearing its load of stone-laden trucks. On reaching the breakwater each truck was wheeled to the opening, and the stones tipped into the sea. During the first five years the amount of stone deposited gradually rose from 16,000 to 300,000 tons per annum.