THE MODERN SEVEN WONDERS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume V, Issue 52, 27 December 1890, Page 1

THE MODERN SEVEN WONDERS.

CoMI’AREIi with the seven wonders of the world classified by the ancients, there are seven times seven wonders now. The fabled Colossus of Rhodes, the Alexandrian lighthouse, the hanging gardens of Babylon, sink into insignificance beside the achievements of modern times. The Colossus of Rhodes was, in all probability, a myth, while the Bartholdi Statue is an accomplished fact, anil undoubtedly equal in point of achievement to any of the seven wonders of the ancients, not even excepting the pyramids. As a matter of fact, the real wonders of the world, albeit they have ceased for the most part to be wonders by reason of familiarity, represent inventions rather than engineeiing and architectural skill. The printing-press, the telegraph, the railway, the steamboat, the photograph, the telescope and the self-bind-ing reaper are in themselves seven wonders of which the Egyptians and the Greeks never dreamed. But in the lineof engineering skill, which was the most prominent feature of the oiiginal seven wonders, there are now so many proud triumphs that it is by no means an easy matter to name the foremost seven.

The list comprises the Forth bridge, in Scotland ; New York’s new underground acqueduct, which is thirty miles long, on an average 150 feet underground, and cut through rock; the Eiffel tower; the Brooklyn bridge ; the St. Gothard tunnel, between Switzerland and Italy, begun at a height of 1,340 feet, and cut for nine ami one-halt miles through the solid rock ; the improvements at Hell Gate, ami the jetties at the mouth of the Mississippi. It is easy to take exceptions to this list. There are probably few intelligent people who will not dispute the claims of some one or other of these achievements. The Eiffel Tower, for example, lofty as it is, should scarcely be permitted to crowd out the Suez Canal, and the engineering feat of removing the obstructions at Hell Gate is hardly to be compared with the building of the Pacific railroads. TheSiberian Railroad, also, isentitled to dispute the claim of some of the wonders in the list, while the Bartholdi statue is scarcely to be crowded out,not only for its colossal proportions, but by reason of the skill required to produce the results aimed at. Theie are several cantilever bridges,alsosomeoneof which is likely to suggest itself, to engineers as having good grounds for disputing the place in the list of seven.

The jetties of the Mississippi also arrest attention. They are only lines of willow basket work, filled with mud and gravel and sunk in the river channel. Hut we see what has been accomplished by such simple means. A cubic mile of solid earth, it has been estimated, is born down by the Mississippi every year. When the stream met the waters of the gulf, the current was checked by the inflowing tides, and a great burden of earthly matter was deposited, while tire river spread out over a great extent of territory. Navigation was rendered uncertain and dangerous, and millions of

dollars expended in dredging brought no practical results. The river beat the United States Government. Then came Captain Eadswith a proposition to gather the willows along the shores, make them into crates or mattresses, fill them with mud and gravel, place them in parallel where a channel was wanted, and set the river to do its own digging by means of a quickened current. That was the basis of the .jetty system, which has more than doubled the depth of the channel at the mouth of the most important river on the glolie. The waters continued to deposit sand and gravel between the jetties and the shores, the willows sprouted and grew, and thus solid banks of earth were formed and protected by trees. It is only necessary to extend the line of willow baskets from time to time, as occasion demands, in order tocarry the channel still further into the gulf. The jetty system is a grand triumph of simplicity, but fairly entitled by reason or the results obtained, to be reckoned among tlieleading seven wonders of the world.