ility, except under a very carefully devised plan. A very
considerable force of inspectors would be required to carry out a
system which should produce the desired result. The amount of work
to be done at the commencement would be very great, as no proper
inspection has ever been made of the greater part of the bridges in
the country, of which the number is very large. If any such plan as
above suggested should be found feasible, the inspectors should have
in their possession a complete set of plans of every bridge of
importance in the State, with all the computations of its strength,
and as complete a history of each structure from its commencement as
can be made up, all this to be supplemented by periodic examinations.
If, from such records, we find that a bridge was made of ordinary
green timber twenty-five years ago, and that it has been getting
rotten ever since; that it has rods of common merchant iron that were
bought by some person, not specially acquainted with the business,
from an unknown firm,--we had better pull it down before it falls.
If, from such records, we find an iron bridge built twenty-five years
ago by an unknown company, with iron, at best, of a doubtful quality,
and having a factor of three or four for the rolling-stock and speeds
of twenty years ago, instead of a factor of six for the rolling-stock
and speeds of to-day, we had better remove that bridge before it
removes itself.

Such a record would be the property of the State, always accessible
to any one, and would be handed down, so that the knowledge of one
person would not expire with his term of office. No bridge should be
erected in any State without first submitting the plans to the
inspector, and receiving his approval, and depositing with him a
complete set of the plans and computations for the work. By this
approval is not meant that the inspector is merely to give a
favorable opinion as to the plan, but that he is to find, as a matter
of fact, whether the proposed dimensions and proportions are such as
will make a safe bridge--and just what a safe bridge is, can be
plainly defined by law, as it is in Europe, and as it has been
proposed by the American Society of Civil Engineers. For example, if
the law says that an iron railway bridge of 100 feet span shall be
proportioned to carry a load of 3,000 pounds per lineal foot besides
its own weight, and that, with such a load, no part shall be strained
by more than 10,000 pounds per inch