The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-01-30
THE GREATEST BRIDGE
Almost one of the Wonders of the World'' it is Comparatively
 TTnnoficed


 World" it is Comparatively
 Unnoticed.
 One of the greatest deeds ever wrought in stone and steel is the new East River Bridge. Beside the inter- est and admiration excited by the building of the first bridge that linked Brooklyn with Manhattan, this far more imposing climax of engineering genius has passed almost unnoticed.
 Weaving these tremendous webs of steel over a mile and a half of river and shore, and swinging the crowded trafic of the greatest city of the land on slender cables around which a man man may clasp his arms, are no longer a novelty.
 A fifty million dollar tunnel under the Hudson River; 6 s35, 1000, GOO sub way driven the length of the narrow strip of city paced to suffocation; $50, 100000 worth of new railway ter minals; one, two or three new bridges costing s15,0O0000 each-these arouse only furry of interest in New York. It has no time to turn aside for big thing that would mark epochs else where.
 The new bridge is 40 per cent. wider and one-sixth longer than the older Brooklyn Bridge, and the traffic ca pacity is more than twice as great; or if S00.000 can be crushed across the old bridge in a day, then nearly two thirds of million will be able to swarm across the greater structure. Yet the cost of the new bridge is less by $3,500,000, and the time of building less by five years. These facts mark the march of engineering knowledge and experIence in 15 years.
 The total length of the new bridge is 7,200 feet, a mile and third of double-decked steel roadways soaring 135 feet above: .tidewater, hung from steel towers 5S5 feet high. Four troll ley tracks, two tracks for elevated trains, two driveways, two foothpaths, and q cycle path are laid in the 11S feet of width, three times as wide as a cross-street of New York. Twenty thousand tons of dead weight pull at the granite anchorages before a car or passenger crosses, compared with the 15,000 tons of material striving to pull the older Brooklyn Bridge up by the roots.
 Experts say that no possible strain can break down the bridge, and that when the old Brooklyn. Bridge has crumbled away and nothing is left but the granite towers, the new steel bridge will still be open for business. . Skeleton steel towers are substituted for the granite monuments at the ends of the other bridge, a seeming paradox when the Pennsylvania Rail road is spending millions to replace steel bridges by solid stone to make a more permanent way. Much added strength is in the four cables, which are 1S14 inches in diameter, against 14 S-4 for the first bridge. The differ ence is slight to look at, but impress , sive when seen beneath the steel jack eting which hides the most wonderful and delicate achievement in all bridge construction. Each of these four cables is made of 7,896 separate wires, each wire strung separately across the Each River, while 40 men spun the huge steel rope. This daring band of workman bound 26 tens of steel wires iiico ehlS capie Weu edcH udy, edcn wire $500 feet long, and only three sixt eenths of an inch in diameter scarcely bigger than heavy picture wire. Five thousand tons of steel were fashioned thus into four cables the thickness of stout tree, and the strength of each little wire, tested be- forehand, became part of a mighty harmony of effort, all tulling together, yet the power to bear it's gigantic bur- den was more than the united en- deavors of S0,000 picture wires The four cables cost $1, 400, ,000.-Conier's s Weekly.