538 Iron Suspension Bridge over the [Ocr. 
IV.—Iron Suspension Bridge over the Beosi River, near Sdgar, Central 
India. Pl. XVI. 
We take peculiar pleasure in bringing to the notice of our readers the 
completion of this work of art, because it has been constructed entire- 
ly out of the resources of the country, and being the first attempt at 
such an adaptation of native material and native workmanship, more 
than ordinary credit is due to the skilful engineer who planned and 
executed it, and who moreover, from his long residence in India, could 
have acquired only a theoretical acquaintance with the system of sus- 
pension bridges introduced within these few years, and now so rapidly 
spreading, in Europe. 
The bridge was erected at the suggestion of T. H. Mappocx, Esq. 
agent to the Governor General in the Sagar and Nerbada territories, 
upon the plans and under the sole superintendence of Major Duncan 
PRESGRAVE, mint and assaymaster at Sagar. 
Engineers in Europe, accustomed to find every thing provided to 
their wants, can have little idea of the personal labour which devolves 
upon their brethren of the craft in this country, where to the duties of 
architect and draughtsman are not only added those of builder and over- 
seer, but the whole of the subordinate trades of the brick-maker, mason, 
carpenter, and iron-manufacturer ; in a climate too where a trifling 
exertion produces exhaustion ; and incautious exposure, fever or death; 
and where the tools must be made and the hands that employ them 
instructed ab initio. We will not say that the native mistrees and 
labourers are not capable of learning or of working well, especially 
in upper Hindustan; the bridge before us is a sufficient refutation of 
that common and indolent remark: but all will agree that a peculiar 
talent is requisite to manage, instruct, and drill them ; and this faculty 
is possessed by Major Prescrave in an extraordinary degree. The 
secret of his influence may be easily traced ;—he is a workman him- 
self: he wields the hammer; makes and works the lathe; surveys 
the ground; searches the mines ; smelts the ore ; and has all the skill 
of contriving with the simplest means*, for which the people of this 
country are themselves so conspicuous. 
The SAgar bridge may indeed be called an experiment to try the 
resources of the country ;—to see whether the iron could be manu- 
factured into bars of a quality fit for bridges;—and whether these 
bridges could be made by native workmen who had never wrought or 
* As an illustration of this remark, we refer to the description of the rollers on 
which the chains rest. 
