Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 89, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 July 1899 — DEVELOPING THE SOUDAN. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

DEVELOPING THE SOUDAN.

The First American Bridge to Span Egyptian Waters. Naturally English engineers are jealous of the success that has been scored by an American firm in securing the

contract for a work that Is destined t< become historical as an Important lin| In the Jong chain of communication be* tween Cairo and the Cape. 4t is, indeed, the only engineering work of magnitude on a railway that stretches 700 miles from Wady Haifa to Khartoum. The idea of giving it a special and appropriate Egyptian design had to be abandoned when English firms wanted months to complete such a structure, while American firms offered to turn out one of their own pattern in at many weeks. Celerity was of the first importance in order that considerable portions of the bridge might lie in place before the floods come down al the beginning of July. Long before this the piers will be ready to receive the superstructure, which has been turned out so rapidly that seven spans, each 150 feet long, have already been landed in Egypt and sent up the Nile. The American firm not being bound down to any special design, has been able to use rollings of a stock pattern which only needed aSfeptidn to the pan tlcular purpose of this bridge. Sec tions of the required length could thut be turned out by the yard, and all that remained to be done was to fit then) lightly together for approval before shipment in parts. The riveting together will be done on the banks oi the Atbara. I Egyptian soldiers and natives have meanwhile been preparing the piers;

which are huge cylinders of iron bedded on solid rock, and filled with concrete. This had to be finished while the river was at its lowest, and the rocks showing just above or only a little below its surface. When the waters come down in their rage at flood time even these substantial piers might be carried away without some spanning girders to give them mutual support. Hence the need for haste. Work on the railway extension beyond Atbara river goes on all the while at the rate of 2,000 yards a day, and it will be carried to the Nile banks opposite Khartoum by November. Before then the great bridge with its seven spans, stretching across 1,100 feet of water, will be completed, so that, the whole Soudan railway may be opened (for traffic within fourteen months of the final overthrow of Dervish power.

CONSTRUCTING THE PIERS.