Greatest Stone Arch in America An Engineering Feat of Unique Historical Interest H By GUY ELLIOTT MITCHELL E LIVED in a little cabin, alone and grim. He hunted, he fished. He spoke to but few, and none knew his name, till he came to be spoken of as "Cabin John." So say some old characters in Washington who have lived to see the city grow from a straggling town of dirty streets, puddles and ponds, and stagnant canals, to an imperial city of magnificent residences and broad, perfectly paved streets, and who remember the construction of the famous Cabin John bridge over forty years ago. The question of a city water supply for the national capital early presented itself to the the government engineers. Washington itself is at tide water; and since only the waters of the Potomac were available, it was seen to be necessary to go some distance above the city to secure an unpolluted supply. Such an opportunity was found some miles to the westward of the city, and the work of constructing the big conduit necessary began. Then came the problem of crossing a great gorge some 160 feet deep and over 350 feet wide, at the bottom of which flashed in the sunlight Cabin John creek; and as the structure progressed, it received the name of Cabin John bridge. The original plans contemplated a bridge of six arches, each of 60-foot span. The piers were to be seven feet thick. The present great single-span bridge was the suggestion of Alfred L. Rives in 1857, then employed as an assistant to Captain Montgomery Meigs on the work of the National Capitol extension. Shortly afterward, Engineer Rives was appointed construction engineer of that section of the conduit work, under Captain. Meigs. The site of the old fisherman's cabin was a short distance from and overlooking the sweeping Potomac river and the Chesapeake and Ohio canal, one of the first large results of General Washington's policy of internal improvement through national appropriations. In order to lessen the cost of transportation of material to the bridge site, a crib dam was thrown across Cabin John creek near its intersection with the canal, thus providing sufficient depth of water to allow the canal boats to bring their loads of rock and other building material up the canal and into the creek, to the position designed for the bridge. The work progressed with considerable celerity. Commencing in 1857, it was suspended in 1861, resumed the following year under the Interior Department, and was completed in 1864. Ill-feeling arose between Secretary of War Floyd and Captain (later General) Meigs, owing to the latter's refusal to appoint a man on the work, recommended by Secretary Floyd, whom Captain Meigs deemed unfit for the position. As a result of this, Captain Meigs was superseded by Captain (later General) Benham in charge of the work. Captain. Meigs, however, was to furnish the plans and estimates and to visit the work in order to see that they were carried out. Upon the appointment of the objectionable person, Captain Meigs informed the Comptroller of the Treasury that the estimates did not include this man's salary. This continued obstinacy drew upon Meigs the further wrath of Secretary Floyd, and he was ordered to the Dry Tortugas, being succeeded by Lieutenant Charles St. Clair Morton. Before leaving the work as chief engineer, however, Captain Meigs had caused his name as such to be cut on one of the ring stones of the bridge. Early in 1861, Lieutenant Morton caused his own name and that of CABIN JOHN BRIDGE, THE LONGEST STONE ARCH IN AMERICA. Located at one of the beauty spots in the vicinity of Washington, D. C.-Through the conduit enclosed by this bridge passes all the water supply of the national capital. Captain Benham to be cut on other ring stones, as the bridge engineers. When Secretary Floyd resigned in 1861, Captain Meigs was immediately recalled and again placed in charge of the work; and but a few days later, two of the ring stones of Cabin John bridge had blank panels in their heads. It has frequently been stated that the name of Jefferson Davis, as Secretary of War, was chipped out of a panel in the bridge, following his secession and elevation to the Presidency of the Confederacy, but this statement has been denied. There is no official account of such a proceeding; nevertheless it is a fact that the panel which originally had chiseled across its face the name of the War Secretary, is to-day a blank plane, sunken a little below the surrounding stone. It is the proud boast of most Washingtonians, that they have in Cabin John bridge, with its imposing 220-foot single span, the longest stone arch in the world. This boast was well founded at the time of the construction of the bridge, and endured for years; but according to Le Génie Civil (October 4. 1903) there are two longer stone arches in the world, though Cabin John stands imperial in the United States. These longer arches. are the Luxembourg bridge, built in 1899-1903, with a span of 275 feet; and the Marbegno bridge, recently completed over the River Adda in Italy, with a span of 236 feet. There was a bridge at Trezzo, over the same river, with a longer arch than the Marbegno bridge, but this was destroyed. So that, according to Le Génie Civil, Cabin John bridge now ranks third among the world's longest single-span stone bridges. The arch stones in Cabin John bridge are four feet deep at the crown, and six feet at the impost. The curve is a segment of 110 degrees; the radius of the soffit is 134.28 feet; the rise is 57.26 feet. Since the completion of the bridge, all the city water supply for Washington has flowed through the conduit enclosed by it. Were old Cabin John to return to earth, he would scarce recognize the site of his humble cabin. The surrounding grounds have been beautified; electric. cars run to the bridge; and it is now one of the chief pleasure resorts of Washington, some eight miles from the city. George Frisbie Hoar Statesman, Scholar, Patriot A Tribute Bp Frank W. Gunsaulus, President, Armour Institute of Technology T 'HERE are several aspects of statesmanship, which our own American Republic will impress upon all realizing nationalities in all time to come. Our enterprise of self-government was conceived under the operation of the ideas of liberty and law, which took a long time for formal statement, but which rose at last into a song-like proclamation of Independence and Dependence:-the Declaration of Independence, the voice of liberty; and the Constitution of the United States, the voice of dependence upon law. No statesman of recent times has more completely uttered the full meaning of the gospel of human progress under government, and hence the true relationship of liberty and law, than the late Senator from Massachusetts-George Frisbie Hoar. Physically his race is run. He has fulfilled his mission, leaving only a living principle and the inspiration of his personal character, his kind and generous nature, and his untiring labors for our nation's welfare and progress. In In his public career he manifested and illustrated in large measure the capacity of our public institutions to inspire, foster, and develop true greatness and genuineness of character. his early career as a legislator, he was a prophet of technical education; and he stood upon these foundation principles while he pleaded for the modern school of technology with its consequent issues in industrial and agricultural education. Senator Hoar was a profound and receptive student of history. Having in his veins the blood of Roger Sherman and that of other ancestors of the highest intellectual type, he had prophetic power because he had intellectual retrospect. I have often heard him quote George Eliot to the effect that "Our finest hope is finest memory." He not only revered the achievements of the past, but he interpreted the manner of their coming and the spirit in which they were generated. Taking up, for example, the theme of human progress, he read the teachings of the past so accurately that he became a champion of that sort of education which will make the American free in the presence of great natural forces and opportunities, by making him the obedient servant of natural laws. He saw that the State could not afford to have orators and journalists prating about liberty and the greatness of America, if the American was not to be educated in his hands as well as in his head and in his heart. He saw that mere skill inherited from industrious ancestors, and mere facilities springing from a happy combination of faculties, would in no case afford a permanent foundation for the successful Americanism which he defended. This great continent appeared to him as an armory of tremendous forces; and the education which gave men a key to the armory and a knowledge of the use of these forces, was, to his mind a matter of patriotic necessity. On that morning which we shall never forget at Armour Institute of Technology, when President Eliot of Harvard University and Senator Hoar got their first glimpse into certain phases of technical education in the Central West, and especially into the results of our Correspondence Instruction, the Senator had bought an old copy of "Martial's Epigrams." His talk was redolent of the fields where hum the bees of Theocritus. He was full of reminiscences of his early Harvard days, and eloquent with prophecy as to the future of American culture. We possess in the Institute's archives, the outline of his memorable speech to the thousand or more young men to whom he was introduced as "the legislative father of technical education in America." He gave us a swift and interesting talk on the early opposition to, and the rapid growth of, technical education. Rarely have we heard an old man in whose thoughts and sentiments there bubbled so musically the springs of eternal youth. It reminded one of Gladstone, who never seemed so young as when under the spell of the perennially fresh and ageless ideas of life. Senator Hoar's speech was a bugle call to righteousness of conduct, which the technical student realizes is the basis of all professional honor and fame. In his death the nation has lost one of its ablest, most ardent, and most devoted patriots of recent years. We can best honor him by emulating his example and continuing to labor for those principles which he represented and upheld. |