d up and down with the weight of the traveller.
To their eyes it appeared at times as if he was soaring through the air
unsupported, so thin was the line by which he hung.

And now the weaving of the cables began, and this was perhaps the most
remarkable undertaking in the construction of the great bridge. To the
endless band by which Mr. Farrington had crossed, there was fixed what
is called a 'carrier.' This was to grip the end of the first wire (as
the eye of the needle takes the thread); bear it across the river over
the tops of the lofty towers; 'stitch' it to the New York shore (or
anchorage) and bring it back again.

And that is what it did. This new wire (only one-eight of an inch
thick--thinner, that is, than the first wire, on which Mr. Farrington
had crossed) was two hundred miles long, and it had to perform the
journey many hundred times before the first 'skein' was complete. Thus
you will see that a single 'skein' stretched from shore to shore,
consisting of nearly three hundred separate threads. These were bound
tightly together at frequent intervals, and when a bunch of nineteen of
them had been made, the first cable was ready for completion. But this
was a matter of great difficulty. You will easily understand that it was
necessary for every wire to do its share in bearing the weight of the
bridge. Therefore, they must all be at an equal strain from tower to
tower. Now you know that on a sunny day a bar of steel is longer than it
is on a cloudy day, for the metal expands with heat. Consequently, when
the sun came out to see what they were doing at Brooklyn, the wires upon
which it shone became longer than those in the shadow behind them. Of
course, in a short distance this would not be noticeable, but it made
such a difference in the work we are describing, that the strength of
the cable would have been greatly lessened had the strands been bound
together in the sunshine, while some of the wires were slack, and some
were tight. Even the wind interfered sadly; but by choosing dull, still
days, when all the wires were subjected to the same temperature, they
were at last successfully bound together.

Notwithstanding the perilous nature of this cable-weaving, it was
attended by only one serious accident, and that was when one of the
'skeins' broke loose from the New York shore, and, leaping like the lash
of a giant whip over the tower top, plunged into the river below. It
narrowly missed the ferry-boats an