492 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



NIAGARA FALLS SUSPENSION BRIDGE. 



It is probably known to most of our readers who take an interest in such mat- 

 ters, that the Canada people have under contract and now in the course of con- 

 struction, a railway, which is intended for high speed and heavy freight, from 

 Windsor on the East shore of Detroit River, about a mile below the Falls. The 

 distance is 228 miles. 



From the eastern shore of Niagra, opposite the terminus of the Canada Rail- 

 way, a railway through Lockport along the Erie Canal to Rochester, is in the 

 course of construction. Both of these roads, it is said, will soon be finished. They 

 are, however, separated by the mighty Niagara, which runs between them in a 

 gorge more than two hundred feet deep, with nearly perpendicular banks, and 

 its waters are entirely impassable, owing to rapids tumbling over a rocky bottom 

 on a great descent through which no water-craft ever attempted to cross. 



To remedy this difficulty, some enterprising gentlemen of Western New- York, 

 and Canada, have set themselves about spanning the river from railroad to rail- 

 road with a bridge, to be suspended on wire cables, of sufficient strength to cross 

 railroad trains, as well as carriages and horses, and the work is already under 

 way, under the superintendence of Charles EUet, Jr., Engineer. To effect this, 

 they are erecting two towers on each side of the river, built of substantial ma- 

 sonry, about sixty feet high above the rocky banks. Over the tops of these tow- 

 ers sixteen wire cables, four inches in diameter each, are to be stretched and an- 

 chored into the rock and fastened in the rear of the towers. These cables will 

 weigh twenty-seven tons each, and will possess a strength equal to the support 

 of six thousand five hundred tons weight. 



From these cables thus extending across the river, the floor of the bridge is to 

 be suspended on a level with the brow of the banks ; and cars, carriages and 

 passengers will enter upon the floor of the bridge between the towers. There will 

 be two footways on the bridge, of four feet width each ; two carriage-ways of 7| 

 feet each, and a railroad track. 



The floor of the bridge will be two hundred and thirty feet above the water, 

 and in full view of the Falls above and the whirlpool below, and the bed of the 

 river between ; thus adding artificial sublimity to Nature's grandeur, and making 

 each contribute to the other. The expense of this bridge will be about two 

 hundred thousand dollars, and the grandeur of the work, and the attractions it 

 will present at this great resort of the curious and the fashionable, would seem 

 to form sufficient inducement for the outlay. 



But such was not the inducement. The gentlemen who have undertaken it — 

 like most of our enterprising countrymen — are practical and utilitarian. Lakes 

 Erie and Ontario are about thirty-six miles apart — ^joined by the noble Niagara, 

 passable any time at only a few points, and sometimes passable nowhere be- 

 tween the two lakes on account of floating ice. On both sides of the river is a 

 thick population of Anglo-Saxons, carrying on constant intercourse. To facili- 

 tate this, and annex the two countries, and join their railways, they have set 

 themselves to erecting this stupendous and seemingly impracticable structure. 

 Western New- York desires to avail herself of the transit of the Canada trade 



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