670 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



he considers to have been badly designed to resist the under-pressure to which 

 they were subject. He believes that everything was sacrificed to cheapness and 

 facility of construction, and that, in fact, the outlay was pared down to the lowest 

 possible point. His conclusions as to the causes of the accident are that the main 

 girders were not designed to resist the side pressure of the wind ; that the method 

 of erecting them strained the wind ties ; that there should have been iron cross 

 girders with proper gussets; that the flooring should have been placed diagonal- 

 ly ; that there should have been raking columns ; the bracing should have been 

 more solid; the top columns should have been tied together; at least two more 

 columns should have been inserted at each pier, and the main girders should have 

 rested directly over the columns, or have'had box girders to distribute the weight 

 over them, and not have rested upon a triangular girder in the way they did. He 

 is of opinion that the wind had, previously to the train entering on the large span 

 of the bridge, obtained such a hold upon the girders as to cause them to oscillate 

 considerably, and that the piers, not having proper bracing, rocked until the bolts 

 parted on the weather or southwest side, and caused the whole structure to col- 

 lapse and fall over. 



Mr. Ives, in conclusion, says that, in order properly to investigate the cause 

 of this calamity, the whole of the girders, together with the engine, tender and 

 carriages, should be bodily lifted by means of pontoons, though, if necessary, the 

 girders might be cut into lengths under the water. 



It may be stated that Mr. Ives, who has made the above report,is well known 

 as the constructor of several important engineering works, among them being the 

 erection of the unique and immense roof of the Lime Street Station, at Liverpool, 

 covering the largest area of any station in England ; the roof at Woodside Sta- 

 tion ; the Metropolitan Railway works; the bridge near Farringdon Street, and 

 the whole of the large bridges on the Central Railway stations to the Manchester. 



— Oldham Chronicle. 



TURNING SAHARA INTO A LAKE. 



It seems that the conversion of the Desert of Sahara into an inland sea might 

 not, after all, be so much of a blessing to the continent of Africa as was claimed 

 when the project was first broached. Al a recent meeting of the French Geo- 

 graphical Society at Paris, Dr. Cosson, a member of the Institute, combated the 

 scheme with numerous arguments He did not believe the climate of the interior 

 of Africa would be changed by the artificial sea Its shores would be as arid as 

 those of the Mediterranean in Tripoli; but, if the climate should change, the date 

 crop, which is the principal support of the natives, would be ruined. The routes 

 of the caravans from Tunis and. Algiers to the interior would also be destroyed 

 and the whole inland trade degraded. Dr. Cosson also predicted that the mass 

 of water would produce perturbations in the subterranean currents which feed the 

 artesian wells in the oases, and might cause them to fail, and thus entail the loss 

 of hundreds of thousands of palm trees. His views as to the climatic influence of 

 a Saharan Sea were opposed by other members of the society. 



