Ship's bridge

“ Of course you know in a general way that the steering of the ship is done on the bridge, and that the Captain must have some way of communicating with the engine-rooms. In small ships there are speaking-tubes and jingle-bells, but in the ocean fliers the distance between the bridge and the engine-rooms is too great for these devices. It would be a most difficult task to use a speaking-tube in a howling gale, and make a man nearly three hundred feet away, in a compartment where the roar is like that of a Niagara, hear what you are trying to say. ”

“ The stick represents the high bridge, and the raft in reality rests on the surface of the water, and when the machinery above, represented by the ring, is set in motion, it rumbles across and draws with it the floating raft, which is large enough to take a great number of men and vehicles. Every ten minutes or so this floating bridge passes over from one side to another, and people pay a sou, which is the French halfpenny, to travel with it. Thus, you see, when a tall ship comes in she has only to avoid the raft, and she can sail in beneath the high bridge without any trouble. ”

“ To our left, a channel lies under giant steel bridges. Our course is not there: we are piloted towards a dock for passenger and cargo ships, and entering it in a hot glare, and colouring that almost sears, of sky and water and paint, we make our berth, wallowing once over the water’s breadth to the anger of lesser navigators, who go by in their boats bawling at the bridge in general. The handsome passenger boats with their great paddle-wheels and their red awnings lie opposite our plebeian resting-place: beside a grimy wharf, where small cranes and coal carts seem to multiply. ”

“ If the reader will bear in mind what we said some time back with reference to the origin of the bridge deck, he will be able to see the point well-illustrated in the illustration before us. The bridge deck and its sides are joined to the ship’s hull in such a way that in the case of the tug being attacked by a cross-sea she is not likely to founder through the water getting down below to the engines, as in the sad236 incident that we chronicled at an earlier stage. These tug-boats are necessarily exceptionally powerful, the Blackcock having over 1,000 horse-power. ”

“ They have a rise of sixty feet, sufficient to permit the passage of steamers under them, even at high water. The piers are sunk through the sand to the bed-rock, a distance of from ninety to one hundred and twenty feet, the work having been accomplished by means of iron wrought caissons and atmospheric pressure. Each span consists of four ribbed arches, made of cast steel. The bridge is two stories high, the lower story containing a double car track, and the upper one two horse-car tracks, two carriageways and two foot-ways. ”

“ Much later invasions, also prehistoric, must have come over the sea in boats, for the bridge of land had the history of most bridges, the water swallowed it up; but every boat may be regarded as a floating bridge which is moved from place to place, so that a pontist when he studies the sea-borne invasions keeps in touch with his favourite subject. ”

“ Shocked instantly into consciousness we leap from our bunks, into the inch or two of water that is swishing about the stateroom, and close the port, just too late to save ourselves from a wetting. But our interest is aroused by the dull gray sea, the rising and falling waves, the driving spray, and, quickly dressing, we hurry out on deck and up to the bridge, fearful, perhaps, that trouble is at hand. But once on the bridge everyone is calm—no one is worried. ”

“ Down by the river-bank a large force of engineers were working like mad to throw a pontoon across the swift current. The material had already been brought up—heavy, flat-bottomed boats, carried on wagons drawn by motor-tractors, great beams and planks, boxes of bolts—everything, in a word, needed to build this bridge just here at a point which had no doubt been selected long in advance! The bridge shot out into the river with a speed which seemed to Stewart almost miraculous. ”

“ There was nothing of blown spindrift to it; it was green and solid and flowed with a heave and a hurl that made no more of slamming a man to the deck than of tossing a life-buoy. I went the whole length of the bridge when I lost my grip on the port stanchion, brought up against the after-rail, and then went down into a tangle of signal flags. I remember distinctly, though, that the walls of water rushing by completely blotted out sea and sky to port and starboard, and that there was all [Pg 129] the darkness of late twilight in the cavern of the engulfed bridge. ”

“ Ranging a number of vessels side by side, at no great distance one from another, parallel with the course of the stream, which ran down the straits, anchoring each vessel stem and stern to keep it in place, and then laying upon these supports a long wooden platform, they made a floating bridge of considerable strength, reaching from the Asiatic to the European coast, on which not only men, but horses, camels, chariots, and laden carts passed over safely from the one continent to the other. ”

“ There are twenty-eight of these pontoons, each 160 feet long and ten feet broad; they are each divided into eleven water-tight compartments, and moored both up and down stream by means of iron cables. Viewed from the lower part of the harbor as one approaches from the sea, the bridge appears like a massive fixed structure, and we could hardly believe the captain of the steamer when he told us that it was only a floating affair, resting on pontoons.
"There, we've described the bridge the best way we can, and the Doctor says it is very well done for inexperienced boys like ourselves. ”

“ The navigation of the river thus remains unobstructed—for many vessels proceed to the staiths above the bridge for the purpose of taking in their coals—while the inhabitants on each side enjoy all the advantages of facilitated intercourse. The breadth of the bridge at the top is thirty-two feet including the footpaths on each side; and the carriage-way is formed of lime, marl, and gravel, above a flooring of timber, which is laid across the iron ribs of the arch. ”

“ Even the elements seemed to set their face against the proposed bridge. The Straits are above twelve miles in length, the shores throughout being rocky and precipitous. The water that fills the passage is never at rest, and the fall of the tide is from twenty to twenty-five feet. Moreover, the wind blows through the Straits with such violence, that a bridge must be strong indeed to withstand its rude shocks. ”

“ Your boatmen, refreshed by the grateful coolness of the locality, speedily bring you to an open bridge; which, spanning the river at its narrowest point, unites the secluded valley, in which the holyday-keeping crowd are wont to assemble during the noon-tide sunshine, with the more open space on which they congregate towards the evening, to profit by the waters of a superb fountain of white marble, richly adorned with arabesques; and to inhale the fresh breeze that sweeps over the Bosphorus. ”

“ The only bridge to it is a couple of thin ropes hardly to be seen save when a signal light flares blue in the night, but along these ropes crawl the drenched seamen, their hearts filled with new hopes as their ears catch the deep encouraging roar of their rescuers. ”

“ Sometimes a hanging bridge has to be crossed, spanning a horrid chasm, at the bottom of which roars a foaming torrent—the bridge itself, composed of ropes and brambles, all the while swinging like a hammock under the tread of the affrighted traveller! ”

“ The great curve of its single arch is much to be commended, especially when, coming from the direction of the railway-station, you see it frame with its sharp compass-line the perfect picture, the reach of the Canal on the other side. But the backs of the little shops make from the water a graceless collective hump, and the inside view is the diverting one. The big arch of the bridge—like the arches of all the bridges—is the waterman’s friend in wet weather. ”

“ There is a scurry of dim noises in the dark. Something huge moves through the air. It is a bridge opening. Its arms make a massive gesture upward. A boat is coming through, a heavy shape drifting among the carnival ribbons that hang down in the black water. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At a hundred feet it seemed not so large, but exceedingly more graceful; at a thousand feet all its exquisite lines were perfect, its bulk not so great, but the pathos of its departing beauty wonderful; at two thousand feet it was still beautiful and large against the granite ring of the harbor; but, alas! it was moving. The captain was an almost indistinguishable spot upon the bridge. The stacks, in their way gorgeous, took on beautiful proportions. ”

“ Another type of frame-bridge is the cantilever, which has been used in Indian frontier expeditions to bridge swift steep-banked streams. Improvised suspension bridges are also used. Floating bridges are made not only of pontoons but also of boats of all sorts, casks lashed together, and rafts. They are almost always combined with one or two bays of trestle bridging at the shore ends. ”

“ The third and fourth plans propose to construct a draw for the passage of boats, in the suspension or the western bridge.
Draws are common in bridges across arms of the sea where the tide ebbs and flows, for the passage of sea vessels, and also in bridges over rivers with a sluggish current; but we entertain great doubts whether a draw in either of the bridges, as proposed, can be constructed so as to afford 'a convenient and safe passage' for the steamboats that ply upon the Ohio. Some of them are about two hundred and fifty feet long, and from fifty to sixty feet in width. ”

“ Great stone and iron bridges span the broad stream, its opposite shore almost faded in the light mist of the wintry day. Walking towards the middle of the bridge, whence a splendid view may be obtained, one sees the long row of buildings on the farther islands standing out of the mist. ”

“ You don’t get much for being a bridge tender and mostly old veterans are bridge tenders. Anyway, they don’t get much out our way, because big boats don’t come up and they don’t have to open the bridge often.
When we got down to the bridge we saw that the tide was right up so we even had to duck our heads to get under, and right on the other side of the bridge was a tugboat standing facing upstream and its whistle was screeching and screeching just like a dog stands and barks when he’s mad. It seemed awful funny because it was a small tug and it made so much noise. ”

“ The cast-iron ballast plates measure six feet in length, five feet in breadth, and five inches in thickness in the central parts; but towards the edge, they diminish in thickness to two and a half inches. The ends of the chain thus fixed, are loaded with mound-stones and earthy matters, to the level of the roadway of the bridge.
“On the south side of the Tweed, the pillar or tower of masonry forming the abutment or point of suspension, is built upon a bench or foundation, excavated in the face of a precipitous sandstone rock, and is only about twenty feet in height ”

“ Where the topographical conditions are such that bridges can be made of such heights, without prohibitive cost, as to permit, at all navigable stages of water, the passage of boats best suited to the river commerce, it is for the best interest of both the land traffic and the river traffic that bridges be so constructed. ”

“ But it must be remembered that the bridging of a river, even in primitive times, was the next easiest thing to a ferry, and in some circumstances easier even than a ferry. A bridge need not be built of piles. It may be built of boats, and in principle, even over a broad stream, once you could build a boat bridge at all you could build it of almost indefinite length. What would militate against the effort to make a pile bridge were depth and rapidity of stream, but even these, unless the rapidity were very great indeed, did not prevent the throwing of a bridge of boats. ”

“ Railways have created an entirely new species of bridge, to enable a train to intersect a road, to cross canals in slanting directions, to turn amid jagged precipices, and to cross arms of the sea at a sufficient elevation not to interfere with the passage of ships,—objects not to be accomplished by suspension-bridges because of their oscillation, nor girder for lack of support, the desiderata being extensive span with rigid strength, so triumphantly realized in the tubular bridge. ”

“ You are not perhaps interested in the construction of the bridge, but you must own that there is no more splendid gate to a port and a city to which thousands of ships resort than this noble structure. ”

“ There you have one of the world's strongest bridges, the suspension bridge between New York and Brooklyn. It is of colossal dimensions, and yet it looks so fine and delicate as it hangs between its two mighty piers. You see that vessels with the tallest masts can pass clear below, for it is poised 135 feet above high water. The length is nearly a mile and a quarter. It is wonderful that men have been able to stretch this huge span of iron above the water. Wait a little and you will see a kind of aerial railway. ”