THE WORKS OF MAN

Evening Star, Issue 12666, 21 November 1905, Page 8

THE WORKS OF MAN

When the dream of Cecil Rhodes attains fulfilment, and that vast land in which his Im.hlv lie* is filled with "homes, home.-', honies." the great bridge over the Zambesi will probably be ins-ufficicnt for the needs of the country. Bridge constructors like to build for eternity, and there are in use to-day aqueducts, which are also bridges, built by the Romans two thousand years ago. What would have been their presentday condition had they been submitted to Iho vibration of heavy- vehicles, to nay nothing of railway trains, it would require an engineer to tell us. The Tay Bridge was built- for posterity, and the Tay Bridge came down in a storm. The great Brooklyn Bridge, a world-wonder and supreme joy. to the American who loves iarge things, was- given a " natural life " of 2.000 years. It was impossible, we were. told, to load it sntnciently heavily to cause it* supports to start, its cables to stretch. Suddenly, with no special strain to account for it, and no devastating toma-do to prove excuse, the greatest bridge in the world—there is- another greater row—gave way most lamentablv. Seventeen of its mighty cables, each lsj"in in diameter, ami composed of 5,000 steel wires—seventeen of these snapped like threads. The whole road way sagged most deplorably, ami caused the instant stoppage of all traffic. They have repaired it now, but we do not hear again of that bridge ;e, still having a *' natural life" of two thousand years.