, all the inspector has to do is
to go over the figures, and see that the dimensions given on the plan
are such as will enable the bridge to carry the load without
exceeding the specified strains. When the work is erected, the
inspection must show that the plan has been exactly carried out, that
the details are good, and proper evidence of the quality of the
material used should also be given. Such inspection as this would at
once prevent the erection of bridges like those at Ashtabula and
Tariffville, and would save the public from such traps as those that
fell at Dixon and at Groveland. Perhaps the most difficult thing to
do will be to get satisfactory evidence in regard to the bridges that
have been for a considerable time in use, and of which we do not know
the history. This will be especially true in regard to the wooden
bridges, of which there are so many about the country. Not only is it
very difficult to be sure of the exact condition of the timber, but
it is equally hard to tell any thing about the iron. The Tariffville
bridge fell on account of defective iron, and the defect was of such
a nature as to defy any ordinary inspection. What do we know to-day
of the quality of the iron rods in any wooden bridge in
Massachusetts? It is very doubtful if the best inspection we have in
the United States at the present time would have found any defect so
evident in the Tariffville bridge as to condemn it as unfit for the
passage of trains. There are hundreds of exactly such bridges all
over New England, as far as we can tell by the best inspection we now
have, made on the same plan, with no more material, and of which we
know just as little of the quality of the iron as we did in the
Tariffville bridge.

Of course we cannot expect to get a perfect system all at once. Any
plan which might be proposed would, no doubt, be found more or less
defective at first. We can hardly get a system worse than the one we
now have, which allows forty bridges to break down every year. We may
get a better one. To make the public see the need of such a system is
the first step to be taken.

* * * * *

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