REVIEWS — REPORT ON VICTORIA BRIDGE. 467 



He-port on Victoria Bridge. By Eobert Stephenson, Esq., M. P. 



December, ISoo. 



Canadians have been so accustomed to look with profound respect 

 upon the achievements of their American neighbours in the art of 

 bridge building, and have beeu so habituated to consider their rail- 

 way structures as models of the most successful adaptation of means 

 to the accomplishment of desired ends, that they may be pardoned 

 when they point Avith exultation to the immense structure now 

 in progress at Montreal, or in a similar spirit claim their full 

 share of credit in the completed one that spans the chasm between 

 the Niagara Frontier and the State of New York ; for both sur- 

 pass in magnitude and in boldness of conception any similar works 

 in America, we may say in the world. 



Notwithstanding, however, the natural pride in the material 

 advancement of the country indicated by these works, the expendi- 

 ture involved in the completion of one of them is not contemplated 

 without misgiving, nor are we justly chargeable with captiousness if 

 we regard with enquiring doubt the soundness of the policy which 

 designed a work of such magnitude as the Victoria Bridge to serve a 

 traffic so little developed as that of the Grand Trunk Railway ; and at 

 the same time substituting in its construction, as well as in the con- 

 struction of lesser bridges and viaducts, a material so expensive as iron, 

 for timber, which is found in such abundance in the vicinity of nearly 

 all the works. To have advanced so far at one bound as to erect in 

 Canada bridges and viaducts equal in cost, — as they doubtless are in 

 durability, — to the best structures in Britain, argues a confidence in the 

 ability of this country to supply a traffic sufficient to justify such 

 expenditures, which many believe will not be borne out by the result ; 

 and there are not wanting those who, while admitting that the dura- 

 ble fabrics now drawing to completion on the Grrand Trunk Railway 

 are well calculated to endure for ages, and to reduce working expenses ; 

 yet point to the structures of the United States as models of works 

 that A\ r ould be infinitely better suited to the immediate wants and 

 resources of a country so young as Canada. 



On the other hand those who have initiated, and support the 

 policy of so building as to require no re-building, argue that a 

 more careful estimate of the cost of maintenance of permanent way 

 as affected by the system of construction adopted, will dissipate these 

 doubts, and teach us that true economy is best subserved by securing 

 a permanent way that shall be, iu as far as structures are concerned 

 that which its name indicates. They argue moreover that as between 

 structures of indestructable material and those of a material obnoxious 



