Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

100 ENGINEERING WONDERS OF THE WORLD. THE GORGE AND THE COMPLETED BRIDGE. serted and riveted up. Then the jacks were removed, and the anchorage ropes slackened off, allowing the main span to ride free on its four bearings. The decking of the roadway and .the laying of the rails call for no special remark. It is interesting to note, however, that the steel- work received liberal coatings of a gray paint of such a tint that a patch of red dust would show up against it conspicuously by contrast. This colour has the further advantage of har- monizing with the landscape. The painting was done by native workmen, who, as Mr. Hobson points out, were ready to follow the white man whithersoever he would give them a lead. Until Painting ajvenf; of the railway the t h c .. natives kept clear of the Falls, Bridge. 1 of which they had a supersti- tious dread, and for some time afterwards they would not approach them without first flinging up into the air a handful of grass to propitiate the demons of the gorge. But when they found that no harm resulted from a closer association, and that good wages could be earned, . they came in their hundreds—some from the remote. districts of Central Africa— and proved very valuable workmen. • More conservative was an old Barotse chief, who watched the building of the bridge with the greatest interest, but predicted that so slender a construction could not bear the weight of a man. Even when trains began to pass over it he maintained that not its own strength but the finger of God held it up. The stiffness of the bridge was tested by sending over it a 612-ton train. At the crown the downward deflection was less than an inch with the train moving at 15 miles an hour, and only half an inch with the train at rest. For several months in the year the bridge is wet perpetually with the spray of the Falls, and for this reason it was of the utmost im- portance that the designer should make pro-