Manawatu Evening Standard. THURSDAY, JUNE 3, 1937. THE BRIDGE BUILDERS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 156, 3 June 1937, Page 8

Manawatu Evening Standard. THURSDAY, JUNE 3, 1937. THE BRIDGE BUILDERS.

The completion late last month of the Golden Gate Bridge at San Francisco marked the conclusion of two gigantic undertakings in the great Pacific' seaport—the eight and a quarter mile bridge leading across the Bay to Uanland, and the spanning of the famous Golden Gate. The former was opened in November last and the latter was completed to schedule in May. Financed by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and the Californian Department of Public Works, the larger structure cost 77 million dollars, and the smaller, for which regional bonds were issued, 35 million dollars. Both are impressive creations *of the bridge-builder’s genius and stand as monuments of a brilliant age. Few works of man have had a greater effect on his destiny’ than the bridge. Primitive man threw trees across streams, or used stones, fortuitously placed, or swinging vines to hasten his transport. And even in these days in parts of Tibet, Africa, Peru, and inland in savage tropical lands natives cross ravines oil .bridges of twisted grass and wild vines. To conquer Greece Xerxes, the Persian Xing, threw his great bridge of a double line of boats across the Hellespont and in seven days and nights, it is recorded, two million or more men passed over. Darius, his father, Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Empire, and Alexander the Great all employed pontoon bridges in war, and Julius Caesar, by bridging the Rhine An ten days with a 1400 ft wooden bridge, stretched Rome’s long arm across Europe. Bridges are as old ( as time, and some built in the dim misty past still survive, as the witness of solid and clever craftmansliip. The Romans chiefly left fine examples of the ancient arch bridge, and a commentator records that to this day their masonry work is unsurpassed for strength and beauty. One remarkable example is the Alcantara, over the Tagus in Spain, which “stands as proud and stout as when its huge arches were built, some 1800 years ago.” No one can glance at the map of a river such as the Thames and study its numerous bridges without realising how great would be the chaos were they to suddenly fail. For they make travel easy and swift, and above all safe. The Thames bridges are among the world’s most notable, and the Waterloo Bridge, recently destroyed to make way for a twentieth century structure, was in its day known as “The Noblest Bridge in the World.” The Pont Neuf bridging the Seine in Paris since 1578 is famous the world over. The nineteenth century witnessed a vast advance in iron bridge building as the railway

systems in many countries expanded, but progress in design, it is - worth recalling, was costly. The Firtli of Tay disaster emphasises that. “To-day’s bridge,” observes an American writer, “excels not only in design, foundations, and methods of erection, but especially in materials. Now iron yields to steel. The Bessemer, and later the Siemens-Mar-tin processes, gave bridge-build-ers something new and stronger, a steel cheaply produced.” So to-day we have remarkable new structures in every part of the world. Sydney has its harbour bridge, the United States its many rivers bridged wherever the need arises, Continental countries span huge chasms, just as England and the Americas have done, and in Southern Rhodesia the remote Sabi River is spanned by a single arch linking two thinly populated districts with Central Rhodesia. “Thus do bridges carry the world’s burdens,” observes the writer mentioned. “Without them _ rapid transport would fail. Their history, function, and structure involve every aspect of human activity—from war, trade, travel, and politics to architecture and engineering. Their growth has measured the march of civilisation. As we dedicate the last world’s greatest bridge, wherever it may be, somewhere in Borneo the Dyaks are weaving a new jungle bridge of wild vines and twisted grass.”