a great
gorge more than eight hundred feet deep and about a half-mile wide. From
the meagre description of the conditions and requirements, and from the
measurements furnished by the railroad, the engineers of the American
bridge company created a viaduct. Just as an author creates a story or a
painter a picture, so these engineers built a bridge on paper, except
that the work of the engineers' imagination had to be figured out
mathematically, proved, and reproved. Not only was the soaring structure
created out of bare facts and dry statistics, but the thickness of every
bolt and the strain to be borne by every rod were predetermined
accurately.

And when the plans of the great viaduct were completed the engineers
knew the cost of every part, and felt so sure that the actual bridge in
far-off Burma could be built for the estimated amount, that they put in
a bid for the work that proved to be far below the price asked by
English builders.

And so this company whose works are in Pennsylvania was awarded the
contract for the Gokteik viaduct in Burma, half-way round the world
from the factory.

[Illustration: BUILDING AN AMERICAN BRIDGE IN BURMAH
This structure stretches 820 feet above the bottom of the Gokteik Gorge.
The viaduct was built entirely from above, as shown in this picture.]

In the midst of a wilderness, among an ancient people whose language and
habits were utterly strange to most Americans, in a tropical country
where modern machinery and appliances were practically unknown, a small
band of men from the young republic contracted to build the greatest
viaduct the world had ever seen. All the material, all the tools and
machinery, were to be carried to the opposite side of the earth and
dumped on the edge of the chasm. From the heaps of metal the small band
of American workmen and engineers, aided by the native labourers, were
to build the actual structure, strong and enduring, that was conceived
by the engineers and reduced to working-plans in far-off Pennsylvania.

From ore dug out of the Pennsylvania mountains the steel was made and,
piece by piece, the parts were rolled, riveted, or welded together so
that every section was exactly according to the measurements laid out on
the plan. As each part was finished it was marked to correspond with the
plan and also to show its relation to its neighbour. It was like a
gigantic puzzle. The parts were made to fit each other accurately, so
that when the workmen