Ice bridge

“ When the weather is exceedingly cold the ice mountain, between the American Fall and the Inclined Railway, attains a magnificent height. The ice also forms from shore to shore, enabling people to pass at will to the Canadian side, and forming what is popularly called the ice bridge. ”

“ The melting and the chopping went on unceasingly, no one daring to relax his vigilance for one moment unless there was a man at his elbow to take his place. Anchorages were quickly made in the ice above the bridge. Feverishly every man, from the chief engineer to the last laborer, worked while that whole four hundred and fifty feet of intricate bridge work was coaxed, inch by inch, back into its place. ”

“ The aspect of solidity and permanence is remarkable. Even the temporary bridge over the Ussuri, 1,050 feet in length, a trestle bridge of heavy timber to resist the impact of the ice, is so massive as to make the great steel bridge, the handsome abutments of which were already built, appear as if it would be a work of supererogation. ”

“ I don’t know mach about bridges, but it seems as if there were a great many piers for this kind of a river.”
“You mean when the ice breaks up?”
“Yes,” said Jack, eagerly, all enthusiasm in telling the idea which had been simmering in his brain for several weeks. “It seems funny that the railroad company should want a fifteen-pier bridge, which will catch the ice and jam it, and force the water back over its own tracks. This end of the city is pretty low, and when the ice comes down it comes in an awful hurry, and wants lots of room to get through.” ”

“ Whoever has truly felt the aërial perspective of Turner has attained a delicate sense of the pictorial significance of the bridge; for, as we look through his floating mists, we descry, amid Nature's most evanescent phenomena, the span, the arch, the connecting lines or masses whereby this familiar image seems to identify itself not less with Nature than with Art. Among the drawings which Arctic voyagers have brought home, many a bridge of ice, enormous and symmetrical, seems to tempt adventurous feet and to reflect a like form of fleecy cloud-land ”

“ To convey some idea of the immense force which these piers are required to resist, we may briefly describe the breaking up of the ice in March, 1858, while the bridge was under construction. Fourteen out of the twenty-four piers were then finished, together with the formidable abutments and approaches to the bridge. The ice in the p. 365river began to show signs of weakness on the 29th March, but it was not until the 31st that a general movement became observable, which continued for an hour, when it suddenly stopped, and the water rose rapidly. ”

“ The bridges thrown across this river, opposite the town, have repeatedly been carried away; it is thought idle, therefore, to go to the expence of a better one than what exists at present. The strongest stone bridge could hardly resist the bodies of ice that are hurried down the falls by the floods on the breaking up of a severe winter. ”

“ The inconvenience to the shipping is now increased more than since the setting in of the Frost, as no persons will venture upon the ice to fetch or carry any thing for them, and it is not yet sufficiently disunited for a boat to live.’ The succeeding number of this paper, page 60, mentions that on Thursday, January 15th, the ice was so powerful as to cut the cables of two vessels lying at the Old Rose Chain, and drive them through the Great Arch of London Bridge; when their masts becoming entangled with the ballustrades, both were broken, and many persons hurt. ”

“ Near the bridge is a lately erected column in honour of Carlo Felice, whose statue surmounts it, ninety-five feet above ordinary mortals; and in gratitude for the fresh embankments which restrain the Arve’s fury when it rushes from its mountain birthplace, swollen by the first melting of the ice in 326 spring. Near their source, (the glaciers,) these streams are more awful than beautiful; they have the turbid hue produced by the snows and earth they bear violently along ”

“ Bower did not utter a syllable until they struck out toward the center of the glacier. A crevasse some ten feet in width and seemingly hundreds of feet deep, barred the way; but a bridge of ice, covered with snow, offered safe transit. The snow carpet showed that a number of climbers had passed quite recently in both directions. Even Helen, somewhat awed by the dimensions of the rift, understood that the existence of this natural arch was as well recognized by Alpinists as Waterloo Bridge is known to dwellers on the south side of the Thames. ”

“ To westward, on both sides of the river, summer boats were laid up, their decks covered with snow. On the other side, still nearer to the bridge, were some of the winter vessels; and, while the motor was on the span, the bells began ringing the alarm to clear the bridge so it could turn to let through a great steamer just in from the lake, the sun glistening on the ice covering its bows and sides back as far as Alan could see. ”

“ Three miles below, at a narrow place in the river, was the bridge, consisting of three very long tree-trunks reaching parallel from bank to bank, and covered with hewn plank. When Evan arrived here he found that this bridge had been swept away. But pushing on down stream among the thickets, about half a mile below, he came upon an immense ice-jam, stretching across the stream and piled many feet high. ”

“ During the whole of the afternoon, hundreds of people were assembled on Blackfriars and London Bridges, to see several adventurous men cross and re-cross the (p. 220) Thames on the Ice; at one time seventy persons were counted walking from Queenhithe to the opposite shore. The frost on Sunday night so united the vast mass, as to render it immovable by the tide.
Tuesday, Feb. 1.—The floating masses of ice having been stopped by London Bridge, now assumed a solid surface over the river from Blackfriars Bridge to some distance below Three Crane Stairs, at the bottom of Queen Street, Cheapside. ”

“ There are great crevasses, fifty or a hundred feet deep, with slight bridges of snow over them. If a man drops in the rest must pull him out. Being heavier than any other man of the party I thrust a leg through one snow-bridge, but I had just fixed my ice ax in the firm abutment and was saved the inconvenience and delay of dangling by a rope in a chasm. ”

“ We kept away to the right as our only chance of finding a bridge. At least we found a place that looked possible, but dangerous, the rocks above it being heavily coated with snow and ice, and up these we must find our way. I anchored with the rope round my ice-axe, while Graham crossed the schrund and began attacking the icicles and loose snow on the rocks above him, to clear a few possible hand- and foot-holds. ”

“ In cutting across ice flakes, or along narrow bridges through séracs, if the bridge is solid enough it is best to make side-foot nicks along one side of the crest. If it is not solid enough and the steps have to be made along the actual edge of crest, it is well to remember that the fit, and especially the exact length of the step, are very important. The boot sole slips about on the top of a flat ice surface, and a step on a narrow crest which is made too short or too long for the boot renders the balance precarious. ”

“ Then I laid my piers accordingly. They are armored and reinforced to withstand any shock."
"The river is subject to quick rises, I believe?" suggested Blaine.
"Twenty feet in a few hours."
"The volley of ice must be almost irresistible."
"Almost," Murray smiled. "Not quite. Our ice-breakers were especially designed by Parker to withstand any weight. There's nothing like them anywhere. In fact, there will be nothing like this bridge when it's completed." Blaine offered no comment, but his questions searched to the depths of the builder's knowledge. ”

“ At Archangel, in North Russia, the criss-cross piers are more primitive; instead of being arched they are upright and stiff; but as the bridge is nearly a quarter of a mile long, and as it is taken down every spring (before the ice breaks up noisily, and the Dwina thunders into a raging torrent) , crude workmanship in a hurried routine is excusable. The main point is that a bridge akin to the Gaulish type and to the variation in Kashmir exists in North Russia. ”

“ To introduce such an amount of material into the suspension bridge as would supply increased p. 361rigidity, would only be approximating to the original beam, and neutralizing any advantages in point of cheapness which might be derivable from this form of structure, without securing the essential stiffness and strength. Iron arches were also considered inapplicable, because of the large headway required for the passage of the ice in winter, and the necessity which existed for keeping the springing of the arches clear of the water-line. ”

“ At the end of June only here and there may the mountaineer find a secure snow-bridge. The most lasting of the winter bridges, thawing from below as well as from above, because of warm currents of air passing through the tunnels, are strikingly arched and sculptured; and by the occasional freezing of the oozing, dripping water of the ceiling they become brightly and picturesquely icy. In some of the reaches, where there is a free margin, we may walk through them. ”

“ He comes,—he comes,—the Frost Spirit comes! from the frozen Labrador, From the icy bridge of the Northern seas, which the white bear wanders o'er, Where the fisherman's sail is stiff with ice, and the luckless forms below In the sunless cold of the lingering night into marble statues grow He comes,—he comes,—the Frost Spirit comes on the rushing Northern blast, And the dark Norwegian pines have bowed as his fearful breath went past. ”

“ We wound up the narrow valley in splendid loops and curves, turning upon our tracks, running through numerous tunnels, and at one time crossing a chasm so narrow and with sides so steep and precipitous that it was found necessary to build the bridge in two parts, each against the face of the cliff, and then gradually lower them until they met above the river, three hundred and fifty feet below. ”

“ He crawls along fallen trees over some torrents and chasms; across a flooded river here and there he leaps in a shambling, lopsided fashion, when stepping-stones and boulders rise above water-level; he roams into hilly districts where many a ledge of rock spans a dangerous gap; but he enjoys himself most of all when a suspension bridge of branches enables him to amble from tree to tree across a deep-lying river pent up between high cliffs. ”

“ You are standing aloft, balancing yourself upon tiny planks at the steadily advancing end of the bridge, as it forces itself over a stream of formidable width. Overhead, a gigantic, ungainly traveller, equipped with steel derricks at every corner, is advancing foot by foot as the bridge advances foot by foot. Underneath, through the thin network of planks, of girder and of supporting false work, you can see the surface of the river a full hundred feet below. ”

“ The dark river is rushing beneath the foot-bridge at our feet; and on our right the foaming flood is lighted by the fading fires of the still burning wreck of the railway bridge. The whole structure is down, and the huge beams lying like fiery serpents on the river’s surface, now smouldering in red sullen fires, then up-leaping in tiny flickering tongues of blue flame, licking round and feeding upon every remnant that remains of the bridge that only at noon had stood proud and strong against the sky, its iron limbs spanning the dark water. ”

“ Entering a tunnel in the vast wall of rock the train emerges again at one end of the bridge, and after crossing the gulf turns along the other side so that for some long time this narrowest part remains in sight, the maroon red ironwork of the bridge staring dramatically in the centre of a desolate landscape of silver grey. No patch of grass or shrub or any other live thing is to be seen—only the immensity of the scale is marked {289} by one small block-house, a minute sentinel which shows against the sky on the tallest height of cliff. ”

“ In snows, a swarm of bushes lie black and apparently rootless as the town's iron-gate bridge collapses under the centre part of the main road. Little enclaves of activity pass as stores, mere centrefolds across busy highway arteries this time of year. ”

“ At several of the windings of the road, now steep but always smooth and broad, and almost always protected, we again hung over what seemed a miniature of Brieg and the valley as far as Tourtemagnen, till arrived at a certain height, it runs nearly on a level along the edge of the ravine of the Ganther to the bold bridge at its extremity. Beneath its arch, from the rocks which back it, rushes the torrent, forming a cascade in its leap, where in winter roll the avalanches. ”

“ These were approaches to the big covered bridge spanning the main channel of the Madawaska River, and when swelled by the spring thaws and rains, the two flanking channels divided at the foundations of the house, and rustled away through the narrow paths of the small bridges to the rapids. You could stand at any window in the House and watch the ugly, rushing current, gorged with logs, come battering at the wall, jostle between the piers, and race on to the rocks and the dam and the slide beyond. ”