OVER THE TAGUS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19846, 21 May 1927, Page 14 (Supplement)

OVER THE TAGUS

SPAIN’S WONDER BRIDGE. There has been . much talk lately about Waterloo Bridge, but it is only a little more than .a century old, whereas Trajan’s Bridge, which spans the Tagus at Alcantara, in Spain, i? 1800 years old, .and is to-day almost “as good as new.” The engineer who planned and built this wonder bridge was Cains Julius Lacer. It is 600 ft. long and 26ft. wide, and has six arches. The Forth Bridge

carries its iron road 152 ft. above the surface of the water, but Trajan’s Bridge bears its road, 172 ft. above the summer level of the river. The most wonderful feature of this bridge is that neither cement nor mortar was used in its construction. The blocks of granite of which it is built were so carefully cut and shaped that they seem to make one solid mass. The arch-stones, which number nearly 500, are mammoth blocks of granite, each weighing 12 tons. In the winter the Tagus is extraordinarily turbulent, rising as much as 120 ft. above the normal level of summer, yet for 18 centuries this bridge, has withstood the fury of the great river, and looks capable to-day of withstanding it for centuries to come.