The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1851-05-28
From the Dollar Magazine.
Civil Engineering.

WtHt W lNldudId ans WIN" SN"P'S
Of civil engineers-it being our first visit
to the great cataract. The said engi>
neers were a pair of youngsters, who
had been sticking grade pegs on the line
Of certain railroad for few months,
aud consequently were able TO talk about
Tubular Bridges and the Thames Tun-
mel in a very loud and overbearing man>
ner. Stephenson was hauled over the
Goals with small ceremon, and that
great culvert, which is the engineering
pride of London, would cave in at
once, if it could only hear, as hearG,
how il stands in defiance of all dynami-
cal laws, and especially what an outrage
against Geometry one of its versed siues
is. fairly shuddered to think Of it.
The laity, here be it said, do not pre-
cisely understand what Civil Engineer
ing is. A good looking young man,
with whiskers and cigar. goes out upon
an embankment, carrying a brass clock
Tor something very like one OF those
mysterious engnes,) followed by two
other young men, rather OH the sunny
side OF majority, who are immersed in
boots of preposterous depth, and who
carry the one stick aud the other a
string They are supposed to know
something about Logarthms, and TO be
on speaking terms with Euclid. A dem
ocrat who need not know Euclid, comes
IN the rear, bearing an axe and an arm
iuI of stakes. The young man with
whskers having set the clock on a tri>
pod and screwed 1t this way and that,
to satisfy an enlightened aud persuasive
Trigonometry, squints through it at the
youth with The stick, who stands some
eighty rods distant The democrat with
the axe bawls out
Git the cussed carts off from the
track git 'em off! quick you crit
tiers Mr.. Slopes agoin' 10 touch off the
lheodolte!' = Whereupon three score Of
lrlshmen or more scatter The young
man at The brass clock raises both his
arms as a signal to the youth at the
stick, aud takes hold of one end of a
string, while the youth with preposterous
boots takes hold of the other. The
democrat with the axe drives dozen
pegs into the ground. The young man
with whiskers squints through the brass
clock again, and that's Civil Engineer
ing. It's the way they make railroads.
One of the young gentlemen who
went with me to the Falls carried, be-
lleve, stick, and the other string, SC
that when they began TO speak of cuts
and curves, and tangents, felt very hum.
ble, and did not dare to say the first
word, though l was as old as they, and
had been a schoomaster nearly Sin
months. had supposed, until that
morning, that Providence had some de-
sign in arranging the topography of the
world other than the convenient making
of railroads, and that a railroad millen'
ium was not wholly the result held il
view by Moses and The prophets and
was quite ashamed of myself to learr
how lar | was behind the age.
We went down from Chippeway to The
Clifton House. The first thing to b,
done was, of course, to find the Suspen
sion Bridge. To 60 down to the foot o
the Canadian Fall and other sublimities
would have been, in the eyes of m
companions, evidence of great weakness
while wire gimcrack, that looked as i
the spiders made ii, hung across tn
chasm mile or two below; so W
straightway started for the Suspension
Bridge. 1t is unprofessiona TO ride
The coachman. who would have beei
happy 10 carry US down, was dismisse
as summarIly as that Hiberniau woul
be who should offer to trundle the che
engineer of the Erie Railroad up tn
ine in a wheelbarrow. verify believ
that if Governor Elgin had driven up il
coach and six, or ever in the triumpha
dragon-chariot Of Gen. Mann's circu.
drawn by twelve camels from the Nile
with real Arabs punching their ribs an
saying 'G'iang-inShaliah sahib d.
beast, phardO neehO', (Which is undoubl
edly Arabic, and "A lriumphal answer t
all who doubt about those orientals, an
invited us in the name aud on behalf {
the British Lion to get in and ride, pre-
fessonal etiquette would have forbidde
my companions to accept the invitation
This is their great Suspension Bridge
is it 2 said my friend whu carried slicl
after inspecting all the anchors aud stay
and getting into all the holes where th
wire.cables are locked. Their grei
wire bridge! lcan make sllfier bridp
ou, of shoe-sirings 7
'fhe engineer ought to be suspende
HIMSELF SAID my friend who carried
string He ought to be hung in wire
Why-why-wh see what n ridiculo,