September 11, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



325 



former. An engine might pound itself to 

 death in a dark basement, but would have 

 its slightest vagary looked after in one of 

 these better planned housings. This result 

 cannot be entirely accounted for by the 

 larger room, the better light, the rules and 

 regulations. There is a refining, educating 

 influence in these artistically planned con- 

 structions that makes better men and more 

 efficient workmen of the attendants. What- 

 ever they may cost, there is a credit side to 

 the balance sheet. 



Our railways are contributing toward 

 this change. They have found the decora- 

 tion of passenger trains a profitable thing 

 and, so stimulated, have carried it to ex- 

 cess. Handsome terminal stations, adorned 

 in good taste, are supplanting the dingy, 

 forbidding and inconvenient places so long 

 in use, while the shed type of depot is being 

 crowded out by beautiful, quaint buildings 

 set in the midst of lawns and flower beds. 

 More significant still is the tendency to 

 adopt a high standard of maintenance, 

 under which the roadbed is kept trim and 

 neat, flanked by sodded slopes and bordered 

 by clean and well-kept buildings; which 

 also requires the rolling stock, the shops 

 and yards to be maintained in a high state 

 of eflBciency. This is not necessarily in it- 

 self artistic, but it furnishes at least a neces- 

 sary foundation. That the railway man- 

 agement understands, to some degree, the 

 commercial value of the artistic element in 

 its business is further evidenced by the 

 nature of its advertising, that seizes on any 

 advantage of scenery or artificial effect that 

 is at hand. 



IN'ot mirch can be said in praise of the ar- 

 tistic qualities of our bridges, for these attri- 

 butes are conspicuous through their absence. 

 The American bridge satisfies the conditions 

 of stability and least cost, but of beauty of 

 line or balanced proportion that make it fit 

 into and harmonize with the landscape Or 

 even that Enakes it attractive considered by 



itself, it has little. And this is to be the 

 more regretted because an intelligent appli- 

 cation of right principles would much im- 

 prove the effect, without adding much, if 

 any, to the cost or making the structure less 

 safe and durable. It is true that the truss 

 with parallel chords, especially of the 

 through type, does not lend itself readily to 

 artistic treatment, yet even here something 

 can be done. It is not so much a matter of 

 adding ornament as the proper treatment 

 of the organic lines, the length of spans, the 

 relation of length of panel to height of truss, 

 the location of the piers and the form of 

 their outlines. Ornamentation is not to be 

 used so much for its own sake, but rather 

 where it is needed to accentuate these or- 

 ganic markings. There are. some truss 

 bridges of such size that they give pleasure 

 to the observer through their massiveness^ 

 though lacking in other desirable qualities. 

 The cantilever, like the Pratt and its rela- 

 tives, is difiicult of treatment, while arch 

 forms, either braced or of the suspension 

 type, are naturally pleasing and best adap- 

 ted for artistic expression. Of these tj^pes 

 we have a few satisfactory examples, like 

 the Eads and the Grand Avenue bridges at 

 St. Louis, the Brooklyn and "Washington 

 bridges at New York. In our public parks 

 are to be found many small bridges of good 

 design, while in our cities there are some 

 creditable ones of larger dimensions. There 

 is some tendency toward the use of curved 

 chords in bridges designed for urban use, 

 and a further evidence of interest in the 

 curved line through the introduction of the 

 Melan arch. In some respects ib is unfor- 

 tunate that the economical element has 

 driven out the stone arch, which possesses 

 so many of the elements of a beautiful struc- 

 ture for most situations, and it may be that 

 this new form will become a substitute for 

 the old, with added characteristics of its 

 own. However much we may admire the 

 inventive genius and mechanical ingenuity 



