Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

THE GREAT ZAMBESI BRIDGE. 95 recesses in the channels of the pedestal and reach the Zambesi until May 1904. The first saddle. Furthermore, at each end is a cir- material delivered was that for a cableway to M.Inst.C.E., designer of the bridge. GENERAL SIDE ELEVATION OF THE BRIDGE. By courtesy of Mr. G. A. Hobson, cular plate kept tight up against the pin by a bolt passing through the centre of the pin. The contracts for the construction of the steelwork and for the erection of it at the site were let to the Cleveland Bridge Company of Darlington in May 1903. Ex- actness to one thirty-second of an inch was specified for some of the members ; and to facilitate the assembling of the parts provision was made for pinning them together as erected, prior to riveting. Before the steelwork left the builders’ yard it was assembled in sections, so that any inaccuracy might be detected and remedied. Delivery of the parts at the Falls was de- layed by unforeseen difficulties in railroad construction, owing to which railhead did not Contract let for the Steelwork. eastern bank Erecting a Cableway across the Gorge. across, cord, which served to gorge. This in turn be erected across the gorge near the line of the bridge, to transport to the one half of the steelwork, and also rails, sleepers, and plant for the immediate extension of the railway northwards to- wards Broken Hill. A rocket was shot carrying the end of a pull a wire over the helped a small steel rope across, to bear a temporary conveyor. Mr. C. Beresford Fox, nephew of Sir Douglas Fox, was the first person to make the apparently perilous pas- sage of the chasm, 400 and more feet above the boiling torrent. The temporary conveyor transported the materials for the eastern tower of the per-