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Updated: June 5, 2025
An examination of the rocks on which the abutments of this and some other similar structures are founded, and of the channels of the rivers they cross, shows that the beds of the streams cannot have been much elevated or depressed since the bridges were built.
This wall is very strongly constructed of stone, and is about twenty-five or thirty feet in height. It forms many irregular sub-angles, and is diversified in effect by numerous towers, with green pyramidal roofs; abutments and buttresses; and a series of guard-houses at intervals along the top.
At first the course of the Maha-velle-Ganga is closely followed, the river being crossed at Peradenia by a somewhat remarkable bridge, consisting of a single arch or span of a little over two hundred feet, built of satinwood, with stout brick and stone abutments. The bridge was erected in 1832, without the aid of a single nail or bolt, and is apparently in perfect condition to-day.
All night the work went on, the men spelling each other at intervals of every few hours. By three o'clock the main abutments had been removed.
This portal, often seen in churches of the same period when chance has saved them from the ravages of Calvinism, is surmounted by a triglyph, above which stands a statue of the Virgin holding the infant Jesus. The sides of the structure are externally of five arches, defined by stone ribs and lighted by windows with small panes. The apse rests on arched abutments that are worthy of a cathedral.
The pedicels and spore-cases give a purplish tinge, and the whole bridge is enriched with ferns and a row of small seedling trees and currant bushes with colored leaves, every one of which seems to have been culled from the woods for this special use, so perfectly do they harmonize in size, shape, and color with the mossy cover, the width of the span, and the luxuriant, brushy abutments.
The river is deep, swift and very clear, with a rocky bank, from which they are getting out stone for the abutments of the bridge. This bridge, and another similar one where the line crosses the Miramichi, are building at Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, and we saw at Campbellton a large bark discharging her cargo, consisting of the bridge-work ready to set up.
The enterprise of the merchants of California has already laid the foundation of the abutments; diplomacy and steam and telegraph companies are rapidly accumulating material for the construction of the bridge." Thus far Halleck. But have the Californians of this generation abandoned the bridge? Are we to believe those men of to-day who tell us it is not worth crossing?
Our best reason for accepting all these pieces of evidence as corroborative of the view taken by MM. Flandin, Loftus, Place, and Thomas is, in the first place, the incontestable fact that the entrances to the town of Khorsabad were passages roofed with barrel vaults; secondly, the presence amid the debris of the fragmentary arches above described; thirdly, the depth of the mass of broken earth within the walls of each chamber; finally, the singular thickness of the walls, which is only to be satisfactorily explained by the supposition that the architect had to provide solid abutments for arches that had no little weight to carry.
A railroad spans it with an iron trussed bridge, and the demands of wagon and foot-travel are met by an airy one suspended by cables from tower-like abutments on either side, both bridges swung high in the air, out of reach of flood and of the smoke-stacks of passing steam-craft.
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