The Forth Bridge/Monsieur L. Coiseau
Monsieur L. Coiseau.
It would be, of course, too much to say that the foundations for the piers of the Forth Bridge could not have been so successfully carried out by English workmen and the firm of contractors who executed the remainder of the work; but it is certain that it was a wise decision to entrust this part of the undertaking to some one who had achieved a high reputation in the specially difficult work of sinking large foundations to a considerable depth, by means of compressed air. On the Continent works of this kind had been carried out on a much larger scale, and under greater difficulties than in this country, and no firm in the world has earned so high a reputation in this field as MM. Hersent and Couvreux. At the time—about 1880—when these contractors were carrying out the Antwerp Harbour works, at a cost of more than a million and a half sterling, their engineer-in-chief, M. L. Coiseau, had the responsibility of the foundations, a work similar in many respects to those of the Forth Bridge. Before this M. Coiseau had been engaged on heavy contracts upon the Suez Canal and the regulation of the Danube at Vienna. For a time he was a partner of Sir Thomas Tancred, and so became familiar with English methods of carrying out work, while at the same time he grew to be favourably and widely known by English engineers. It was during this period that he constructed a railway in Asia Minor. At the present time M. Coiseau is engaged in completing a large contract for the improvement in the port of Bilbao, on extensive railway undertakings in South America, and on other important works. There is no occasion for us to enlarge here on the manner in which he carried out the sub-contract for the sinking of the Forth Bridge caissons, as the details have been given on a previous page, but we may add that many important appliances used for pneumatic foundations have been designed by M. Coiseau.