The ‘Great Eastern’
Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s colossal ship, the Great Eastern, is the only wonder described here that has not survived to the 21st century. In the early 1850s, Brunel hoped the ship would be his masterpiece, and that it would provide an enduring link to even the most farflung parts of the empire.

‘… his concept became the blue print for ship design for years to come.’
At a time when most ships moored in the Thames were built to traditional designs in wood, and powered by sail, Brunel’s ‘Great Ship’ was almost 700 feet long, a floating island made of iron. His vision was that it should carry 4,000 passengers, in magnificent style, as far as the Antipodes – without needing to refuel.

The design was revolutionary, incorporating a double hull that made the ship unsinkable, and enormous engines as high as a house. Brunel faced considerable criticism: his ship was too big, it was too expensive, it would sink, or break its back on the first big wave – if, that is, he could actually manage to launch it. In fact his concept became the blue print for ship design for years to come.

‘At the time such a bold design seemed almost miraculous …’
The foundations were to sink 70 feet below the river. The two mighty towers would dwarf much of New York. At the time such a bold design seemed almost miraculous, and all to be built out of a new material – steel.

Yet Roebling’s ambitious dream was to cost him his life, and unknowingly he also condemned his son, Washington, to a shadow life. Determined to continue with his father’s vision, Washington Roebling and his team laboured deep beneath the East River, but this led them to develop a mysterious new disease, Caisson disease – nowadays known as ‘the bends’.

Washington was so badly affected, he could not continue with his work. Suffering great pain and paralysis, could only watch through a telescope from his window, when the great network of cables was eventually spun across the great East River.

‘… the oldest offshore lighthouse still standing anywhere in the world.’
In 1799, over 70 ships went down in a violent storm that raged along the coast, yet still the authorities opposed his plan. How could anyone build a lighthouse 11 miles out to sea, on a rock that was submerged by up to 16 feet of water for most of the day? Battling against the odds, Stevenson did eventually build his lighthouse, and to this day it shines out across the North Sea, the oldest offshore lighthouse still standing anywhere in the world.

‘… they battled against hostile terrain, hostile inhabitants, civil war and the Wild West.’
With two teams, one building from the east and the other from California in the west, they battled against hostile terrain, hostile inhabitants, civil war and the Wild West. Yet in 1869, the two teams’ tracks were joined, shrinking the whole American continent, as the journey from New York to San Francisco was reduced from months to days.

‘… sewage was everywhere, piling up in every gully and alleyway …’
Three epidemics of cholera had swept through the city, leaving over 30,000 people dead. And sewage was everywhere, piling up in every gully and alleyway, in the cellars of houses in poor districts – and even seeping through cracks in floorboards.

Leading engineer Joseph Bazalgette proposed a bold scheme to build proper sewers: 82 miles of sewage superhighway, linked with over 1,000 miles of street sewers, to provide an underground network beneath the city streets.

He drove himself to the limits of endurance as he struggled to realise his subterranean vision – a task made particularly difficult by his need to compete with the new underground railway, a network of roads, and emerging overland railway systems. But his grand design for a sewer system did eventually transform the city into the first glittering modern metropolis, setting a standard that was quickly copied the world over.

‘The extravagant dream eventually stole over 25,000 lives …’
Lesseps decided he would cut a path across the isthmus of Panama,and thus unite the great oceans of the Atlantic and Pacific. He knew that the long journey around South America’s Cape Horn would then become unnecessary for ships carrying cargo across the world, and the world itself would seem a smaller place.

Once out in the tropical heat of Panama, however, the French found themselves facing impenetrable jungle, dangerous mudslides and deathly tropical diseases, as the project proved to be an undertaking of nightmare proportions. The extravagant dream eventually came true, but in the process it stole over 25,000 lives, and 25 years had to elapse before the oceans were finally united.