BUILDING BRIDGES.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18265, 26 December 1924, Page 17

BUILDING BRIDGES.

BOOM IN SYDNEY

(FKOl£ OUR OWN COJUUSPOSDIKT.) SYDNEY, December 16.

Inis is the <uv of bridges in Sydney and neigbourhou'd. The oijidge-biiiKte/ is king. With the arms of the harbour and four rivers separating the city from all its surfing beaches,, except three or lour served by tram, and many pleasure resorts, punts have served the pleasureseekers as a means of crossing them for over a century. But the increase of motor traffice has caused the punt to become an obsolete conveyance of vehicles over stretches of water. The demand for bridges became too insistent for Parliament and the municipal councils ,to ignore it. No fewer than four important bridges are being built, or will shortly be commenced, within ten miles of ' the city. The Harbour Bridge, from the city to the North Shore, of course, stands pre-eminent in size, importance and cost, but seven years or more will pass before that brings its much-needed relief. Across the upper arm of Middle Harbour has been thrown a bridge which serves the fiorious Kurangai Chase and indirectly the beaches north of Manly. A tender has been accepted by the Sutherland Shire Council for a structure across the George's River and when it is completed two years hence at a cost of over £200,000, the road to popular Cronulla and the numerous South Coast bridges can be negotiated without the pleasure-killing wait for a punt at Tom Ugly's Point. A fourth bridge will be opened on December 23rd across the Spit, at the entrance to Middle Harbour, providing a. direct route for motorists to Manly without recourse to vexatious punts. at the Spit has been a particular' bugbear to carusers for it was nothing to see a queue on holidays and Sundays of cars two miles long, waiting their turn to hoard the punt. It will indeed be a fine Christmas Box lor users of the road.

Bv the Maunganui this week there arrived at Wellington from San Francisco a number-of Australian and New Zealand medical men who attended the Medical Congress in New York and Buffalo. Among them was Dr. J..S. Elliott, of Wellington. "In New York, in October." said Dr. Elliott to a "Post" representative, "there was held what is probably the greatest surgical congress of the "world. The Australian and New Zealand representatives were given great honour, and resides enjoying the fellowship and inspiration of men great in their profession, these Colonial representatives felt that they were doing a little to promote good feeling between the English speaking peoples, especially of the' Pacific. The educated American, largely under the influence still of the Anglo-Saxon • inheritance, has warm friendship for the British people, and not least that section of the' British people, which is Australian and New Zealand. One can feel just as much at home with the American as with a fellow countryman. It is unfortunate, however," added Dr. Elliott, "that a large section of the American people knows little or nothing of New Zeailand or even Australia. If the scenic wonders of New Zealand and its great resources were advertised, for instance, on the transcontinental railways, and in" information offices opened in »New York, and perhaps in one or two other cities in America, there is no doubt that this enterprise would pay New Zealand hanrlsomelv." •