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Document 35, P 22

well Entered two or three inches at a Stroke, but that when he [came?] to
drive the plank piles, they could not be got into the Ground but from
5 to Seven feet.
He further reported in the Course of this Business that the Sheet [Piling?]
of the 7th Pier from the North (or Second from the South side) which was
the last Casing driven of the four damaged Piers; that the Bed of the
River at the South side is entirely full of large flatt stones such as they
won out of the Oakwood Bank Quarry, which have been the Ruins of the
Boats Landings, taken away by Floods and Ice, from time to time;
and those Stones had obstructed their Sheet Piling round that foundation
and had occasioned many of them to go out of their places at Bottom, so
that sundry Cavities were occasioned thereby, more than in the last.
These were the representations of Mr Pickernell concerning his execution
of Mr Smeaton’s orders, respecting the Piling, so that if they were driven
to a lesser depth; or in any manner less effectual, than as above repre-
-sented, Mr Pickernell must Answer to it; as Mr Smeaton was totally
unacquainted thereof; nor was any insufficiency in this part of the Work
ever suggested to him, by any person whatever during the Course of the
Work; or since till he heard of an opposition to Mr Errington’s Bill for
Relief from his obligation.
But whether in reality Mr Pickernell did this part of the Work, equal
to the above representation of it, that the standing or falling of the
to rest
Bridge may not be wholly left ⁁ at Mr Pickernel’s door; Mr Smeaton in
justice to Mr Pickernell as well as himself, thinks it necessary to declare
tha for the reasons already assigned (as well as the verification thereof
during the Course of the Work by every Flood that happen’d) that so great
and absolute was his dependence upon the application of the Oakwood bank
Quarry Rubble, as an ultimate defence to control the violence of the Tynes
Floods (no part of it laid round the Coffer dam foundations having ever
been moved) that provided the Piles of the Casings were but driven into
22 the

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Note: Mr Smeaton's Memorial P 22

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Transcribed by CTW and KS