The Press., 1884-08-14
NoT 4 WIRE UNseUxD.

soThose are massive towers, are they not ?" said Bridge Superintendent Mar fin. as he pointed with evident pride to the oreat pile of masonry visible from his of- flee window on Sands street, Brooklyn, and over which the huge cables that sup port the great bridge are strung. ssWell," continued he, ''solid as they look and are, had MT. Roebling caused the ends of the main cables to be- made fast where they run over the saddles In the towers not only would the bridge have been failure, but it would have been death trap, through which thousands would have been precpitated to the streets below or into the waters of the river. sssf EFs
 ssHas there ever been 8 sufficient crowd concentrated at one point to have broken the towers by their weight were 1t not that the wires were mounted on the saddles ?
 "Yes, sir, on several occasions A nota- ble one was when the DeLong funeral was passing over. The procession after leav- ing the solidly built part of the bridge on the New York side, struck the short 'sns- pension span just west of the towers. Few people were on the main bridge, all having fiocked to the point of procession. The consequence was that the short suspension span defected considerably, so much so that had the cables been fast in the towers the latter would have cracked like a nut shell under horses hoof, and in their fall would have sent hundreds of souls to join De Long over the dark river of death.
 s'In what way does the saddle relieve the straln, and what IS 1t ?" 2 *S s>tP
 .sThe saddle is an immense block of steel rounded on one side and flat on the other. The rounded side is greoved and in this groove rests the cable. The fiat side has -l1- oI l. al IIN Nlr and the whole affair rests on finely planed and closely graduated steel block imbedded in the masonry Over this block the sad. dle glides east or west as the strain de- mands, always keeping the direction o1 the stra1n On the tower perpendicular with the plumb of the tower, though of course slightly to the east or west as the case may be. At the De Long funeral the move ments was of an inch to the west"
 "Does not the heat have considerable effect on the wires?' '~-'
 'It does. By the elongation of the main wires in summer the dehection of the arch of the bridge is fully B feet, and il the iron truss works were met solidly be- low the bridge in the center of it, the de. fiection would cause hump or break il the causeway, but to provide against this we have an open space left of twelve inch es, the connection between the trusses be ing made by steel slip-bar securely fast ened to one side of the truss and sliding easily in groove on the other side behind stout clamps. The space closes to abou three-sevenths when the most extreme de hection occurs.
 'Have many repairs been required thi spring after the exceptionally severe weath CT of last month? Did not the frost tr, the wires ?"
 ''The only repairing we have found nee .essary is replanking of the carriageway which naturally soon wears out. Not . wire or strand was found unsound, thougl a most thorough, examination was mad when spring opened. In fact, the bridg' is working like charm, and according tt the calculations of the Roeblings, it is a safe roadway to-day as is Broadway O. Fifth avenue"