of 1,595-1/2 feet, the Brooklyn Bridge contains but 6,740
tons of material, and will sustain seven times its own weight. Its
cost is $9,000,000, whereas a tubular bridge for the same span would
contain ten times the weight of metal, and though costing twice as
much money, would be without the ability to do any useful work.

Roebling, therefore, solved the problem which had defied Stephenson;
and upon his design has been built a successful structure, at half the
cost of a tubular bridge that would have fallen when loaded in actual
use. It is impossible to furnish any more striking proof of the genius
which originated, and of the economy which constructed this triumph of
American engineering.

We have thus a monument to the public spirit of the two cities,
created by an expenditure as honest and as economical as the
management which gave us the Erie Canal, the Croton Aqueduct, and the
Central Park. Otherwise, it would have been a monument to the eternal
infamy of the trustees and of the engineers under whose supervision
it has been erected, and this brings me to the final consideration
which I feel constrained to offer on this point.

During all these years of trial, and false report, a great soul lay in
the shadow of death, praying only to stay long enough for the
completion of the work to which he had devoted his life. I say a great
soul, for in the spring-time of youth, with friends and fortune at his
command, he gave himself to his country, and for her sake braved death
on many a well-fought battle-field. When restored to civil life, his
health was sacrificed to the duties which had devolved upon him, as
the inheritor of his father's fame, and the executor of his father's
plans. Living only for honor, and freed from the temptations of narrow
means, how is it conceivable that such a man--whose approval was
necessary to every expenditure--should, by conniving with jobbers,
throw away more than the life which was dear to him, that he might
fulfill his destiny, and leave to his children the heritage of a good
name and the glory of a grand achievement? Well may this suffering
hero quote the words of Hyperion: "Oh, I have looked with wonder
upon those, who, in sorrow and privation, and bodily discomfort, and
sickness, which is the shadow of death, have worked right on to the
accomplishment of their great purposes; toiling much, enduring much,
fulfilling much; and then, with shattered nerves, and sinews all
unstrung, have