At Peru, in Illinois, is the great bridge of the Illinois Central
railroad, which is thirty-five hundred feet, or nearly two-thirds of a
mile long. This is perhaps the greatest work of the kind in all the
western states. It reaches from bluff to bluff, is seventy-five feet in
hight, and contains over one million feet of lumber, beside immense
quantities of iron and stone. The top is covered with tin, and made
water-tight; the trains of cars are to run on the top of all; and
beneath them, and between the frames, pass the roads for wagons; while
underneath all are the river and canal. An ornamental railing is placed
on each side of the track.
Another large bridge, on the suspension principle, is that over the
Mississippi, near St. Anthony and Minnesopolis, in Minnesota. The work
consists of a wire suspension bridge, of one span of six hundred and
thirty feet, having seventeen feet of roadway, connecting the western
bank of the Mississippi river with Nicollet island, about one hundred
yards above the first break of its waters into rapids above the falls.
But perhaps the largest bridge ever built, will be, when completed, that
now erecting over the St. Lawrence, called the Victoria (railroad)
bridge, which is to be an immense iron tube, ten thousand, two hundred
and eighty-four feet, or nearly two miles long. It is to be set on
twenty-four piers, from two hundred and twenty to three hundred feet
apart. At the highest point it will be some sixty feet from the water;
and it is estimated that it will take at least five years to finish it.
These are some of the largest bridges, (in addition to those already
particularly mentioned,) ever erected in any part of the world.