Buza Péter: Bridges of the Danube - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1999)
the defendants of the nobility’s privileges had other allies. Pest and Buda, which enjoyed the profits generated by leasing the operation of the pontoon bridge, were also afraid of the new venture. Especially Pest fought desperately. Palatine József tried to pressure the nobles’ council. His deputies, however, failed to persuade the reluctant members. A repeated vote still found the majority-^48 against vs. 21 for the motion-in opposition of the proposed bill. It was at this point that János Lechner, the notary, came up with a trick. He managed to word the decision and the report to be submitted to the Palatine so craftily as to make it seem as if the citizens of Pest had renounced their stubbornly defended rights. When the Palatine in his turn delivered and interpreted the text to Parliament, the Gpper House, isolated without allies, gave in. In 1832 Széchenyi met Tierney Clark, the designer of the chain bridge at Hammersmith, a construction with close resemblance to the later Chain Bridge, although one with a much smaller span. Adam Clark, a namesake of the future designer, also appeared on the scene. He started to work in Hungary in 1834 conducting dredging operations in the Danube with his self-designed dredge-boat, the Otter. Later he used a small sailboat to travel extensively on the river to uncover its secrets. In 1837 a diving bell was used to explore the riverbed. The dives were an unprecedented spectacle since no similar device had been used in the country before. (The first dive took place on September 21. Needless to say, Széchenyi himself was present at the experiment.) The years between 1836 and 1840 were busy. The project had been approved in general terms but no decision had been taken concerning its design and financing. The two competing banks, Sina and Wodianer, hired two engineers to prepare preliminary plans. György Sina signed a contract with Clark while Sámuel Wodianer approached another Englishman, George Rennie. Rennie prepared four 16
