The Dundee Bridge. Dundee Advertiser, Monday 13 December 1869, p.2 col.4 (pdf image)
(Letter written Dec 10 1869, published Dec 13 1869)
In this short letter, Matthew responds to an editorial in the Dundee Advertiser (not yet uncovered) which apparently depicted Matthew as a “venerable, crotchety old man, with a head stuffed with old world notions, quite unsuited to the present age of progress”. Matthew warns once again that the proposed bridge at Dundee might alter the tides so as to sand up Dundee Harbour, and challenges the idea that his alternative scheme at Newburgh would be more circuitous.
THE DUNDEE BRIDGE.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE DUNDEE ADVERTISER.
SIR,— Those who have been accustomed to read some of my thoughts which I have now and then laid before the public, will smile at the very correct description you give of me — a venerable, crotchety old man, with a head stuffed with old world notions, quite unsuited to the present age of progress. But let that pass as a mere figure of speech, given pour rire. With regard to this Dundee Bridge, it would be well for the engineers who have designed it, before they commence its construction, to calculate what its removal would cost — especially that of it which, with a bend, approaches the north shore, so well calculated to divert the tidal flow to the middle or south deep, and sand up Dundee Harbour. You state that this new line is three or four miles shorter than a line near Newburgh, and which you term a circumbendibus. You seem to forget that the Dundee Bridge line is more of a circumbendibus from Leuchars to Dundee than any part of a line diverging from the Newburgh line a little north of Clatchard Craig, and proceeding in a straight line across the river to the Caledonian line, three-quarters of a mile east from Errol station. I challenge a measurement of the two lines from Falkland Road, or even from Ladybank to Dundee. —I am, &c.
PATRICK MATTHEW.
Gourdiehill, Dec. 10, 1869.
PMP 