The stone quarried for the breakwater from the very top of Portland Island was largely excavated and brought to the spot by convict labour. The stone itself used was unfit for architectural purposes, but quite suitable for the breakwater. The convict prison, also on the top of the island, was virtually the barracks for 900 labourers, who were more profitably employed than in walking a treadmill or picking oakum. The quarries were some 400 or 500 feet above the level of the breakwater, and the stone was conveyed to it by three inclines of broad double gauge rails. The trains of trucks or wagons were worked up and down with a wire rope over a drum, the weight of the loaded descending wagons winding the empty ones up again to the quarries. A powerful locomotive pushed the loaded trains to the end of the work, where the stone was tipped into the sea, as much as 3,000 tons a day having been sunk at Portland. The total amount so committed to the deep was about 5,360,000 tons, and the area protected by the breakwater would accommodate sixty of the very largest men-of-war, and almost any number of smaller vessels.
“During the progress of the works,” wrote Mr. Moule, “the engineer has from time to time instituted some highly interesting investigations into the structure of the Chesil Bank.... During a single night’s gale, between three and four _millions of tons_ weight of pebbles have been found to be swept away into the gulfs of the Atlantic, being gradually thrown back again in the three or four following days. The size of the pebbles had long been observed to vary greatly at the two opposite ends of the beach. At the western, or Abbotsbury end, they are exceedingly small, more resembling gravel than shingle. At the Portland end it is not uncommon to meet with them several inches in diameter, and several pounds in weight. This phenomenon has been explained by the very probable assumption that the pebbles are driven eastward by the wind-waves, and not moved by the slow and (for purposes like this) powerless tidal current. The larger pebbles, presenting a broad surface to the waves, are easily rolled forward, while the smaller ones are passed by, offering a less surface, and becoming more easily imbedded in the sand.” It is said that a practised smuggler on that coast could tell his whereabouts on the bank in the darkest night or thickest fog, by feeling the size of the pebbles on which he stood. And smugglers and “wreckers” were once very numerous among the Portlanders. In these better days their courage and great personal strength has saved many a life and ship endangered off the bank.