164 GREEN TRAILS AND UPLAND PASTURES 



show clearly enough the importance of apparent solid- 

 ity in the aesthetic appeal of bridges unless the steel 

 framework can find some new, airy grace of its own. 

 Occasionally we meet with a small steel bridge, not 

 designed for bearing heavy traffic, which does achieve a 

 pleasant effect of strength in lightness; and of course the 

 high railroad trestle, with its tall, lean piers and its 

 bare, level top, has a quaint, spider-like grace as it 

 strides the chasm and the foaming mountain torrent, 

 bearing the train far aloft against the face of the cliffs 

 upon its airy slenderness. The suspension type of 

 bridge is not a new one. The similarity between 

 one of those "home-made" suspension bridges for 

 foot passengers, so common on our American rivers, 

 which consists of a plank walk hung between two 

 cables stretched from trees on either bank, and the 

 pictures of native rope bridges in the Andes, is strik- 

 ing. Our little suspension bridge across the Housa- 

 tonic, which sways so deliciously when we cross upon 

 it, and so terrifies the dog, is, after all, but a pocket 

 edition of the boulevards that leap the East River out 

 of the flanks of Manhattan. But the cantilever 

 bridges of steel are something new as well as angular, 

 and grace is not yet their attribute, nor monumental 

 solidity, either. Unlike the builders of the Renais- 

 sance, our engineers are not yet artists. But this does 

 not mean that we must hark wailfully back to Ruskin 

 for an expression of our feelings. Why should we 



