River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1902-07-17
PERILS OF BRIDGE-BUILDING.
A Calling That Is Fraught with Hard
ship and Danger Under Most
Favorable Conditions.

The design of long bridge span is
one of the most elaborate mathemat-
ical problems that arises in construc-
tive work. The stresses produced by
it's own weight, by the weight of traf-
fic, by locomotive drivers, by the ham
mering of fattened wheels, by the
action of brakes on an express train,
by the high speed of a curved track,
by the wind and by the expansion and
contraction of the steel in summer
and winter, are all accurately calcu-
lated. The definition of the loaded
and unloaded bridge is determined,
and complete drawings are made of
every member of it. The bars of steel
are tested in machines which will pull
in two a hOrsehair or steel bar
strong enough to lift half score of
the heaviest locomotives at once, and
which will crush an egg-sheH or
steel, column, and accurately measure
the stress in each case. The differ
ent kinds of members are forged, riv-
eted, bored or planed in perhaps half
a dozen remote shops, and although
usually not fitted together there, are
examined and measured by special
lists TO see that they are correct,
and are then shipped by scores of
car loads to the site of the proposed
structure, where steam derricl1s I'M
load them and pile them many feet
high in stacks covering acres of
ground.
The huge piers may rise above the
water, hundreds of feet apart. 1t re-
mains to place on them 1,000-tOn
structure, high above a savage chasm,
over an impossible current or roar
ing tide, where the water is deep, the
bottom of jagged rocks or treacher-
Gus quicksand, or where an old bridge
must be removed and the new one
built IN it's place without interrupting
navigation or obstructing continuous
traffic on the bridge. To accomplish
this the engineer has timber, bolts
and ropes, hosting engines, derricks.
and a band of intrepid builders, who
have perhaps followed him for years
through more hardship and danger
than fall to the lot of almost any
other calling, writes Frank w. Skin
ner, in Century.
The complicated framework of a
great span is a skeleton with many
accurate joints and thousands of steel
sinews and bones, each of which must
go in exactly the right place in ex-
act1y the right order. The builder
must weave into the trusses pieces
larger, heavier and far more infex-
ibIe than whole tree-trunks: swiftly
hoist and swing them to place hum
dreds of feet high; fit together the
massive girders and huge forged bars
with watchmaker's accuracy; support
the. unwieldy masses until they are
keyed together and self-sustaining;
and, under millions of pounds of stress
must adjust them, at dizzy heights,
to mathematical lines. This he may
need to do, not deliberately in COM
Portable shop or on a solid platform,
but in dangerous emergencies, at ut
most speed, putting forth his whole
strength on narrow, springing planks
in furious tempest, in bitter cold or
in blazing heat. He may be in the
heart of an African desert, menaced
by blood-thirsty fanatics, or in a
gorge of the Andes, hundreds of miles
from tools or supplies, where there Is
absolutely no supplement to his own
resources. Under such conditions
bridge building is one of the most
fascinating and difficult of engineer
ing problems, and requires differ
emit solution for almost every case.