_sub rosâ_, to keep an eye upon. So, in 1844, the commissioners recommended that it should be made a grand fortified naval station. In 1847 an Act was passed authorising the construction of a breakwater, and in 1849 the foundation-stone was laid by the Prince Consort. [Illustration: PORTLAND.] Nature has provided, in the mighty bank known as the Chesil Beach, practically a great shingle embankment, protection to Portland Harbour on the west and south-west, and the object of the breakwater was to secure, by engineering art, a similar protection to the bay on the south-east side. The Chesil Bank, though now and for long perfectly impregnable to the tremendous rollers of the south-westerly gales, was not always so, and as late as the reign of Henry VIII, great breaches had been temporarily effected by the power of the sea. Still it affords a splendid protection, as does now the mighty double breakwater designed by Rendel, and brought to completion by Coode. The breakwater leaves the shore at the north-eastern extremity of the island, and runs out due east to a distance of 600 yards. “This inner limb alone,” wrote an authority in engineering,(65) “is a splendid achievement of human labour and skill. It has been top-finished by a grand superstructure of hewn granite, and ends in a circular head, which has been completed as a fort and mounts eight guns. The foundations of this massive bastion have been most carefully planned, with especial reference to the safe passage of the largest vessels through the 400 feet gap which the fort flanks on one side. The masonry is continued in a perpendicular line to a point 25 feet below the lowest water-line of spring-tides. A ship of the line, as is well-known, draws at the utmost 24 feet. An extra foot of perpendicular masonry, therefore, having been allowed, the lower masses of the fort begin to slant outwards, and continue to do so till they reach the firm clay bottom. This lower portion consists of a well-consolidated mass of unhewn stone. The outer, and by far the longer limb, of the breakwater begins to bend away to a point very near due north shortly after leaving the gap, the further side of which is also flanked by a circular head.... The whole of this vast outer limb, with the exception of the circular head at its inner extremity and a fort at the other end, consists of nothing more than a stupendous bank of rough unhewn stones of all shapes and sizes, tumbled out of the wagons on the timber staging above. Divers, constantly employed, have effectually prevented the chance of any holes being left in the rising mass, and have been able to indicate the precise spot over which a given number of loads were required to be ‘tipped.’ The security of the bank is further guaranteed by its enormous width at the base; and although the waves have already rounded many a giant block below the water-line and made it look as if its present place had been its abode