RAVAGES OF TIME

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19443, 31 October 1925, Page 17 (Supplement)

RAVAGES OF TIME

CRUMBLING LONDON Time is ravaging London, and effects are witnessable in a variety of ways. No sooner had Westminster Abbey received attention than St. Paul’s Cathedral dome wtis on the verge of collapsing, so that thousands of pounds are being spent to-day in cementgrouting the great piers which sustain Ihe immense weight of the dome—--50,000 or 60,000 tons—and otherwise in rendering the historic building safe for its continued uses by the public. Waterloo Bridge—one of the finest bridges in Europe—was threatened next, and it is not yet certain whether it can be saved from destruction. Its supports arc groggy, 'and. although its continuance would be welcomed from an artistic viewpoint, the bridge is totally incapable of carrying tho immense traffic which incessantly flows between the Strand and south of the Thames. A much wider bridge is needed'. Experts say that the Houses of Parliament are crumbling, and that immodtate stops arc necessary to stay the chemical action which is responsible for the decay of tho stone facing. Nearly ninety years have elapsed since a Royal Commission selected as the most suitable material for the Parliament Houses the ntagnesian limestone, or dolomite, of Bolsover Moor and neighbourhood. This is the stone which has decayed so much that flakes are falling—the result, as an expert remarks, of a change of the magnesian limestone bv “a gentle but prevading tain of dilute sulphuric acid” from adjacent properties into “some sort of a heap of Epsom Salts!”