Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

THE BRIDGES OF THE MENAI STRAITS. 145 A Foolhardy Feat. they were so daring as a workman on the great cantilever bridge across the Niagara gorge, who, when but a narrow gap separated the two canti- lever arms, laid a plank across it, walked deliberately to the middle, and stood on his head, kicking his legs about just to show how little he cared for the whirlpool raging two hundred feet below ! bars of inch-square iron. By the end of the year the structure was complete, and on Jan- uary 30, 1826, a stage-coach made the passage of the bridge at the head of a great procession of people of all ranks. This remarkable bridge has a roadway length of just 1,000 feet, while the suspension chains measure 1,715 feet from anchorage to anchor- age. The roadway, 30 feet wide, gives accom- MENAI SUSPENSION BRIDGE FROM THE ANGLESEY SIDE. (Photo, London and North-Western Railway Company.) The remaining fifteen chains were raised in the same manner as the first, and by July 9, 1825, the last was in place. A band as- cended to a temporary plat- The form on the centre of the span Bridge anj played the National An- opened. r J them to the crowds which had assembled for the occasion. Then followed the more prosaic work of attaching the road- way of stout planks to the vertical suspension (1,408) Facts and Figures. modation for two carriage-ways and a foot- path. Over 33,000 pieces of iron, weighing 2,187 tons, are incorporated in the structure, the cost of which was £120,000. During a gale the bridge oscillates slightly, but the crossing of heavy vehicles does not affect it sensibly. Simultaneously with this bridge Telford erected one of similar construction across the 10