by a chain passing through the tower to a crab on the far
side. The violence of the tide abated, though the wind increased, and
the Anglesey end was drawn into its place beneath the corbelling in the
masonry; and as the tide went down, the pontoons deposited their valuable
cargo on the welcome shelf at each end. The successful issue was greeted
by cannon from the shore and the hearty cheers of many thousands of
spectators, whose sympathy and anxiety were but too clearly indicated by
the unbroken silence with which the whole operation had been
accompanied." {335} By midnight all the pontoons had been got clear of
the tube, which now hung suspended over the waters of the Strait by its
two ends, which rested upon the edges cut in the rock for the purpose at
the base of the Britannia and Anglesey towers respectively, up which the
tube had now to be lifted by hydraulic power to its permanent place near
the summit. The accuracy with which the gigantic beam had been
constructed may be inferred from the fact that, after passing into its
place, a clear space remained between the iron plating and the rock
outside of it of only about three-quarters of an inch!

Mr. Stephenson's anxiety was, of course, very great up to the time of
performing this trying operation. When he had got the first tube floated
at Conway, and saw all safe, he said to Captain Moorsom, "Now I shall go
to bed." But the Britannia Bridge was a still more difficult enterprise,
and cost him many a sleepless night. Afterwards describing his feelings
to his friend Mr. Gooch, he said: "It was a most anxious and harassing
time with me. Often at night I would lie tossing about, seeking sleep in
vain. The tubes filled my head. I went to bed with them and got up with
them. In the grey of the morning, when I looked across the Square, {336}
it seemed an immense distance across to the houses on the opposite side.
It was nearly the same length as the span of my tubular bridge!" When
the first tube had been floated, a friend observed to him, "This great
work has made you ten years older." "I have not slept sound," he
replied, "for three weeks." Sir F. Head, however relates, that when he
revisited the spot on the following morning, he observed, sitting on a
platform overlooking the suspended tube, a gentleman, reclining entirely
by himself, smoking a cigar, and gazing, as if indolently, at the aerial
gallery beneath him. It was the engineer himself, contemplating