THE SPIDER'S SPAN 105 
tablet upon the stone bridge-tower the spider gets 
no credit. 
Day after day and week after week we might 
have seen, travelling back and forth against the 
sky, a wheel-shaped messenger reeling off its tiny 
wire. Night and day it was busy, each trip add- 
ing one more strand to the growing cable which 
was to support the great substructure below. 
And what was this travelling wheel called ? 
" The carrier," or " traveller," if I remember right- 
ly. Why this obviously intentional slight and 
discourtesy when every field and wood and copse 
in the country indeed, on the globe showed its 
living example, and bore its myriadfold witness 
that the " spider " was the only legitimate and 
proper designation ? 
In the other most notable suspension-bridge, at 
Niagara, the time-honored methods of the spider 
were further and conspicuously recognized, but 
here again without any courteous engraven ac- 
knowledgment on the tablet of fame, so far as I 
have learned. 
A kite was flown from the American shore, and 
reeled out so as to fall upon the Canadian side, 
and this initial strand was drawn across, and sub- 
sequently strengthened by the travelling reel. 
The ends of the added wires were firmly se- 
cured at their anchorage, and the completed cable 
at length re-enforced by guy-ropes. 
