Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

262 ENGINEERING WONDERS OF THE WORLD. Fig. 6.—ERECTING BOTTOM CHORD OF WILLIAMSBURGH BRIDGE. of including the longest span of River bridges. In fact, next to Forth Bridge, it possesses the longest span in the world, though, it holds this distinction by a very small margin, its span being only 41 feet greater than that of the Brooklyn Bridge (1,600 feet as against 1,595| feet). Three features mark the Williamsburgh Bridge distinctly to the observer’s eye: First, its steel towers—the Brooklyn Bridge having stone towers; second, the short, straight, and steep shore ends of the cables, contrasting with the flat, drooping curve of the shore spans of the Brooklyn Bridge cables; third, the absence of the auxiliary diagonal stay-ropes, already men- tioned as being peculiar to the old bridge. The steel towers are described very neatly in a contemporary account as follows:— “ Roughly speaking, masonry towers would require foundations twice as large, would cost five times as much, and would take three times the East the great Main Features of the Bridge. as long to build—all these items being im- portant, of course, to both the public and the builders of the bridge. (Steel towers are used also in the Manhattan Bridge.) The omission of the diagonal stays has an even simpler reason—namely, that they are more or less troublesome to place, and havb no compensat- ing advantage.” As for the straight shore ends of the cables, they allow the shore spans to be made shorter than if these parts of the cables had to carry the roadway, which, would deflect them to a Fig. 7.—CROSS SECTION OF WILLIAMSBURGH BRIDGE. This bridge can carry about twice the load of the Brooklyn Bridge. It has only two stiffening trusses, as compared with the six of the latter structure.