ude, we write upon the towers of our beautiful Bridge,
to be illuminated by her electric ray, the words of exultation,
"_Finis coronat opus_."

ORATION

OF

RICHARD S. STORRS, D.D., LL.D.

MR. CHAIRMAN--FELLOW-CITIZENS: It can surprise no one that we
celebrate the completion of this great work, in which lines of
delicate and aerial grace are combined with a strength more enduring
than of marbles, and the woven wires prolong to these heights the
metropolitan avenues. After delays which have often disturbed the
popular patience, and have oftener disappointed the hopes of the
builders, we gratefully welcome this superb consummation: rejoicing to
know that "the silver streak" which so long has divided this city from
the continent, is conquered, henceforth, by the silver band stretching
above it, careless alike of wind and tide, of ice and fog, of current
and of calm.

To the mind which, for fourteen years, has watched, guided, and
governed the work, looking out upon it through physical organs almost
fatally smitten in its prosecution, we bring our eager and unanimous
tribute of honor and applause. He who took up, elaborated, and has
brought to fulfillment the plans of the father whose own life had been
sacrificed in their furtherance, has builded to both the noblest
memorial. He may with truth have said, heretofore, as the furnaces
have glowed from which this welded network has come, in the words of
Schiller's "Lay of the Bell:"

"Deep hid within the nether cell
What Force with Fire is moulding thus,
In yonder airy towers shall dwell,
And witness wide and far of us."

He may, at this hour, add for himself the lines which the poet hears
from the lips of his House-Master:

"My house is built upon a rock,
And sees unmoved the stormy shock
Of waves that fret below."

It must be a superlative moment in life when one stands on a
structure as majestic as this which was at first a mere thought in the
brain, which was afterward a plan on the paper, and which has been
transported hither, from quarry and mine, from wood-yard and workshop,
on the point of his pencil.

He would be the first to acknowledge also, if he were speaking, the
intelligent, faithful, indefatigable service rendered in execution of
his plans by those who have been associated with him, as assistant
engineers, as master mechanics, or as trained, trusted, and
experienced workmen. On their knowledge and v