mmocks of ox-hide, over the rapid streams of South
America; spanning in fragile cane-platforms the gorges of the Andes;
crossing vast chasms of the Alleghanies with the slender iron viaduct of
the American railways; and jutting, a crumbling segment of the ancient
world, over the yellow Tiber: as familiar on the Chinese tea-caddy as on
Canaletto's canvas; as traditional a local feature of London as of
Florence; as significant of the onward march of civilization in Wales
to-day as in Liguria during the Middle Ages. Where men dwell and wander,
and water flows, these beautiful and enduring, or curious and casual
expedients are found, as memorable triumphs of architecture, crowned
with historical associations, or as primitive inventions that
unconsciously mark the first faltering steps of humanity in the course
of empire: for, on this continent, where the French missionary crossed
the narrow log supported by his Indian convert in the midst of a
wilderness, massive stone arches shadow broad streams that flow through
populous cities; and the history of civilization may be traced from the
loose stones whereon the lone settler fords the water-course, to such
grand, graceful, and permanent monuments of human prosperity as the
elaborate and ancient stone bridges of European capitals.

When we look forth upon a grand or lovely scene of Nature,--mountain,
river, meadow, and forest,--what a fine central object, what an
harmonious artificial feature of the picture, is a bridge, whether
rustic and simple, a mere rude passage-way over a brook, or a curve of
gray stone throwing broad shadows upon the bright surface of a river!
Nor less effective is the same object amid the crowded walls, spires,
streets, and chimney-stacks of a city. There the bridge is the least
conventional structure, the suggestive point, the favorite locality; it
seems to reunite the working-day world with the freedom of Nature; it is
perhaps the one spot in the dense array of edifices and thoroughfares
which "gives us pause." There, if anywhere, our gaze and our feet
linger; people have a relief against the sky, as they pass over it;
artists look patiently thither; lovers, the sad, the humorous, and the
meditative, stop there to observe and to muse; they lean over the
parapet and watch the flowing tide; they look thence around as from a
pleasant vantage-ground. The bridge, in populous old towns, is the
rendezvous, the familiar landmark, the traditional nucleus of the