William Doolittle - Inventions in the Century

The Tubular Arch Bridge. – This differs from the tubular bridge proper, in that the former consists of a bridge the body of which is supported by a tubular archway of iron and steel, whereas in the latter the body of the bridge itself is a tube. The tubular arch is also properly classed as a girder bridge because the great tube which covers the span is simply an immense beam or girder, which supports the superstructure on which the floor of the bridge is laid. A fine illustration of this style of bridge is seen in what is known as the aqueduct bridge over Rock Creek at Washington, D. C., in which the arch consists of two cast-iron jointed pipes, supporting a double carriage and a double street car way, and through which pipes all the water for the supply of the City of Washington passes. General M. C. Meigs was the engineer.

Another far grander illustration of such a structure, in combination with the truss system, is that of the Illinois and St. Louis bridge, across the Mississippi, of which Captain James B. Eads was the engineer. There are three great spans, the central one of which has a length of about 520 feet, and the others a few feet less. Four arches form each span, each arch consisting of an upper and lower curved member or rib, extending from pier to pier, and each member composed of two parallel steel tubes.

Truss and truss arched bridges. – These, for the most part, are those quite modern forms of iron or wooden bridges in which a supplementary frame work, consisting of iron rods placed obliquely, vertically or diagonally, and cemented together, and with the main horizontal beams either above or below the same, to produce a stiff and rigid structure, calculated to resist strain from all directions.

Previous to the 19th century, the greatest bridges being constructed mostly of solid masonry piers and arches, no demand for a bridge of this kind existed; but after the use of wrought iron and steel became extensive in bridge making, and as these apparently light and airy frames may be extended, piece by piece across the widest rivers, straits, and arms of the sea, a substitute for the great, expensive, and frequent supporting piers became a want, and was supplied by the system of trusses and truss arches. The truss system has also been applied to the construction of vast modern bridges in places where timber is accessible and cheap. Each different system invented bears the name of its inventor. Thus, we have the Rider, the Fink, the Bollman, the Whipple, the Howe, the Jones, the Linville, the McCallum, Towne's lattice and other systems.

What is called the cantilever system has of late years to a great extent superseded the suspension construction. This consists of beams or girders extending out from the opposite piers at an upward diagonal angle, and meeting at the centre over the span, and there solidly connected together, or to horizontal girders, in such manner that the compression load is thrown on to the supporting piers, upward strains received at the centre, and side deflections provided against. It is supposed that greater rigidity is obtained by this means than by the suspension, and, like the suspension, great widths may be spanned without an under supporting frame work. Two fine examples of this type are found, one in a bridge across the Niagara adjacent to the suspension bridge above described and one across the river Forth at Queens Ferry in Scotland. The Niagara Bridge is a combination of cast steel and iron. It was designed by C. C. Schneider and Edmund Hayes. It was built for a double-track railroad. The total length of the bridge is 910 feet between the centres of the anchorage piers. The cantilevers rest on two gigantic steel towers, standing on massive stone piers 39 feet high. The clear span between the towers is 470 feet, and the height of the bridge, from the mad rush of waters to the car track is 239 feet.

Messrs Fowler and Baker were the engineers of the Forth railway bridge. It was begun in 1883 and finished in 1890. It is built nearly all of steel, and is one of the most stupendous works of the kind. It crosses two channels formed by the island of Inchgarvie, and each of the channel spans is 1710 feet in the clear and a clear headway of 150 feet under the bridge. Three balanced cantilevers are employed, poised on four gigantic steel tube legs supported on four huge masonry piers. The height of the bridge above the piers is 330 feet. The cantilever portion has the appearance of a vast elongated diamond. Steel lattice work of girders, forms the upper side of the cantilever, while the under side consists of a hollow curve approaching in form a quadrant of a circle drawn from the base of the legs or struts to the ends of the cantilever.

Such is the growth of these great bridges with their tremendous spans across which man is spinning his iron webs, that when seen at night with a fiery engine pulling its thundering train across in the darkness, one is reminded of Milton's description, "over the dark abyss whose boiling gulf tamely endured a bridge of wondrous length, from Hell continued, reaching the utmost orb of this frail world."

The lighthouses of the century, in masonry, do not greatly excel in general principles those of preceding ones, as at Eddystone, designed by Smeaton. Nicholas Douglass, however, invented a new system of dovetailing, and great improvements have been made in the system of illuminating.

Lighthouses are also distinguished from those of preceding centuries by the substitution of iron and cast steel for masonry. The first cast-iron lighthouse was put up at Point Morant, Jamaica, in 1842. Since then they have taken the form of iron skeleton towers.

One of the latest and most picturesque of lighthouses is that of Bartholdi's statue of Liberty enlightening the world, the gift of the French government to the United States, framed by M. Eiffel, the great French engineer, and set up by the United States at Bedloe's Island in New York harbor. It consists of copper plates on a network of iron. Although the statue is larger than any in the world of such composite construction, its success as a lighthouse is not as notable as many farther seaward.

In excavating , dredging and draining , the inventions of the century have been very numerous, but, like numerous advances in the arts, such inventions, so far as great works are concerned, have developed from and are closely related to steam engineering.

The making of roads, railroads, canals and tunnels has called forth thousands of ingenious mechanisms for their accomplishment. A half dozen men with a steam-power excavator or dredger can in one day perform a greater extent of work than could a thousand men and a thousand horses in a single day a few generations ago.

An excavating machine consisting of steel knives to cut the earth, iron scoops, buckets and dippers to scoop it up, endless chains or cranes to lift them, actuated by steam, and operated by a single engineer, will excavate cubic yards of earth by the minute and at a cost of but a few dollars a day.

Dredging machines of a great variety have been constructed. Drags and scoops for elevating, and buckets, scrapers and shovels, and rotating knives to first loosen the earth, suction pumps and pipes, which will suck great quantities of the loosened earth through pipes to places to be filled – these and kindred devices are now constantly employed to dig and excavate, to deepen and widen rivers, to drain lands, to dig canals, to make harbours, to fill up the waste places and to make courses for water in desert lands.

Inventions for the excavating of clay, piling and burning it in a crude state for ballast for railways, are important, especially for those railways which traverse areas where clay is plentiful, and stones and gravel are lacking.

Sinking shafts through quicksands by artificially freezing the sand, so as to form a firm frozen wall immediately around the area where the shaft is to be sunk, is a recent new idea.