Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 9 · column 2 of 6 · from the scan, no model involved
It is refreshing to read books on bridge building pubhshed in the 1870s and 1880s. They were blunt and to the point. In “The Designing of Ordinary Iron Highway Bridges,” pubhshed in 1884, a world-renowned authority on the subject, Professor J. A. L. Waddell, takes only seven pages to describe hofv to erect a bridge like the Tapp’s Ford Bridge. No jargon, no wasted words, just straight directions. Here’s how he takes care of incompetent help, “It should be an understood thing between the foreman and the men, that any one who drops any portion of the bridge into the water forfeits a certain amount of his wages.” No warning notices, no remedial training, no EEO or union grievances: just dock the incompetent’s pay.
lb test a bridge in the old days, a large number of people would stand on it, or heavily loaded wagons or steamrollers would be lined up on the bridge. Ib test if the long diagonal connecting rods and' their turnbuckles were properly adjusted, a “tuner” would walk along the bridge with a hammer and whack each rod. He would listen to the resultant ringing, and then turn the tumbuckles so all the rods sounded alike. Afterwards, maintenance custodians would keep the bridge timed.
Another author, Alfred Boiler, in his book, “Practical Treatise on the Construction of Iron Highway Bridges,” published in 1876, picks up on this point. “A serious objection to the use of screw-ends arises from the fact that they are a temptation to those custodians of public works who have a mania for screwing up any thing they can get a wrench around, and so, in their efforts to “adjust” a bridge, they are very apt to leave diagonals under different degrees of tension.” This may be the origin of our expression, “screwingup.”
Until 1932, each county in Virginia handled its own road and bridge construction through the issuance of bonds for financing. And counties in 1880s, faced bridge companies that, according to Professor Waddell, adhered to the principle of “Secure for each job all the money you can get, an cl furnish as little material as you can get away with.” For Tapp’s Ford Bridge, when it was originally
93.8%