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"O, Sherman's first move was to order down here duplicates for every bridge on the road. He's got 'em piled up at Louisville, Nashville, Murfreesboro and Chattynoogy. The moment a bridge is reported burned a gang starts for the place with another bridge, and they're at work as soon's it's cool enough to let 'em get to the abutments. I've seen 'em pullin' away the burnin' timbers to lay new ones.

The torrents, which scooped out the intersecting levels, amused their monstrous leisure with carving the points and abutments of the mesa into fantastic forms, so that the traveller sees towers, minarets, and spires loftier than the pinnacles of cathedrals. The emigrants were often deceived by these freaks of nature.

As they neared the river-bank the girl exclaimed in surprise; for up out of the frozen Salmon two giant towers of concrete thrust themselves, on each bank were massive abutments, and connecting them were the beginnings of a complicated "false-work" structure by means of which the steel was to be laid in place.

The first exterior view of the west front, and of the towers, is extremely interesting from the gray and clear tint, as well as excellent quality, of the stone, which, according to Huet, was brought partly from Vaucelle and partly from Allemagne. One of the corner abutments of one of the towers has fallen down and a great portion of what remains seem to indicate rapid decay.

To convey some idea of the immense force which these piers are required to resist, we may briefly describe the breaking up of the ice in March, 1858, while the bridge was under construction. Fourteen out of the twenty-four piers were then finished, together with the formidable abutments and approaches to the bridge.

The valley, though much varied, was generally contracted by the closing in of the rolling terminal abutments of the Tongue hill, on the one side with rising land, and little conical hills almost joining, which overhung the river on the right bank in Uzegura, on the other side.

In 1805, the bridge across the Merrimack was demolished and a new bridge with stone piers and abutments was constructed. It was a toll-bridge as late as 1860. The second war with England stimulated manufacturing enterprises throughout the United States; and several were started, depending upon the water-power of the Concord River.

In forming coffer-dams for the piers and abutments of bridges, quays, and harbours, and in piling the foundations of all kinds of masonry, the steam pile driver was found of invaluable use by the engineer. At the first experiment made with the machine, Mr. Nasmyth drove a 14-inch pile fifteen feet into hard ground at the rate of 65 blows a minute.

As usual there sprang up a host of cold-waterers, but thanks to British enterprise, which can dare anything, there were found enough of men willing to promote the scheme. It was no sooner resolved on than begun. Massive abutments of stone were raised on each shore to the height of 100 feet above high-water. The width of the strait between these abutments is nearly 500 yards.

Thus we see that the only two poets of modern times who are of Shakespeare's stature follow him in unity of design They coincide with him in imparting a dramatic tinge to all our poetry, like him, they blend the grotesque with the sublime, and, far from standing by themselves in the great literary ensemble that rests upon Shakespeare, Dante and Milton are, in some sort, the two supporting abutments of the edifice of which he is the central pillar, the buttresses of the arch of which he is the keystone.