. American architecture . proached the central span over theEast River; and though it has since been exceeded bytwo spans of the Forth Bridge,in Scotland(i7iofeeteach,sustained by cantilevers), it remains by far the largestexample of a chain-bridge. It is half as long again asRoeblings Cincinnati Bridge (1057 feet between tow-ers), and nearly twice as long as the same engineersNiagara Bridge (821 feet). The span of the ill-fatedbridge over the Ohio at Wheeling, which was built in1848, and blown down in 1854, was loio feet. Note-worthy suspension-bridges in Europe are Telfords, overthe Menai St
. American architecture . proached the central span over theEast River; and though it has since been exceeded bytwo spans of the Forth Bridge,in Scotland(i7iofeeteach,sustained by cantilevers), it remains by far the largestexample of a chain-bridge. It is half as long again asRoeblings Cincinnati Bridge (1057 feet between tow-ers), and nearly twice as long as the same engineersNiagara Bridge (821 feet). The span of the ill-fatedbridge over the Ohio at Wheeling, which was built in1848, and blown down in 1854, was loio feet. Note-worthy suspension-bridges in Europe are Telfords, overthe Menai Straits (589 feet), finished in 1825; Chaleysbridge, at Fribourg (870 feet), finished in 1834; andTierney Clarks bridge over the Danube at Pesth (670feet), finished in 1849. The longest spans bridged oth-erwise than by a roadway hung from cables are the cen-tral spans of Stephensons Britannia (box girder) Bridge(459 feet), of Eadss St. Louis Bridge, of steel arches (520feet), and of the beautiful Washington Bridge, of steel. THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE AS A MONUMENT 71 arches, at New York (510 feet). The largest span of anarch of masonry known to have been built in a bridge(251 feet) was in that built in the fourteenth century,and destroyed by Carmagnola in the fifteenth, whichcrossed the Adda at Trezzo. The largest now stand-ing (220 feet) is an American work, the arch designedand built by General Meigs to carry the WashingtonAqueduct over Cabin John Creek. The second is thatof the Grosvenor Bridge at Chester (200 feet), and thethird the central arch of London Bridge (152 feet). The Brooklyn Bridge is thus one of the mechanicalwonders of the world, one of the greatest and mostcharacteristic of the monuments of the nineteenth cen-tury. Its towers, at least, bid fair to outlast every struct-ure of which they command a view. Everybody recallsMacaulays prophecy of the time when some travellerfrom New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude,take his stand upon a broken arch of London
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectarchitecture, bookyea
