120 THE KANSAS CITY BRIDGE.

changed ; but details would be altered, so that the pier could be built, and the
foundation completed much more rapidly than it was.

At Piers Nos. 6 and 7, the plans would not be materially changed.

All the delays, difficulties and failures which took place were directly owing
to the violence of the current, and its capacity for rapid scour. The precautions
and watchfulness which these required, both by night and by day, were endless,
and not always successful.

The moods of the river were constantly changing, and its bottom and
banks of most unstable regimen, thus causing no little anxiety and expense,
while the absence of precedents in this kind of work, in this country, left the
engineers to depend mostly upon their own resources.

It is hoped that this imperfect relation of the experience acquired upon
this novel work may be of profit to others engaged in similar undertakings.