THE GREAT WHEEL.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIV, Issue 10706, 16 July 1895, Page 6

THE GREAT WHEEL.

. (St James’s Gazette.) Bf no. stretch of fancy can the gigantic wheel at Earl’s Court, which is to be one o( the “sensations” of London this rammer, be described as a thing of beauty. It doM not appeal to the aesthetic senses, jta nakedness is still partially covered by ■tagM of scaffolding : and this scaffolding is the only picturesque effect to be seen. The wheel itself, now that its rim is completed, is a hideous monstrosity. At lease, this is the light in which it is regarded by those who live in the extreme west of London nod can see nothing bht the everiw Hng spokes and periphery when they look oat of their windows or walk the ■treete. It has the fascination of ugliness, and the nearer yon get to it the more powerful does the attraction of its ugliness become. To stand beneath the massive ■npporte of .the axle and look upwards, through its network of spokes, is to be riveted to the spot. The men at work upon it look like pygmies entangled in the r meshes of a tremendous web; and one ’ half expects a monstrous spider, compglyd. ,of. bolted plates . of steel, to ■tart clanking from the centre and make the whole structure shake as it dashes upon them. In the course of a few weeks, however, all the scaffolding •will have gone, the rim will bo hung with care, and the skeleton of steel, suspended In mid-air, will be draped with electric Something will then have been i dohe to redeem its hideonsness. There will be forty cars, each of which will be a 3oving blaze of light j and a double line glow-lamps will encircle the periphery on either side. "Indeed, the whole wheel will be studded' with lights of various colours, so that the structure will revolve in brilliancy. The effect wUI certainly be ■ novel, and possibly pretty. Earl’s Court will at least be able to claim that it is the brightest spot of the metropolis. team THx~XNGUNxrK.’a point of view,. 4f • work of engineering the wheel is a remarkable performance. It has an altitude of 800 feet. The axle, rests upon eight steel columns, each of which is fonr faet square. The work of building the wheel was begun in March, 1894, and the flist thing done was to prepare the foundations for these supports. Then the columns were' built section by section, naming in a slanting direction until they ranched a height of 160 feet. If the reader will imagine an ordinary trestle, with fonr 1 legs at each end of the trestle-board in- ‘ stead of* two, he will have a pretty clear idea of the manner in which the wheel ii ' supported. The building of these lege presented no extraordinary difficulty; but it was a stiff task to get the axle upon the ends of these sup- •' ports. The axle itself is a steel tube with a diamatsx of 1 feet and a length of 35 fiifc ’ It is in three sections, esch of about twenty tons. The problem, therefore, that prasanted itself to Mr 0. F. Hitchens, the merer young engineer who has had charge of the construction under Mr Walter B. Bassett, was to hoist twenty tons to an elevation of ISO feet, and get the three auctions into poeitihn. This was done by the building of a heavy timber bridge or gantry across the topa of the columns, and the neefrom.that of powerful lifting tackle. The axle once in position the next thing to be done was to bnild the wheel proper. The wheel is in forty sections? corresponding to the number d oars it is to carry, and work was started from immediately beneath.. the axle, the “spokes” suspended therefrom, the inner rim attached, then farther spokes, and the a the outer rim. When that wae done the completed section wae hauled to the south by powerful tackle ’ and further sections from. immediately . beneath the axle, and so on until a quarter of .the wheel was built. Then scaffolding waa Sradted on the northern side of the Wheal, and the building continued from the completed section until one-half of ’ the circle wae described, and the ends of ; the two completed quarters of the periphery were on a level with the axle. The

wheel was then hauled further to the southward bay by hay, until another quarter, was finished. The question then was merely one of filling the last quadrant; but as the hauling process could go no further, the difficulty of building the last ten sections was a formidable one. Mr Bassett and Mr Hitchins surmounted it by building a hanging scaffold suspended on steel-wire hawsers hung across the gap from one unfinished' part of the wheel to the other. The lowest level of this scaffolding was 150 ft, and the highest 300 ft, and within this space an arc of steelwork, weighing in all 150 tons, had to be put in. The construction of this scaffold was a work that taxed the ingenuity of the engineer-in-charge to the utmost; for great care had to be taken in the calculation of all possible strains, not alone from the dead-weight to be raised, but from the wind. It was, however, a complete success; no accidents occurred; the scaffolding was uninjured by the gale of March last; and the task of fitting in the remaining bays went on uninterruptedly. the cabs and the view. The wheel, as such, is now complete ; and practically all that has to be done is to suspend the cars from the rim, and build the entrance and departure stages. There will be two classes of cars, the wheel will be capable of carrying 1200 passengers, and it will be driven at the rate of a single revolution in about twenty-five minutes. The cars will swing perfectly level throughout the round trip, some of them will be set aside for smokers, and travellers will be able to take refreshments aboard. The wheel will be driven by powerful chain gearing from an engine-house close to the axle supports. From the top of the wheel a magnificent view is to be had. The occupants of the cars will see London and its environs beneath them, and on a clear day will be able to follow the course of the Thames from Richmond to Gravesend with perfect ease. As a “ side attraction ” to the wheel there will also be a promenade on the top of the supporting columns, with a rlght-of-wsy through the axle. This promenade will be reached by a water-balanced lift. It may reassure the nervous if it is said that the factor of safety in every part of the wheel is one in twenty, and that even during the great gale of March'24 last the" structure swayed only three-eighths of an inch.