Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume III

•A- THE STATUE OF LIBERTY, ON BEDLOE S ISLAND, AT THE ENTRANCE TO NEW YORK HARBOUR. BUILDING THE STATUE OF LIBERTY. An account of the Erection of the Colossal Figure on Bedloe’s Island in New York Harbour. STANDING on Bedloe’s Island, a small islet in New York Bay, is the great Statue of Liberty, the largest monu- ment of its kind, the creation and erection of which called for no mean engineering skill. This colossal female figure, whose torch, towers over 300 feet into the air, is an imposing object as seen from steamships coming up the har- bour, from ferry-boat and bridge and river, and from the encircling cities and hills and plains of New York and New Jersey. Although the object of this article is mainly to describe how this giant among statues was built in France, transported Ineeptiön of Over 2,000 miles across the the Scheme. Atlantic, and erected in New York Harbour, some reference to its inception, and the reason why it adorns its present site, will not be inappropriate. It is the work of the eminent French sculptor M. Auguste Bar- tholdi, who obtained his idea of creating such a figure and presenting it to the American nation from his friend M. Laboulaye. The object of artist and friend was to pro- duce something that would be a fitting gift, and commemorative of the long-established goodwill between the two nations. An influential com- mittee was formed, and so far back as 1874 the French public were asked to subscribe to a fund to meet the cost of building the statue. Various festivities were held throughout the country with a view to collecting th© necessary money, and in that year the work was commenced. Two years later a portion of the monument, the hand A Splendid Gift from France.