3 88 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



small part of the weight. Engineer Roebling says that the cables 

 are strong enough to pull up the anchorages, but, as each of these 

 weighs 60,000 tons, they probably will never be called upon to perform 

 that feat. 



The roadway on the approaches is 100 feet wide, on the spans 85 

 feet. The outside avenues are for vehicles, the next two are car-tracks, 

 and a footway 1G feet wide occupies the middle. This latter is paved 

 with asphalt as far as the anchorage, and is only three feet above the 

 driveways. Here it rises by a flight of steps to a plank walk twelve 

 feet above the driveways, from which a clear view over both sides of 

 the bridge can be had. To prevent danger in case the brakes should 

 fail to control a train coming down the incline of the roadway, the 

 car-tracks are kept at the same level for the last 600 feet on each ap- 

 proach, which brings them out at about the level of the elevated roads. 

 The cars are to be propelled by means of an endless wire rope, which 

 will run between the rails of each track, over grooved wheels, set up- 

 right 22^ feet apart. Motion is communicated to the rope by two 

 stationary engines located on the Brooklyn side. It is calculated that 

 the cars can take 80,000 passengers across in an hour, that 50,000 more 

 can cross on the promenade, while the driveways will accommodate 

 nearly 1,500 vehicles an hour. 



The roadway is lighted by 70 electric lights, set on posts upon the 

 trusses that run between the car-tracks and carriage-ways. 



The bridge, which had been fourteen years in building, was for- 

 mally opened May 24, 1883. Up to April 1st there had been paid out 

 on the work $14,429,003.25, and the expenses then remaining to be 

 met will bring the cost up to nearly $16,000,000. In length of span 

 the Brooklyn Bridge surpasses every other bridge in the world. The 

 span of Roebling's Niagara suspension-bridge is 821 feet, a little more 

 than half as great ; the span of the suspension-bridge at Fribourg, 

 built in 1832, the longest in Europe, is 870 feet ; while Roebling's 

 Cincinnati bridge, which has the second longest span in the world, 

 measures 1,057 feet between the towers, or about two thirds the length 

 of the East River span. 



-- 



THE INDUSTRIAL POSITION OF WOMEN. 



By EMILY BLACKWELL, M. D. 



AMONG all the questions affecting women, and society through 

 women, there is none more vital than that of their industrial 

 position. It is conceded that women should work, but there is a great 

 difference of opinion as to what their work is, and how they should 

 do it. This difference of public opinion is not merely a matter of 

 theory ; it leads to very positive practical results, for the support of 



