TWICE AS HIGH AS NIAGARA.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8206, 9 August 1906, Page 3

TWICE AS HIGH AS NIAGARA.

The Zambesi River, carrying a huge volume of water, two miles in width, 88 it reaches ahe western borders of Rhodesia, precipitates itself into a cavernous gorge, and thus traverses the northern plains of the country. This great diop in the river has produced "the most beautiful gem of the earth's scenery," the Viotoria Falls. Almost twice as broad as Niagara, and two and a half times as high, an immense mass of water rolls over its edge to Drooipitate itself in magnificent splendour four hundred sheer feet into the narrow canyon below. Undeterred, theFhodesian engineers have, without detracting from the natural beauty of the surroundings, thrown across the canyon a splendid 650 foot cantilever bridge, and thus opened the wayrto Tanganyika, to Uganda, to Cairo. This bridge, the greatest railway engineering triumph of Afrioa, deserves more that passing notice. It consists of a central span weighing approximately 1000 tons, 500 feet in length, and 30 feet wide. The steelwork is of rolled steel weighing 490 pounds to the cubic foot. The end posts of the bridge are over 100 feet long. The pull on the anchorage apparatus in about 400 tons. The contract for the construction was obtained by an English firm of bridge builders—the contract time fifty-five weeks. The work of erection was carried on from both banks, the material being taken aoroas the river by means of an aerial electaio railway. The bridge was linked up at 7 a.m. on April 1, 1905, or exactly forty- eight hours earlier than had been estimated a year before.' —Prom '«lh« Railway of Africa,' by Lieut.-Cul. Sir Percy Girounrd, in Scribner's Magazine.