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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



cold and physical distress. Its constructors have had to face death in 

 its most repulsive form. Death, indeed, was the fate of its great pro- 

 jector, and dread disease the heritage of the greater engineer who has 

 brought it to completion. The faith of the saint and the courage of 

 the hero have been combined in the conception, the design, and the 

 execution of this work. 



Let us then record the names of the engineers and foremen who 

 have thus made humanity itself their debtor, for the successful achieve- 

 ment which is not the result of accident or of chance, but is the fruit 

 of design, and of the consecration of all personal interest to the public 

 weal. They are : John A. Roebling, who conceived the project and 

 formulated the plan of the bridge ; Washington A. Roebling, who, 

 inheriting his father's genius, and more than his father's knowledge 

 and skill, has directed the execution of this great work from its incep- 

 tion to its completion ; aided in the several departments by Charles C. 

 Martin, Francis Collingwood, William H. Payne, George W. McNulty, 

 Wilhelm Hilderbrand, Samuel R. Probasco, and E. F. Farrington, Ar- 

 thur V. Abbott, William Van der Bosch, Charles Young, and Harry 

 Tupple, who, in apparently subordinate positions, have shown them- 

 selves peculiarly fitted to command, because they have known how to 

 serve. But the record would not be complete without reference to 

 the unnamed men by whose unflinching courage, in the depths of the 

 caissons, and upon the suspended wires, the work was carried on amid 

 storms, and accidents, and dangers, sufficient to appall the stoutest 

 heart. To them we can only render the tribute which history accords 

 to those who fight as privates in the battles of freedom, with all the 

 more devotion and patriotism because their names will never be known 

 by the world whose benefactors they are. One name, however, which 

 will find no place in the official records, can not be passed over here in 

 silence. In ancient times when great works were constructed, a god- 

 dess was chosen, to whose tender care they were dedicated. Thus the 

 ruins of the Acropolis to-day recall the name of Pallas Athene to an 

 admiring world. In the middle ages the blessing of some saint was 

 invoked to protect from the rude attacks of the barbarians and the de- 

 structive hand of time the building erected by man's devotion to the 

 worship of God. So, with this bridge will ever be coupled the thought 

 of one through the subtile alembic of whose brain, and by whose facile 

 fingers, communication was maintained between the directing power 

 of its construction and the obedient agencies of its execution. It is 

 thus an everlasting monument to the self-sacrificing devotion of woman, 

 and of her capacity for that higher education from which she has been 

 too long debarred. The name of Mrs. Emily Warren Roebling will 

 thus be inseparably associated with all that is admirable in human na- 

 ture, and with all that is wonderful in the constructive world of art. 



This tribute to the engineers, however, would not be deserved if 

 there is to be found any evidence of deception on their part in the 



