A GERMAN EIFFEL TOWER

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1761, 28 May 1913, Page 8

A GERMAN EIFFEL TOWER

HUGE STRUCTURE PLANNED

The legendarv fata of those who built tho Tower of 'Babel or of tlio kindred Titans who attempted to scale tile heavens by piling Pelion on Ossa has ho terrors for tho modern engineer. Scarcely lms tlio noise rS the hammers died away upon tho great Woolworth Huildinc. 750 ft. high, in Broadway, JCcw York, when we have rumours of <1 tower of over 1500 ft. in height which may be erected ill the near future to disfigure tho beauties of tlio Rhine, and Ik? a concrete proof_ of the eminence of modern German engineering skill. It is to tho "Mucuchoncr Ncueslo Nacbrichten," states the "Westminster Gazette.-" that we owe this exciting and alarming news. There is to be held in Leipzig in tho coming autumn an International Building Inhibition, in the scientific section of which are to bo shown a series of most daring designs. The chiamong these will !»'the design for 11.* projected "Tour du Rhin."

The proposal is that Prussian engineers should erect a gigantic tower over th» ■Rhine itself close to Dnsseldorf. It will lie over 1500 ft. high, and will be built to a. certain extent after tho same slvl ns ns the Eiffel Towel. Tho corresponding semi-circnhr snau« at tho tower will form tho span of a bridge passing ovr tho Rhine. 'LVo such 300 ft. spans will bridsre the river. Thus the tower will bo "very advantageous, considered both from the economic and the aesthetic standpoint." Concerning tho aesthetics of the structure wo are less certain, ndds the "Westminster Gazette." than conccrnmg the economics; for fvn'u the centre of (his bridge will rise the 1500 ft. of tower proper, supported at a height of 300 ft. by two iron-work .supports built upon foundations in the river about 310 ft. distant from cither side of the bridge. The engineers will avoid tho "tangle of diagonals which i* so disagreeable a feature of tho Eiffel Tower.