United States or United States Minor Outlying Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The man was O'Neil; he was perched upon one of the girders near the center of the longest span, where he could watch the attack upon the pyramidal ice-breakers beneath him. "He's a fool," said some one at Eliza's back. "That jam is getting bigger." "He'd better let the damned bridge take care of itself."
Helsingfors is closed to navigation from November until June, for the sea forms an icy barrier around the coast of Finland, now no longer impenetrable, thanks to the ice-breakers at Hangö. In the north the Gulf of Bothnia is frozen for even longer. Towards April winter shows signs of departure.
She remembered that an army once crossed this water on foot, so severe was the winter, and that ice-breakers are still used occasionally. The girl wished it was winter as she watched for the first time the huge paddle-wheels of the steam-ferry ploughing through the waters of the Great Belt.
Erskine had taken this idea from the Russian ice-breakers which had been designed by the Russian Admiral Makaroff and built at Elswick. The screw was protected by a steel grating of which the forward protecting girder completed the curve of the stem. Aft, there was a similar ram, weighing thirty tons and a like protection to the after-screws.
The port of Archangel in the north was ice-bound, or with great difficulty kept partially open by ice-breakers, and was in any case only connected with Russia by one narrow-gauge and lengthy line; while the only remaining port of Vladivostok was six thousand miles away, and closed also during a part of the winter.
For a few days more the ice-breakers would keep the ferry going across the Dvina and would cut for the steamships a way out to sea. Then the White Sea would freeze solid for six months. In a few days the Archangel-Economia winter railroad would be running. Icebreakers would for a while brave the Arctic gales that swept the north coast.
They swept down in phalanxes upon the wedge-like ice-breakers which stood guard above the bridge- piers, then they halted, separated, and the armored cutting-edges sheared through them like blades. A half-mile below, where the Salmon flung itself headlong against the upper wing of Jackson Glacier, the floating ice was checked by the narrowed passageway.
As the winters are long and cold, great ice-breakers were built to take the trains across during the winter time. It is actually said that these ice-breakers would slowly plow their way through thirty-six inches of ice. During the Russian-Japanese war these were too slow so they laid down heavy steel rails on the ice and all winter long trains were speeded across on this ice railway.
Where the force exercised against the piers was likely to be so great, it was felt that timber ice-breakers, timber or cast-iron piling, or even rubble-work, would have proved but temporary expedients.
"The volley of ice must be almost irresistible." "Almost," Murray smiled. "Not quite. Our ice-breakers were especially designed by Parker to withstand any weight. There's nothing like them anywhere. In fact, there will be nothing like this bridge when it's completed." Blaine offered no comment, but his questions searched to the depths of the builder's knowledge.
Word Of The Day