Tom F.

Peters

Transitions in Engineering

Guillaume Henri Dufour

and the Early 19th Century Cable Suspension Bridges

With a Foreword by Andre Corboz

1987 Birkhauser Verlag

Basel · Boston
 This publication was generously supported by ROLEX S.A., Geneva.

Author's address:
Prof. Tom Frank Peters
Cornell University, Department of Architecture
123 Rand Hall
Ithaca, New York 14853, USA

CIP-Kurztitelaufnahme der Deutschen Bibliothek

Peters, Tom F.:

Transitions in engineering: Guillaume Henri Dufour
and the early 19th century cable suspension
bridges 1 Tom F. Peters. With a foreword by Andre
Corboz. - Basel; Boston: Birkhauser, 1987.
ISBN-13:978-3-0348-9987-1 e-ISBN-13:978-3-0348-9304-6
001: 10.1007/978-3-0348-9304-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Peters, Tom F. (Tom Frank), 1941-

Transitions in engineering.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Bridges, Suspension-History-19th century.
© 1987 Birkhauser Verlag Basel 2. Dufour, Guillaume Henri, 1787-1875. I. Title.
Softcover reprint of the hard- TG400.P48 1987 624'.55'09 87-23869
cover 1st edition 1987 ISBN-13:978-3-0348-9987-1 (U.S.)

All rights reserved.

Book and cover design: No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
Albert Gomm swblasg, Basel retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,
ISBN-13:978-3-0348-9987 -1 electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
Table of Contents

1 Some basic issues 70 Planning the Saint Antoine Bridge

9 Technical and scientific thought in Geneva
9 From 'overlay' to 'system' 73 Marc Seguin's letter and the first project
11 Structural engineering and architecture for the Geneva bridge
12 The method of examination 75 The problem of the catenary and its role
12 Some questions in engineering research
12 Introduction 76 Marc Seguin's statics
78 Marc Seguin's knowledge of engineering
2 Prehistory method
13 The earliest suspension types 79 Dufour's proposal
13 Primitive types 85 Examination of wire in preparation
14 The first catenary walkways for erection
14 Construction in cane and bamboo 87 Dufour's wire experiments
16 From the bamboo cable to the wrought 91 Wire experiments by the Seguin brothers
iron chain 92 Availability of wire
17 Thang-stong rGyal-po 92 Relative neglect of Dufour's role in French
21 The iron he used publications
21 Variant Chinese chain bridges and stiffened, 93 Test model for the Saint Antoine Bridge
horizontal decks 94 Ignoring the problem of resonance
22 Information spreads to the West 97 The Saint Antoine Bridge
24 Early Western development 102 Anchoring the cables
33 Wire cables 102 The manufacture of the cables compared
to the Seguin method
105 The odd cable connection
3 Background 108 Suspenders and stays
39 Geneva and the transmission of 110 Imported iron?
engineering information to the French- 111 Loads
speaking world 1789-1815
41 French access to information in the 5 The establishment
immediate post-war period of a structural type
42 Evolution of method and thought in French 115 Bridges at Liancourt, Passy and else-
engineering education where in the environs of Paris
50 Development of statistics 117 Test bridge at Vienna
52 Navier: the scientific and technological 119 Books begin to appear on the subject
modes of thought 119 Dufour's constribution to the further
54 Graphic statics development
54 Strength of materials 119 The Drac bridge at Grenoble
57 The education of Guillaume Henri Dufour 121 The safety factor
122 Further weaknesses in the proposal
4 Genesis of the wire cable bridge 123 Two bridges by the Seguins
66 The Seguin brothers 126 Dufour's second structure: the Paquis Bridge
68 The bridge at Annonay 132 A simpler method of cable manufacture 5
 133 Connecting the cables 164 French methods cross the Atlantic
134 Coupling the suspenders 166 Tensile structures in building construction
135 Research on friction 169 The collapse of the Basse-Chaine Bridge
136 Loading the Paquis Bridge
136 The novel problem of expansion 7 A truncated development;
137 More proposals than structures: the underspanned suspension
Dufour continues to design 174 La Caille Bridge
137 Coulouvreniere Bridge over the Rhone 175 Underspanned proposal for Fribourg
137 Valentin Bridge over the Po River at Turin 178 Reasons for awarding the contract
141 lie aux Barques Bridge to Chaley
141 Coulouvreniere Bridge near 178 Navier's report
Saint Jean's church 180 Micklewood Bridge
141 Bridge over the Arve River 181 Bergues Bridge
142 Peney Bridge 183 Preliminary versions in timber
187 Connections
6 French development and their influence 187 Arch bridges in cast-iron
up to the catastrophe of 1 850 192 Third proposal in cast-iron
145 Controversy between adherents of cable 193 Consultation with Navier and a proposal
and of chain construction by Telford
147 Vicat and the building of the Marie Bridge 196 The underspanned Bergues Bridge
at Argentat 197 The structure
147 Movable cable bearings and their problems 199 Calculation and erection
149 Vicat's wire tests and complaints about the 199 Planning the building process in detail
quality of bar iron 202 Testing the structure
150 Detail problems of cable manufacture 203 Why chains?
151 A first approach to cable spinning 205 The Bel-Air Bridge at la Coulouvreniere
151 Concrete curing and load limitation 208 Proposal for an Aar Bridge at Aarau
152 The report of 1831 on the state of the 208 Conclusion
Rhone bridges
152 Aerial cable spinning 8 Annotated bibliography and index
153 Cement as protection against rust 212 Abbreviations
155 The wire cable bridge comes of age: 212 Books, major journals and articles
the Grand Pont Suspendu in Fribourg 230 Manuscripts
156 Joseph Chaley 234 Index
156 Building the world's largest span
161 Alternatives, aerial cable spinning and the 243 Acknowledgements
endless cable system

6
Foreword
Ci .... il engineering has but few admirers. Its works
are regarded as feats of prowess and are either
admired or abnarred. They are considered to be
apart from normal concerns and incomprehen-
sible. like works of architecture and city planning,
they are absent from our general cultural aware-
ness. On the other hand, engineering does not
attrad popularizers (in the most lofty sense of the
term) either, so perhaps the two observations are
in fact mutually explicatory.
And yet, from time to time someone appears who
can lead the layman through the maze of con-
cepts and objeds, can explain them without
resorting to jargon, can simplify them without
falsification and thus render them ordered and
near-fransparent. Tom F. Peters belongs to this
rare spedes. It is astonishing with what ease, nay
even more, with what increasing interest one can
follow him. What seemed strange, abstruse and
forbidding, slowly falls into place. Due to his
exceptional didactic skill, he makes even the most
complex of processes clear. Upon turning the lost
page of the book, the reader feels he is now
looking through the other side of the mirror.
This is due to the author's tolent for integrating
everything, from the minutest detail - that cele-
brated detail '"that has no existence- - right up to
the cultural environment from which it originated
by means of an unbelievably complex process. In
fad, one of the chief qualities of this work is that it
does not limit itself to describing approaches or
results but places them in the framework which
caused them to be and clarifies them using
epistomological methods which could be applied
to other fields as well.
Since Tom F. Peters does not merely intend to
render what has already been described by others
accessible, we cannot be content to speak of
'"popularization-. He does not work retrospectively
by retelling the story of past experiments or by
rehashing periods long past. In telling of Guil-
laume Henri Dufour and how this extraordinary
person groped and battled with unique problems,
he rediscovers and in a certain sense accomplishes
an -archeological"' survey of his subject for the
first time. A Dufour arises from these pages who
is no longer the General according to Swiss
legend, but who is formed through the fluctuating
processes of reflection and experimentation
before our ....ery eyes, by the transformation of
thought into adion. Dufour thus attains a surpris-
ing modemity and resembles those among us who
are not sotisfied by pat answers and who, instead
of avoiding the questions they encounter, use
them as a means to produce novel instruments.
A phenomenon -more unique than rare-, as the
Italian so aptly put it, Dufour left a detailed record
of his research which, in tum, Tom F. 'Peters
unfolds before us, at the same pace as it were,
making us relive the freshness of nascent dis-
covery. As is the case when we seize upon a
thought in flight, we ha .... e the impression of a
boundless freedom contoined by a pervading
necessity, a salubrious experience, since it forces
us to doubt the categories into which we tend to
lock reality,
In other words, when writing this book, Tom F.
Peters travelled along a trail partially blazed
although still largely unknown. He even manages
to make the informed reader forget what evolved
from the problems he discusses and how they
were finally sol ....ed. He is not content to present
an assembly of fragments in order to elucidate the
facts, but he weaves a system in which everything
concurs and makes one perceive the thousands of
intertwined threads from which all scientific
research worthy of the name hangs suspended
over temporary chasms of knowledge.
Andre Corboz
 1 Some basic issues

Suspension bridges are simple structures - theoret-

ically at least. In principle it is easy to understand
how they function although difficulties arise when
one wishes to build one, as they become increas-
ingly complex with growing span and loadbearing
capacity. Questions of material properties and
stability gain in importance as span and mass in-
crease.
When problems of suspension bridge construction
were tackled for the first time, many engineering
tenets, now taken for granted, had to be postulat-
ed, examined and tested. The simple systems we so
admire today, had to evolve from more intricate
and primitive prototypes. Once these systems gain-
ed general acceptance, however, they ordained a
path for development which might have differed
had other equally promising variants been
persued. Every theoretical and practical advance
in engineering opened up new possibilities while
simultaneously blocking off others. This is the es-
sence of evolution: choice, reduction and con-
centration on a few options to the exclusion of
others.
We can rarely posit a beginning for any structural
type. Most of our built forms, the arch, the beam,
the membrane, are as old as building itself. The
suspension system is an exception in that its origin
can be traced with a degree of certitude. The in-
vention of the horizontal, stiffened deck and the
first use of wire cables mark points of departure in
modern suspension bridge construction. The latter
invention in part.icular, is closely connected with the
evolution of analytical statics and its penetration
into engineering practise and with the change of
engineering from an 'art' into a modern techno-
logical field. Its history, therefore, becomes an ex-
pose of the evolution of modern civil engineering,
illustrating the how and wherefore of many of our
present engineering axioms, linking the field as a
whole to the evolution of our present cultural back-
ground. For engineering is a cultural as well as a
8 technical phenomenon.
 Technical and scientific thought
Engineering is a hybrid composed of scientific
method and empiricism, and has been ever since
the beginning of the nineteenth century. It incor-
porates two diametrically opposed views of the
world, one marked by hierarchic and ordered, and
the other, by the apparently random pragmatism of
technical manufacture. One can sometimes domi-
nate the other, but the balance is always precarious
and can shift suddenly. This delicate equilibrium is
the source of the vitality and success of engi-
neering in our age. It is a complex and continually
changing field in which the technologist's viewpoint
shifts easily from scientific or mathematical argu-
ment to matters of cost, manufacture and erection,
reflecting the needs of the immediate problem.
Some familiarity with engineering history is a pre-
requisite of modern education, for engineering is
one of the basic constituents of modern civilization
and culture. Too much of our present life depends
on technology to be able to ignore it altogether. A
history of technology can, therefore, induce us to
consider the origins of our culture more profoundly
and to view the common scientific-humanistic bias
of cultural studies in perspective. The cleft per-
ceived by C. P. Snow between the 'two cultures'l of
science and humanism then becomes much less
drastic than the chasm between these two and
technology. The bond between science and
humanism lies in their preoccupation with the
systemic aspects of human knowledge. Their bias
focuses on a hierarchic organization of perception,
thought and value: the system as a whole being
always considered as of a higher order than the
elements of which it is composed. This, in turn, is
based upon the goals of scientific and humanistic
thought which are knowledge and insight.
In technological thought, the system as a whole is
frequently less interesting than one of its constituent
parts which make an object work. In fact, the rela-
tionship between the whole and the detail in tech-
nological thought and development is often an in-
cremental rather than a hierarchic one. Thus the
phrase 'only a detail', is meaningless to a technol-
ogist. The basis for this attitude is the goal of tech-
nical endeavour which is not primarily insight or
knowledge, but a functioning object. Technologists
then are not primarily concerned with systemic as-
pects of technological thought and are, therefore,
free to choose and mix portions of mathematical or
scientific theory, or turn to any other means, and to
modify these in order to make an object work. The
proof of the correctness of a method lies in the
functioning of the object. This approach has often
been misunderstood as 'bastardization' by scien-
tists and mathematicians. It has also led to an en-
demic professional inferiority complex among en-
gineers who, particularly in the last century, were
overly eager to demonstrate their humanistic cul-
ture in correct, canonical decoration of their ob-
jects, and their scientific credentials in preoccupa-
tion with small analytical problems such as the
correct form of the catenary under various forms of
loading. Such preoccupations are rarely of rele-
vance to technical work.
Structural engineering is an ideal field through
which to examine technical thought, as it is com-
posed of a tightly interwoven matrix of empirical
knowledge, experimentation and scientific abstrac-
tion. The means one chooses to solve a particular
problem depends on the peculiarities of the pro-
blem and on the personal attitude of the engineer.
Engineering method is, therefore, very flexible.
From 'overlay' to 'system'
Scientific thought has influenced all aspects of
modern culture, among them, technology. The
point of this book is to examine the evolution of
civil engineering, from the time when construction
was approached empirically (i. e. with an ecclectic,
and therefore, fragmented approach to the solu-
tion of problems) to the development of what we
now call'system', an integrated approach in which
all parts are related to the whole. The shift from the
empirical to the integrated approach is responsible
for the growth of the entire field of engineering
from the middle of the eigtheenth century on and,
more broadly, forms the philosophical basis of the
Industrial Revolution.
In order to illustrate this evolution, we must exam-
Charles Percy Snow: The two cultures and the scientific
revolution. 1959 Cambridge: University Press. Snow
published further material on the subject in 1961 and
1964 9
 ine 'details'. A clear and uncomplicated example is
that of traditional timber bridge construction as
practised in southern Germany and the German
part of Switzerland in the eighteenth century. The
structural rationale of these bridges is incompre-
hensible to us today, schooled as we are in the
restrictive models and system of analytical statics.
Particularly disturbing is the apparent inconsistency
of the upper two diagrams of a plate published by
Jacob Leupold in 1726 2, with the four below. The
upper ones appear to us needlessly complicated,
unsystematic and highly redundant. The apparently
logical hiatus is highly disconcerting.
When we learn that, before the advent of modern
statics, the traditional method of creating ever-lar-
ger spans of greater loading capacity was to take
a successful simple structure and overlay it with
other, known simple structures (king-posts, queen-
posts and slanted struts)3 the figures in Leupold's
plate suddenly become lucid and appear even sim-
ple. Even those eighteenth century structures which
seem to display the characteristics of what we now
call a truss, in other words, the lower four in Leu-
pold's plate, take on new aspects when we regard
them as overlays. Looking at a truss today, we see a
system divisible into discrete elements, bounded by
their vertical members, which we call 'panels'. The
eighteenth century builder didn't see panels, but
rather, overlapping overlays of king-posts shifted
by half their width, which gives us an alternate way
of regarding the lower four figures. If we look at
them closely, particularly the figures labeled I and
III, we see that they support this point of view, as
the abutment 'panels' sport double diagonal mem-
bers which only make sense if we know that they
are formed by the superimposition of a king post
on a queen post which spans several'panels'.
Thus what we call structural logic is entirely de-
pendant on the viewpoint of the designer or ana-
lyst. The change in our understanding of construc-
tion, the development of what we call system, came

2 Jacob Leupold: Theatrum Pontificale oder Schau-Platz

der Brucken und Bruckenbaues ... 1726, Leipzig, vol. 7
of Theatrum Machinarum Universalis, 9 vols. 1723-1739
3 Hans Hauri: Thoughts on the historical development of
methods for dimensioning bridges. pp. 153-157 in: The
10 development of long-span bridge building. 1981 Zurich
about with the Industrial Revolution and the intro-
duction of physics and mathematical logic into
engineering education.
The case of the suspension system is more complex
than that of the timber truss, as a suspension struc-
ture cannot easily be regarded as being composed
of overlays. It is a whole because of the single
catenary from which it depends. Nevertheless, as
we shall see, the early wire cable structures built in
the 1820s did consist of overlays of several funi-
cular systems, and their stiffening mechanism was
composed of overlays of partial solutions rather
than being treated as an integral problem invol-
ving the whole structure. Tracing the evolution of
the wire cable suspension bridge can thus serve to
clarify the systemic aspects of a type and, in turn,
characterize the evolution of the whole field of
engineering in the first third of the nineteenth cen-
tury. The bridge is, thus, one example among many
through which to examine in the evolution of
modern engineering and to seek a partial clarifica-
tion for the differences between structural engi-
neering and architecture.
Structural engineering and architecture
It is curious that there should be two fields devoted
to the same activity, namely, the erection of struc-
tures. We have, by now, gotten used to this fact, so
that we can rationalize and segregate the functions
of each group more or less logically. A few specia-
lized concerns have grown over the past two cen-
turies: structural engineers are usually involved in
the creation of long-span structures, while archi-
tects are most frequently occupied with the acco-
modation of intricate functional relationships re-
quiring spatial subdivision. But these differences
are superficial. The traditional, simplistic explana-
tion of the basic differences between the two fields
is that engineers use mathematics as their language
whereas architects use an only vaguely defined
method involving logic, form, spatial definition and
function. But there is nothing inherent to either field
in this distinction.
Structural engineering has long been viewed by
architects as deterministic: there can be only one
'correct' answer to any given question be it in the
context of economics function or structural be-
havior. The field is therefore seen as intrinsically
boring and threatening to artistic and cultural in-
vention and expression. This is patently not true, or
we would not be able to identify characteristics in
the work of individual engineers. In contrast to the
deterministic view, great works of structural engi-
neering manifest an evident formal variety and an
esthetic attraction which cannot be accidental and
yet cannot be explained by mathematical logic
either.
Architecture has long been viewed in two lights by
civil engineers. On the one hand it represents
'taste' and 'culture', two elusive entities which
evade clem' definition, and yet exist. Beauty in
architecture is admired, but on what logic it is bas-
ed is poorly understood. On the other hand, the
concerns of architects are often seen as being il-
logical, irrelevant and obfuscatory: they confuse
what seem otherwise to be simple issues.
There are, however, real differences between the
two fields. One of the major ones concerns the
goal of professional activity. Architects, belonging
to a venerable profession, are traditionally primar-
ily interested in the finished product of their work,
in the object. They are less concerned with the
manufacture and the process of use. That is why
architectural magazines usually portray buildings
in a pristine state, just finished, and most frequently
also unpopulated. It is my hypothesis that this is due
to the fact that the profession of architecture pre-
dates both the Industrial Revolution and its inte-
grative tendencies, with the 'system' approach
seeing the object as part of its creating and its life
span.
Engineering, which emerged in its modern form
during the Industrial Revolution is, in contrast, es-
sentially 'system' and 'process' oriented, an orien-
tation which can be partly explained by its military
origins. 4 The engineer is chiefly concerned with the
processes of calculation, manufacture, erection,
use, maintenance and alteration, and often also
with the processes of financing, political planning
and organization. Thus photographs in enginee-
ring journals usually show the untidy machine- and
people-filled jumble of erection in progress. An
4 see p. [200-201] 11
 engineering feasibility study is also a very different
thing from an architectural feasibility study; the for-
mer is a study of how a particular goal can be
reached, while the latter concerns what is possible
on a particular site. s
The method of examination
An analysis of technology must take the technolog-
ical mode of thought into account. Given the non-
hierarchical nature of technological thought, the
method I have used is one contrasting a macro-
with a micro-examination of the subject. Repeated
confrontation of the whole of an argument or its
theoretical base with a technical detail is necessary
in order to comprehend how each aspect relates to
the entirety. And by following the growth of a par-
ticular aspect in detail, axioms can be viewed
afresh, queried and may even, upon examination,
once again become variables.
It is usual in historical studies to stress the system. In
the present volume, 'detail' is treated as co-equal
with 'system', and therefore the frame of reference
shifts back and forth between internalist and
generalist arguments, between philosophical back-
ground and suspension bridge detail again and
again in order to deepen the perspective, bind the
individual thought into the general development of
the argument and discover how technology and
technological thought evolve. Thus the argument
will return time and again to what is being discus-
sed here, each time with a slightly changed view-
point illustrating slightly different aspects.
Some questions
Given the goal and the widely ranging concerns of
this study, a lot of diverse questions arose while the
5 There have been many attempts to distinguish between
architectural and engineering form and therefore
esthetics, especially, but not exclusively, in Germanic
culture. The appearance of such theories spans from
the late nineteenth century to the present, but all of
them have attempted to establish an engineering
esthetic based on formal considerations alone. If there
is indeed such a thing as engineering 'art' as opposed
to architectural 'art', its esthetic must, by token of the
above differentiation, be concerned with the processes
of creation and use, life and change, rather than only
12 with the finished object.
origins of the wire cable bridge were being resear-
ched. How is it that we came to depend so exclusi-
vely upon mathematics in our understanding and
particularly in our manipulation of structure? This is
a justified query today, when this dependance is
being challenged in a novel way by the introduc-
tion of computerized methods into engineering.
How did the exact sciences enter so impredictable
a field as building? Why did some nations prefer
wrought iron chains for building suspension bridges
and others wire cables? Why did France erect over
500 wire bridges modelled on only a few types and
Britain only about 30 using almost as many mod-
els? What other interesting variants dropped by
the wayside and for what reasons? Could they per-
haps be resurrected today under our changed con-
ditions of material technology and improved
understanding of structural behavior? How does all
this relate to modern culture which is grounded so
strongly in technology? This tangle of questions,
reflecting the hybrid nature of the material, was the
reason for writing this book.
Introduction
What follows is a view of the early history of wire
cable suspension bridge construction from the
standpoint of one of the pioneers involved, Guil-
laume Henri Dufour (1787-1875). By following his
subjective, albeit very informed and broadly bas-
ed, position and contrasting it with others, the ex-
citement and novelty of the development manifests
itself. It becomes possible to recreate the incerti-
tudes of the search for appropriate solutions to
problems then only vaguely comprehended. We
observe the unfolding understanding of the par-
ameters of these problems and see them reflected
in built objects. The opinions of a designer are
formed through experience with a new medium.
The gradual shifts in attitudes, aligning themselves
more and more to those of modern engineering,
emerge in a way which otherwise would have been
difficult using a quasi-objective approach, that is,
one which reflects only our own standpoint. At the
same time, we are made aware of the commonly
ignored fact that the development might very well
have led along a different path had certain variant
design decisions been taken and rationalized in an
equally logical manner on a different basis.
2 Prehistory
The builders of the first wire cable bridges knew the
history of suspension bridge construction only in
very general terms, certainly not in the detail we
know it today. The wire cable bridge now domin-
ates suspension bridge construction but the wire
cable itself is of relatively recent origin. Traditional
structural materials used for suspended bridges
were cane, bamboo or hemp ropes and iron
chains. Early experiments undertaken between
1814 and 1822 in Great Britain, Pennsylvania and
in Savoy, all using cables made of parallel wires,
finally culminated in 1823 in the erection of the first
permanent wire cable bridge over the ramparts of
Geneva in Switzerland.
The earliest suspension types
The earliest known suspension structures stood in
the eastern Himalayas. They were later also com-
mon on the western coastline of the South Ameri-
can continent. Sinologists have presumed an Asiatic
origin of suspension bridge construction which may
well be true, as the eastern Himalayan Range and
particularly the Yunnan-Burmese border region
boasts the greatest variety of all known types from
the primitive to the technically most sophisticated. It
is speculative, but possible, that early Chinese trav-
ellers exported both the idea and the technical
knowledge to South America. However, a case has
been made for the independant invention of the
type in many regions. Xerxes's engineers, for in-
stance, used cables made of papyrus fiber for the
bridge they built over the Bosphoros for the inva-
sion of Greece. 1
As the conscious element acting upon Western tech-
nological invention in the eighteenth and nine-
teenth centuries was the influence of the Chinese
suspension bridges, and as the variety of types was
particularly great in China,2 it is this development
which shall concern us first.
Primitive types
There are several distinct types even among the
most primitive forms. The most elementary is the
cable ropeway with one or more parallel ropes
anchored at both ends and sometimes supported
on simple wooden trestles. A basket, usually hold-
ing two passengers, is pulled back and forth along
the rope or ropes by means of thinner cords fixed
to the front and the back. An early description of
this type was published by Frazer in 1820. 3 Frazer
found the type exemplified in a bridge called
'Jhoola' over the Sutlej River. The trestles consisted
of a horizontal beam on or behind two vertical
stakes. Nine or ten ropes, 5-7.5 cm in circumfer-
ence, were made fast to the beam and kept in place
by winches. Thus even the most primitive Chinese
rope bridges had a system of winches for maintain-
ing the tension of the cables. The span was tra-
versed on a sliding wooden yoke with semicircular
grooves fitting over the ropes. Loops, in which the
passengers sat, were slung underneath. In bridges
which had only a single rope, the yoke took the
form of a wooden tube. In most cases, the yoke was
greased with animal fat to reduce friction.
A double cable ropeway is the next in degree of
complexity. It functions by gravity. Each cable, or
set of parallel cables, is anchored higher on one
side than on the other, but with opposite inclina-
tion. The higher end is supported on a wooden
trestle as before, while the lower one is usually an-
chored directly to the rock. The vehicle is again
slung under the cables. A passenger, lashed to the
sling, slides down the inclined cable. If the differen-
1 Deuel p.84
2 I wish to record my indebtedness to the communications
of Tang Huan-Cheng, engineer in Wuhan, for much of
the technical and historical information, hitherto unpub-
lished, contained in these pages. Tang's reconnaissance
of the field shows the history of Chinese suspension
bridge construction to be far more diverse than has
been hitherto reported.
3 Frazer, p. 260, quoted also in Drewry, p. 3
4 Fugl-Meyer, p. 111 13
 ce between the height of the ends of the cable is
small, the passenger has to be helped up the
counter-slope by means of a cord fixed to the front
of the sling. If the difference in height is greater,
passengers reach the other side at a lower level
under their own momentum and then climb up
steps back to the level of their starting point. The
empty sling is then drawn back to its original posi-
tion by a smaller cord attached to the back as
before. Passengers often have to carry water with
them in order to cool the cables in transit. 4 Even
pack animals can be conveyed across rivers on
such 'bridges'.
The first catenary walkways
The simplest form of catwalk has two cables, one
suspended about a meter above the other. The
traveller balances sideways along the lower while
holding on the the upper for dear life. The next
level of complexity has two parallel ropes at the
same height and about a meter apart. V-shaped
suspenders fastened to these cables, carry longi-
tudinally placed logs or planks as a walking surface.
The cables themselves serve as handrails. There are
still many examples of this type in Yunnan, Sichuan
and Tibet. s Some have three or more parallel ca-
bles, in V- or U-form, and others are closed tubes.
One over the Yarlung-Zangbo in Tibet even has 47
ropes. A diameter of 100-160 cm seems to have
been usual, and spans of up to 245 mare recor-
ded,6 altough this seems improbably large. In all
Chinese examples, the ropes were made of cane.
No one knows when the first cables were laid side
by side with planking fastened across them and
two or more lateral cables hung as guiderails. The
first recorded bridge of this type was built as early
as 285 B. C. in the Province of Sichuan. It was said
that the King of Qin sent an army to Sichuan and
created the Chinese character 'Tso' which means
bamboo suspension bridge. It is also, therefore, the
earliest mention of cables made of bamboo. The
first recorded builder of such a bridge was the
Governor of Sichuan in the Qin Dynasty, Li Bing,
who proposed the erection of seven bridges
around the city of Chengdu in 95 B. c., Hjust like the
stars of the Big DipperH. One of these seven was a
14 bamboo cable suspension bridge? Travelogues
report catwalks of this type in the succeeding cen-
turies. They were, and are still to be found in the
mountainous regions of China, the Himalayan
countries and South East Asia.
Construction in cane and bamboo
Cane and bamboo cables are in fact stronger than
hemp ropes of the same diameter. Marco Polo not-
ed their strength:
HThey have canes of the length of fifteen
paces, and these, by twisting them together,
they form into ropes three hundred paces
long. So skillfully are they manufactured,
that they are equal in strength to ropes
made of hemp.H8
The cane cable predated that made of bamboo, as
cane needed little processing before use. 9 Bamboo
grows in the region within the eastern part of the
Qinghai-Xizang Plateau, between the southern
bank of the Yellow River and the sea, which forms
the provinces of Yunnan, Sichuan, Guizou and
Zhejiang. Tibet grows no bamboo at all, except in
districts to the south of the Himalayan Range, such
as Cha-Yu and Luo-Yu. Therefore all primitive forms
of Tibetan rope bridges were made of cane, yak
skin or other such substance. 1o
In the later bamboo ropes, the tensile strength
could be augmented by a careful choice of mater-
ial for the various layers. Splints from the inner part
of the culm formed the core of the rope around
which a cover of tightly braided strips from the
outer, harder silicon-rich layer, was woven. These
strips were highly resistant to abrasion. The cover-
ing was made of approximately 5-meter-long
splints which were spliced simply by overlapping
the ends. No two splices were allowed to occur at
the same position in the rope. The braided cover
was flexible and could yield slightly under sudden
tugs on the rope. This was a great advantage for
tensile resistance as, the tighter the rope was pul-
led, the tighter the cover gripped the core. The
5 letter from Tang to the author, 25 August 1981
6 Needham, voI,IV:3, p. 186
7
8
Tang to the author, 24 May 1981
Marco Polo, p. 210 quoted in Fugl-Meyer, p. 109
9 Tang to the author, 24 May 1981
10 ibid
force was thus transferred to all fibers equally, an
important consideration as uneven distribution of
stress would have caused overloading of some of
the fibers and consequently more failures.
The handmade ropes were tested during manufac-
ture. Each normally had a diameter of about 5 cm
and three or more of them were twisted together in
lengths of up to 250 m into finished bridge cables.
In the early years of this century Esterer carried out
several experiments on such ropes taken from
those he found used for towing on the Yangtse
River. An ordinary tow rope made of ten splints of
5.5 X 2 mm cross-section, or a total of lOX 11 mm,
had a normal working load of 0.54 t/cm 2. In spite
of being continually sub~ected to heavy loading,
the ropes seldom broke,l and if they did, the inner
strands invariably failed first, while the covering
withstood up to 1.82 t/cm 2, or about half the
breaking stress of mild steel. (3.9 t/cm 2)
This method of manufacture was used for towing
ropes and for short single span bridges. For larger
suspension bridges the bamboo rope was made by
simply twisting whole bamboo culms. A rope of up
to 140 m, which was the required length for a span
of about 125 m, usually required more than 2000
culms. 12
Fugl-Meyer divides the unstiffened cane or bam-
boo cable bridges into two distinct types, the 'Chi-
nese' and the 'Tibetan'. The first had cables fixed to
spindle-shaped winches made of logs. The winches
for the deck cables lay under the gatehouse floor
or stood like those for the guiderails and were held
fast in sockets let into the foundations of the gate-
houses below and the roofbeams above. The roofs
of the gatehouses were then heavily weighted
down with stone. By means of these winches the
cables could be tightened individually. Grooved
hardwood bats served as saddles to deflect the
cables from the span on to the winches. Under the
planking, the main cables were pegged together '
using hardwood dowels. Most bridges of this type
had between six and twelve load bearing cables,
and the usual span lay between 40 and 75 m.
Many such structures still exist and they require
constant maintenance. The main cables have to be
replaced every year and then serve for a further
year as handrails. Therefore bridges of this type
have an equal number of main and guiderail ca-
bles.
These structures typically had a single span. How-
ever, some had more and even occasionally contin-
uous cables supporting more than one span. The
bridge at Quan-Xian, with its several continuous
spans supported by ten cables, is the best known
bridge of the 'Chinese' type. It is also the longest
multi-span bamboo bridge in China. 13 It probably
dates from the 3rd century B. c., although it is doc-
umented only at the beginning of the Sung period
(from 960 A. D. on), when it had five spans and a
total length of 380 m. 14 Today it measures 330 m
and has double that number, the largest of which
Quan-Xian. Bamboo cable
bridge, China. First
mentioned in the 3rd cent.
B. C. Original condition
before restoration in 1976
(photograph: Tang Huan-
Cheng)

11 Esterer, p. 146
12 Tang to the author, 24 May 1981
13 ibid
14 ibid 15
 measures 61 m. The piers, with the exception of the
central one of granite, are wooden trestles. Until
1975, the bridge had to be closed for two months
every year while the cables were replaced. Since
then it has had modern wire cables. A plan to cover
the cables with bamboo in order to preserve the
original appearance, had to be abandoned for
maintenance reasons. 15
The difficulty with the 'Chinese' bamboo bridge is
that all main cables have to be adjusted to precise-
ly the same length and degree of tension. Other-
wise the more lax cables will carry less while the
others are correspondingly overloaded.
Winches and gatehouses are missing in most tradi-
tional suspension bridges in Tibet and the Hima-
layas. These bridges have only two slack cables for
carrying the whole load of the deck which is slung
underneath them in a shallower curve, sometimes
so slight that it passes for horizontal to the layman.
Detail of the Yuan-Xian
Bridge after replacement of
the bamboo cables by wire
cables in 1976 (photo-
graph: Tang Huan-Cheng)
16
Fugl-Meyer called this system the 'Tibetan' type.
Although the more primitive in appearance, the
Tibetan type is really the better from a technical
standpoint. 16 The cable tension is much less, due to
the greater sag: the tighter a cable is spanned, the
more tension there is in it; the laxer it is, the lower
the tension and consequently the less danger there
is of failure.
The safety of such a structure is less dependant on
slight variations in cable length and tension. Also,
the construction requires no complicated, delicate
winching mechanism.
The 'Chinese' and 'Tibetan' systems are so different
that if one influenced the other, it must have been
indirectly,17 Presumably two different schools of
construction co-existed, each with regional sub-
divisions and each adhering to its own structural
traditions. The longest recorded single span of
either type was that of the Taoguan (Peach Pass) in
Sichuan. It measured 200 m and was built in 1776,
late in the history of suspension bridges in China,
but still many years before the proliferation of the
type in the West. 1B This bridge was therefore the
longest reliably documented span in the world until
the building of the wire cable 'Grand Pont Suspen-
du' in Fribourg, Switzerland in 1834.
From the bamboo cable to the wrought
iron chain
The origin of the iron chain in construction is just as
obscure as that of the bamboo cable. Pliny the
Elder reported an iron chain used in the erection of
a bridge over the Euphrates at Zengusa on the
order of Alexander the Great in the 4th century
B.C19
In China, iron chains were first mentioned in docu-
ments of the 'Spring and Autumn' Period (770-476
B. C), where records mention that 3609 iron mines
were then being exploited. 20 Recent archeological
excavations have unearthed a steel sword dating
15 ibid
16 Fugl-Meyer, p. B
17 ibid, p. 7
18 Tang to the author, 24 May 1981
19 Historia Naturalis, book 34, 13. Quoted in Healy,
p.239
20 Tang to the author, 24 May 19B1
from the latter part of this period at Changsa in
Hunan, testifying to the existence of a sophisticat-
ed metallurgical tradition in steel manufacture far
earlier than a corresponding development in the
West. Tang also recently discovered an inscribed
tablet at Liuba in Shanxi Province, describing an Thang-stong rGyal-po
iron chain bridge built in the first year of the Han (1385-1464) Tibetan
Dynasty (206 B. C.). This earliest of all known Chi- Boddhisattva, monk, reli-
gious reformer, metallurgist
nese iron chain bridges was erected on the order of and suspension bridge
the renowned General Fangui. 21 builder. Traditional repre-
The high standard of Chinese metallurgy, particu- sentation with chain links in
larly in the mountainous regions of Sichuan and his right hand, from a tanka
in the collection of Monika
Yunnan, with their abundance of high-grade iron von Schulthess (photo-
ore, favored the emergence of the iron chain graph: Monika von Schult-
bridge. It soon spread throughout the Himalayan hess)
Range right up to the Hindukush Mountains. Need-
ham mentions 24 such iron bridges by name.22
Other sources speak of 48. Travellogues dating
back to 519 and 646 A. D. bespeak the existence of
many such structures on the pilgrim road from
China to India, but no complete historical inventory ·
has yet been attempted. As with the bamboo cable
bridges, the chain ones were also single spans with
few exceptions. 23
The largest of the Chinese chain bridges was a very
late structure built in 1873 over the Bugu River at
Puer in Yunnan with a span of 125 m. 24 The largest
before this, the Luding Bridge over the Tatu River,
had a record span of 100 m when it was built in
1703, although tradition has it that a predecessor
spanned 110m. These bridges were also the larg-
est spans of their time. The Luding Bridge lies in
Western Sichuan on the road to Tibet. Nine, tightly bridges, the main chains are coupled to a common
stretched main chains of links 25 cm long support anchor-bar buried under the masonry of the abut-
the deck which appears to be almost horizontal. ments. 25
Two more chains on either side, attached together This bridge became the most widely published
and to the outer deck chains with smaller links, form Chinese suspension bridge in the West, due to the
guiderails. As is usual in traditional Chinese chain fact that Mao Dzedong's troups stormed it in 1935.
In spite of the fact that the Kuomintang army re-
21 ibid moved most of the planking in defense, Mao won a
22 Needam IV:3, pp. 194-195
23 Fugl-Meyer, p. 122 decisive victory and thus opened the way to the
24 Tang to the author, 24 May 1981 conquest of Northern China. 26
25 Esterer, in the caption to the illustration facing p. 146,
calls it the 'Lou-tinj-chiao' and erroneously lists it as a Thang-stong rGyal-po
bamboo cable structure.
26 T. Paine: Mao Tse Tung, Ruler of Red China, Princess Weng-Cheng of the Tang Dynasty is said
1950/German engineering journal: der Stahlbau to have introduced the iron chain bridge into the
1958/Whitfoht: Triumph der Spannweite, 1972 Tibetan Region,27 where it must therefore have 17
View of Chuka Bridge over
the Paro River in Bhutan.
From Turner, 1800
been well-established by the 7th century. The best
known builder of such bridges in the region was
Thang-stong rGyal-po (1385-1464), an itinerant
Tibetan monk, who became revered for important
liturgical reforms in Tibetan Lamaism. His accom-
plishments in bridge building have received scant
recognition and then only as a curious addendum
to his eminent theological career. Due to his theo-
logical fame, he is the first suspension bridge buil-
der about whom more than the name is known. Till
now, his structures and obvious technical expertise
have never been examined in any detail.
The name this remarkable man is usually known by,
and which is transliterated as 'Tang-Dong Gan-Bu'
18 in Chinese, means 'King of the Wilderness' refer-
ring to his hermit-like life. His real name was
Cherab-oser to which the appendage 'chag sam-
pa', or 'the builder of iron bridges' is added. During
his lifetime, he was highly appreciated for his
bridges and was employed by the ruling houses of
Tibet and Bhutan who procured the material and
labor for his projects. 28 Many chain bridges of the
type he erected have been in daily use in the re-
gion for 550 years. Most of those in Bhutan, and
nearly all of those in Tibet, are traditionally attri-
buted to Thang-stong rGyal-po. Nine such struc-
tures are known to have been built in Bhutan.
27 Tong to the author, 24 May 1981
28 Needham IV:3, p. 206

The best documented is the Tamchugang Bridge
over the Paro River. The deck rested on parallel
chains and several more formed the railings. Thus it
belonged to the 'Chinese' type and not the 'Tibet-
an'. The bridge was last photographed in 1967,
and collapsed in a storm the following year. Some
of the chains have been recovered from the river
bed and are presently in storage in the cities of
Thimpu and Paro.29 The bridge stood near a house
which Thang-stong rGyal-po is traditionally said to
have built for himself and which increases the likeli-
hood of the attribution. Several extra links of chain
s.till hang under the eaves and probably had some-
thing to to with the construction. The links are all
pinched in the middle which indicates an over-
Detail of Docsum Sempa
Bridge over the confluence
of the Gongri and Yangtse
Rivers, Bhutan. Originally
erected at Tashigang by
Thang-stong rGyal-po in
the 15th cent. Moved and
rebuilt by the Indian Army
Corps of Engineers in 1969
(photograph: Monika von
Schulthess)
loading of the chain. They may, therefore, have
been part of a first, failed attempt to bridge the
river.
The Chuka Bridge over the Wang River, of the
same type, was reported and illustrated by Turner
in London in 1800. 30 At some date thereafter it was
replaced by a cane cable structure, and today, this
too has given way to a Bailey Bridge built by the
British Army. Another, the Chakyam Bridge at Tashi-
gang, spanned the Gongri River. This too, was of
29 Information from Monika von Schulthess, Cham,
Switzerland 1978 and from Leo Caminada, then Chief
Forester of Bhutan in a letter to the author, 1981
30 Turner p. 55, quoted in Pope pp. 44-45 19

Chains at Wangdiphodrang,
Bhutan. Abandoned by
Thang-stong rGyal-po in
the 15th cent. after an
aHempt to build a bridge
there (photograph: Monika
von Schulthess)
the 'Chinese' type. It was dismantled in 1969 by an
Indian Army Corps in the course of a road con-
struction program and rebuilt using the original
chains at the confluence of the Gongri and the
Yangtse Rivers at Docsum Sempa. 31 The old gate-
houses are still to be seen at the original site. 32 A
further bridge to the north of Tashigang, on the
road to Tashiyangtsi was removed at a far earlier
date and replaced by a timber cantilever construc-
tion using the original gatehouses as abutments. 33
This was, in turn, superceeded by a traditional
'Chinese' type structure, called the Doczum Zamp,
built at the end of the nineteenth century by the
engineer Togpala. 34 The fifth, the Churisom Bridge,
20 stood at the confluence of the Paro and the Wang
Rivers. Traces of this long-vanished structure are still
visible, but the date of its collapse is no longer
known. Another lies in the extreme north of the
country and can only be reached by an arduous
two-week trek. As far as is known, it has never been
visited by anyone interested in examining it.
Turner mentions a variant of the 'Tibetan' type built
at a place called Selocha-zum which has not been
identified. This and a similar one, attributed to
Thang-stong rGyal-po, mentioned by L. A. Wadell
as spanning over the Bramahputra River at a place
he called Chak-sam ch'6-ri, had stone piers over
which the chains were hung. The anchorages lay
some distance away from the piers which means
that the bridge had backs pans. This was unusual,
and the attribution is therefore somewhat suspect.
Apart from these eight, a heap of chains of the
same type as those used in the construction of
chain bridges, lies abandoned on the ground at
Wangdiphodrang. A legend relates that Thang-
stong rGyal-po tried to erect a bridge at this site.
But every night, the work begun during the day was
destroyed by evil spirits. Finally, after the chains
had been thrown down several times, the builder
renounced his intention and left the chains Iyin~
where they are still to be seen 550 years later.3
The abandoned links show the same pinching in the
middle as those under the eaves of the house at
Tamchogang, indicating a deformation of the chain
due to overloading. There is very little rain or silting
in Bhutan, and very few outside travellers pass by,
so that it is not surprising that the remains are in
excellent condition. As Thang-stong rGyal-po is re-
vered as a Bodhisattva, the chains are considered
holy and are covered by prayer flags. The gate-
houses of Wangdiphodrang still exist, and today a
steel bridge spans the river at this site.3 6
31 Information: Monika von Schulthess/Leo Caminada
32 Information: Leo Caminada
33 Informatio"n: Leo Caminada 1979. Presumably this is the
cantilever bridge remarked upon and illustrated by
Benjamin Baker in his explanation of the system used
for the great Firth of Forth cantilever bridge in 1890
(Westhofen, p. 6)
34 Information: Leo Caminada
35 Information: Monika von Schulthess
36 Information: Leo Caminada
Several other bridges attributed to the same author
are known to exist in Tibet,37 and an iron ring,
crowning a temple roof in Dungtshi Lakhang is also
said to have been manufactured by the Bodhi-
sattva.
The iron he used
The iron composing a small portion of Bhutanese
chain link, now in a private collection in Switzer-
land, was metallurgically examined in 1970. 38 As
far as is known, this is the first example of such iron
to be analysed. As in all samples of ancient iron,
whether from Europe or Asia, the probe contained
a very high percentage of pure iron. The perfect
state of preservation was explained as due to the
purity of the iron, especially as regards the rela-
tively low phosphorus and sulphur content, as well
as to the exceptionally dry climate of Bhutan.
Other experts have disputed this, as modern cor-
rosion-resistant weathering steels possess higher
percentages of these impurities. 39
The metallographic examination of the same frag-
ment undertaken in 1979 showed the arsenic to be
concentrated in the weld which luckily ran through
the sample. An alloy containing arsenic was prob-
ably spread on the surfaces to be welded in the
form of a paste or powder, acting as a flux and
substantially reducing the temperature necessary
for melting the metal. This produced a more effec-
tive weld than would have been possible by pres-
sure alone. 4o Such a technique indicates a very
high level of siderurgical knowledge and technical
ability. Quite apart from the technological con-
siderations, the paste or powder used must have
been highly toxic.
Epprecht found a brief mention of iron with a low
melting point in Aristoteles, and in fact, the 1961
examination of a Roman sword, probably from the
famed Damascene factory, showed the use of a
similar technique. 41 Another arsenic compound
had been used to weld the hardened steel edge to
the flexible shaft of the blade. This weld-soldering
technique is unknown today.
Non-corroding iron, or iron which only rusts very
slowly, was also known in the West. A votive chain,
traditionally dated to the thirteenth century, still
spans 200 m between two crags over the southern
French town of Moustier Sainte-Marie in the Alpes
de Haute Provence. 42 It is made of eyebar links,
65 cm long and 20 mm in diameter. The eyebar
differs from the normal chain link inasmuch as it is
made of a single bar, not closed in a loop. Its ends
are either bent to form 'eyes' at either end, or
flattened and punched with holes.
Variant Chinese chain bridges and
stiffened, horizontal decks
There were also many eyebar chain bridges in
China. One of the better known still stands on the
former Sichuan-Xi kang border at Kiai Tsu Chang. It
has four continuous spans and was erected in the
eighteenth century over a tributary of the Min River
above Quan-Xian, not far from the famous ten-
span bamboo bridge. Similar to the Moustier
chain of five centuries before, the Kiai Tsu Chang
chains are of round bars bent to form eyes and
welded at the ends. 43
Before the recent discovery of traces of the chain
bridge at Liuba, the earliest chain bridge, called
Lan-Jin, was traditionally supposed to have been
erected at Jing Dong in Yunnan in the year 65 A. D.
Tang visited and examined the presumed site and
could discover no trace of such a structure ever
having existed. He suggests that tales of this bridge
might in reality have stemmed from a confused
description of another structure, Lan-Jin which was
the name of a ferry located at Yong-Chang over
the Lan-Cang River. For a period of about
600 years, from the latter part of the 'Three King-
dom' Period (220-265 A. D.l, to the middle of the
Tang Dynasty (860-870 A. D.l, a bamboo cable
bridge spanned the river at this site. A chain bridge
37 Stein, p. 219
38 See manuscript: Analix S.A.: C: 0.012%, S:0.004%, P:
0.049%, Si: 0.07%, Cu: 0.007%, Mn: less than 0.001 %,
Cr: less than 0.001 %, A1: 0.001 %, In: 0.01 %, As:
0.007%, Fe by subtraction: 99.65%
39 Information from Ulrich Morf, Head of Department,
Swiss Federal Institute of Testing Materials (EMPA),
DGbendorf, 1980
40 Epprecht, pp. 473-477
41 G. Becker
42 Navier: Rapport et Memoire ... p. 6
43 Information: Tang 21
 of peculiar design, called the Ji-Hong Bridge, was
then built there during the Ming Dynasty from
1564-1586, and this in turn was replaced by
another one constructed in 1846 in the Qing
Dynasty.44
The Ji-Hong Bridge was a hybrid having both cat-
enary suspension chains and stays. Stays are diag-
onal tension members spanning straight from the
towers to various points along the deck, with no
suspenders attached to them. Chain- or cable-
stayed bridges, of which there are an increasing
number today, are rigid enough to be used by
wheeled vehicles. Consequently the Ji-Hong Bridge
of 1586 is the oldest known suspension bridge to
have a stiffened deck. It was first described by the
noted Chinese traveller Xuxiake in the book enti-
tled 'Xuxiake Travel Notes' written in 1629. As op-
posed to modern Western stayed structures, in
which the stays end at their points of attachement
to the deck, the Chinese type, of which the Ji-Hong
was not the only representative, had a series of
stays running continuously through from one pylon,
down to the deck, and up again to the other pylon.
Each stay supported a single deck joist. 45 Structures
of this type continued to be built in China up until
the Phan-Jiang Bridge of 1711.
Till now, Western historians have remained un-
aware of the chain stayed, stiffened Chinese sus-
pension bridge. However, several writers have
speculated on the possibility of the existence of a
horizontal deck. Needam suggests that horizontal
decks were known in Chinese suspension bridge
construction. He presumes that they evolved grad-
ually from the older catwalk type by the chains of
the handrails slowly acquiring a greater rise than
those supporting the deck,46 and he cites two ex-
amples in Nepal and Burma in support of this hy-
pothesis. However, the two systems are radically dif-
ferent from one another. The catwalk, whether
hung below the chains, ('Tibetan'), or directly sup-
ported on them, ('Chinese') is never really horizon-
tal, however highly stressed it may be. The true
horizontal deck is rigid as opposed to a very tightly
stretched catwalk, and it requires some means of
stiffening.
Fugl-Meyer, an engineer by training, was uncertain
22 whether or not the stiffened deck originated in
China at all. Turner did report a horizontal deck at
the beginning of the nineteenth century, but it is
probable that, as a layman like Needham, he mis-
took a tightly stretched catwalk for a truely hori-
zontal one. There exist several photographs of the
Luding Bridge of 1703 showing its deck to be so
tightly stretched as to appear almost horizontal.
And for the casual observer, the distinction is too
technical to be obvious.
Steinman and Watson claim the first suspension
bridge with a horizontal deck to have been built in
the Indus Valley in Northern India, in the first cen-
turies of our era. 47 The Indus River rises in Tibet,
and the structure they mention may well have been
one of the Tibetan chain bridges. Steinman was a
bridge engineer, but he obviously had not seen the
bridge and no photograph is reproduced in their
book, nor are any to be found in his collection of
photographs.48 Lacking any conclusive informa-
tion, the discussion must remain speculative.
Information spreads to the West
It was a report on the possibly mythical Lan-Jin
Bridge,49 and therefore perhaps a bowdlerization
of Xuxiake's description of the Ji-Hong Bridge of
1586, which was first transmitted to Western readers
by Jesuit missionaries in China. Athansius Kircher, a
prolific science popularizer, although he had him-
self never been to China and was based at the
Jesuit headquarters in Rome, published it in his
'China Monumenta IIlustrata' in 1667. The book
was so popular that a second Latin edition ap-
peared the same year and a French translation
three years later, in 1670. Ever since then, the
mysterious Lan-Jin Bridge has repeatedly cropped
up in all Western tracts on suspension bridge
history.
It may well be that Kircher's informants had read
one of the sources Needam mentions, or Xuxiake's
book, and had simply confused the names and
44 Tang to the author, 24 May 1981
45 ibid
46 Needham, vol.lV:3, p. 146, 190
47 Steinman and Watson, p. 28
48 now in my possession
49 Needham does, however give several Chinese sources
for the description ofthe Lan-Jin Bridge: IV:3, p. 196

dates. Since neither Kircher nor any later treatise
provide technical details, it is less likely that they
had examined such a structure or had read the first
technical treatise on iron suspension bridges pub-
lished by Chu Hsien-Yuan two years before Kir-
cher's book in 1665, and simply called 'Report on
the Iron Suspension Bridge'. Just to complicate
matters, however, there were some later Western
writers whose illustrations correspond more closely
to the Ji-Hong Bridge than did Kircher's.
Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, for example,
may have had more information, as in his depic-
tion of the 'Lan-Jin' Bridge in 1721,50 he shows two
continuous stays, running from ancorage to an-
chorage, supporting the deck. The text does not
Representation of the myth-
ical Lan Jin Bridge in
Yunnan, China. From
Schramm, 1735. First
illustrated in Kircher, 1667
mention this though, and confusingly states that the
deck was carried by twenty chains under the plank-
ing. Carl Christian Schramm copied this illustration
down to the details of the landscape in 1735,51
with the sole difference that his stays sport second-
ary suspender connections to the deck. In both il-
lustrations, a separate catenary chain forms the
handrail. These depictions may have enjoyed
some artistic licence, but they may also have been
based on information. Both Fischer and Schramm
write that the bridge stood at 'King tung' (Jing
Dong), which indicates that at least some of their
informati)n came from Kircher. The plate was re-
50 Fischer von Erlach, book 3, plate 15
51 Schramm plate 13 and description on pp. 49-50 23
 printed several times. One of the latest yet disco-
vered, dates from 1782 in England. 52 After 1800,
travelogues began to proliferate. Turner's book of
1800 was only one of them. 53
Early Western development
The first account of a genuinely chain-suspended
structure to have been built in Europe, is that of a
small bridge erected in the Sch611enen Canyon on
the Gotthard Pass route around 1218. There were
probably others even earlier, such as drawbridges,
but they have not been recorded.
The wild, narrow defile of the Sch611enen, lies just
below the village of Andermatt and connects the
lower valley of Uri with the high, flat and sweeping
alpine plain of Ursern in the Gotthard Range. The
Sch611enen Canyon was long the chief barrier to
the most obvious and direct north-south route over
the central Alpine Range. The southern approach
to the pass affords relatively easy access and only
the short, precipitous canyon, carved deeply into
the northern slope by the Reuss River, required
major engineering works. From Roman times on,
the transalpine routes had been of central im-
portance to the development of European trade,
cultural exchange and ecclesiastical as well as
'national' structures.
The political events which led to the opening of the
new Gotthard route shortly after 1200 are shroud-
ed in obscurity, since no documents regarding them
survived. There are several theories involving the
various interested political forces and feudal famil-
ies who shared suzeranity over the transalpine pas-
ses. 54
The traditional eastern alpine crossing followed the
Grisons passes, chiefly the Julier and Maloya route,
which lead through the Engadine Valley down to
Sargans and the Rhine Valley in the north, and to
the Lake of Como in the south. In the western Alps,
the Great Saint Bernard Pass carried most of the
trade traffic between the Valais in the Rhone Valley
and the Val d'Aosta to the south. Over the interven-
ing 210 km between these two routes, which repre-
sented more than a week's travelling time, neither
the Aar River Valley nor that of the Reuss afforded
access to the south. The opening of the Gotthard
24 route in the early years of the thirteenth century
radically altered the structure of European trade.
The great trade fairs of the Champagne began
their decline while the economic power of the lands
drained by the Rhine, its tributaries and its neigh-
bors, from Constance to Cologne and from Frank-
fort on the Main River right up to Bruges grew
correspondingly.55
For this to happen, four major bridges had to be
built in the Sch611enen Canyon. Recent research
posits 1218-1225 as the earliest possible construc-
tion date for these remarkable structures. The one
that concerns us here was the 'TwarrenbrOcke', or
'Transverse Bridge', located at the uppermost end
of the canyon.
No contemporary drawing or exact description of
the TwarrenbrOcke has survived, but, as far as
can be ascertained from the sketchy information
available, the bridge was a boardwalk, partly can-
tilevered out from the cliff and hung in chains from
the face of the Kirchberg mountain above, and
partly bearing on occasional convenient boulders
below. It circumvented a sheer outcropping which
blocked the entrance to the Ursern Valley. Rudolf
Laur-Belart, examining the site in the early 1920s,
found iron rings bolted into the cliff face with re-
mains of wire attached to them. He therefore sug-
gests that the structure had been hung in wire.56
However true this may have been for later repairs,
earlier states of the construction probably hung
from chains. It is hardly likely, given the uneven
quality of manually produced wire in the thirteenth
century, that it would have been available in quan-
tity for structural purposes.
The maintenance of the TwarrenbrOcke was
arduous and expensive. It entailed the gradual de-
forestation of the entire area. As payment for the
52 'Published as the Act directs, by Harrison & Co. Nov. 1,
1782 ... Metz del ... Scott sulp.' I am indebted
to Dr. Andre Corboz, Professor at the ETH Zurich, for
this information
53 among others containing information on suspension
bridges: James Rennell, consulted in the French
version: Description historique et geographique de
l'lndostan, 1800, vol. 3, p. 92 and Ferdinand Freiherr
von Richthofen: Tagebucher aus China, vol. 2,
pp.2351297
54 Bergier, pp. 204-209
55 ibid, p. 204
56 Laur-Belart, pp. 166-168
immense effort for the upkeep of the Schollenen
Canyon bridges and the general maintenance of
the whole northern side of the pass route, the pop-
ulation of the Ursern Valley were granted liberties
by the Emperor in 1231 which freed them from all
feudal obligations to any other overlords. There
were many such freedoms granted to alpine com-
munities in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.57 It
has been suggested that these liberties substantial-
ly contributed to the signing of the first seces-
sion from the Holy Roman Empire and to the simul-
taneous mutual defense pact between the three
original cantons of the Swiss Confederation: Uri,
Schwyz and Nidwalden which occured during the
imperial interregnum. The renewal of this pact in
1291,58 and its subsequent armed defense, formed
the nucleus of Switzerland.
A severe freshet swept the Tworrenbrucke away in
1707. Instead of rebuilding the venerable structure,
the canton of Uri decided to pierce a tunnel
through the cliff, the first in the Alps. After the com-
pletion of the 'Urner Loch', as the tunnel came to
be called, the remains of the bridge were allowed
to rot away. By the time Laur-Belart examined the
site in 1923, most of what remained had been ef-
faced by the construction of the Schollenen Rail-
way Line. Aside from the rings and bolts, Laur-
Belart also saw two superimposed rows of beam
sockets, spaced 150 cm apart, cut into the rock. 59
Today, only the carved date '1666' and a cross can
be seen. 60 A weir, built to dam the waters of the
Reuss, has submerged any other traces.
The second recorded Western chain structure was
the votive chain of Moustier, also dating back to
the thirteenth century. A hundred years thereafter,
the 'Historia Alexandri Macedoniae Regis', an Ital-
ian manuscript of the mid-fourteenth century, men-
tions a bridge over the Euphrates built during the
reign of Alexander the Great, purported to have
been held together by means of iron clamps and
chains. Although the structure is not mentioned by
Herodotus,61 we have already seen that there was
a classical source, the elder Pliny, who stated the
crossing to have been at Zengusa. It is not a
suspended structure, however, and the illustration
accompanying the text in the manuscript shows a
typical timber trestle bridge of the fourteenth cen-
tury, very similar to the contemporary Kappel
Bridge (1333) over the Reuss in Lucerne, Switzer-
land, which still stands.
About 250 years later, Faustus Verantius's 'Ma-
chinae novae ... ' appeared in two editions in 1615
and 1617. Although now exceedingly rare, the
work seems to have enjoyed an immense popular-
ity, as the second Venetian edition immediately
followed the first Florentine one with translations
of the original Latin and Italian text into Spanish,
French and German. Among Verantius's many
other surprising inventions (such as the first para-
chute and an arch bridge to be built of bell-metal)
were his proposals of three suspension bridges.
One was a sophisticated version of the ropeway.
Ropes had long been used for Western suspension
structures. According to Slavic legends, Princess
Libusha had ordered a rope bridge erected near
Prague in the Middle Ages. 62 Swiss mercenary ar-
mies are recorded as having built another in north-
ern Italy in 1515, and a further one is known to
have been ordered by Admiral Coligny at Poitiers
in 1595. Verantius's is the first of which a depiction
has survived. It had a wooden box in which the
passengers rode, which travelled on pulleys over a
fixed rope. A second rope ran above this and was
fixed to the tops of the pulley blocks. At the pylons,
this second rope ran over the pulleys and back
over the river in a closed loop hanging in a shallow
catenary which reached the edge of the open box.
The vehicle was propelled over the river by the
occupants pulling themselves along by means of
this slack loop.
The second proposal showed a temporary military
bridge: a flat deck was suspended from a catenary
rope by means of vertical, continuous suspenders
which ran up and down between the catenary and
the deck over a series of pulleys. Verantius seems to
have envisioned stiffening the structure by means
of a truss-like configuration of rope on one side of
57 Hans Konrad Peyer, in vol. 1, Handbuch der Schweizer
Geschichte, p. 174
58 ibid, p. 181
59 Laur-Belart, pp. 166-168
60 Muheim, p. 70
61 Mehrtens, part 2, vol. 1, p. 27
62 Hruban, p. 9 25
 )6. PONS V IVS
Ropeway proposal by
Faustus Verantius. From
Verantius, 1615
the deck; an interesting idea perhaps, but a vain
hope.
The third, and by far the most intriguing design
showed an iron chain bridge:
"We call this bridge an iron bridge
because it is hung by means of many iron
chains from two towers erected on both
sides of the water ... "
writes Verantius. This fascinating proposal shows
linked eye bars, rather like those of contemporary
Chinese bridges. Like the Ji-Hong Bridge, finished
just 29 years before, Verantius's proposal showed a
hybrid system with both a suspension chain sup-
porting a single suspender at mid-span and chain
stays on either side. These spanned in a harp-like
arrangement, parallel to each other and were an-
chored at different heights on the towers. As op-
posed to the Ji-Hong system, the stays were not
26 continuous, but ended at their points of attachment
to the deck.
'i
I
All iron parts of Verantius's bridge were fashioned
as eyebars. Even the wooden stringers supporting
the deck, connected longitudinally and with com-
plete disregard for the fibrous structure of a timber
beam, had eyebars implanted incongruously into
their ends. Clearly the author of the plate was un-
familiar with the principles of timber construction.
Verantius died in 1617, sixteen years before the
Jesuit order, whose members were to do missionary
work in China, was founded and long before Kir-
cher published his book. Although Portuguese
travellers are known to have visited China in the
sixteenth century, no documentation appears to in-
dicate a connection or any foreign origin of Veran-
tius's design. The disparity between the Chinese
structure and his proposal is such that it is evident
that he could only have had access to a very vague
description of the Ji-Hong Bridge - albeit a more
accurate and detailed one than Kircher had half a
century later.

-- - - - - -
In spite of Verantius's and Kircher's achievements
another century was to pass before the army of the
Elector of Saxony erected a temporary chain
bridge near Glozyniz on the Oder River on a
march from Selesia to Danzig. This was perhaps
fortuitous, as hemp was to remain the common
material for military structures of this type: the
'Annales des ponts et chaussees' in France pub-
lished the results of tests carried out on hemp ropes
for bridges at Metz as late as 1827 and 1833. 63
Another equally minor chain catwalk was built over
the Tees River near Winch in County Durham, Eng-
land, in 1741.64 The sole importance of this primi-
tive, unstiffened structure for the history of suspen-
sion bridge construction, lies in the fact that, like
the Lan-Jin myth, it was faithfully reported in all
later treatises, thus spuriously serving postfactum
as the ancestor of later developments. In reality,
the Winch Bridge had no progeny. The builder is
Verantius's temporary
military rope bridge
proposal, 161 5
_-- i
also unknown. Cumming saw and drew the bridge
in 1824. 65 However, what he saw was a recon-
struction of the original which had collapsed in
1802. This reconstruction was still standing in
1908. 66 The Winch Bridge certainly seems to have
been the first permanent, genuine suspension
bridge in Europe to use chains, although there has
been some speculation as to whether there might
not have been even earlier ones. But here the sour-
ces are vague indeed,67 especially as there is
frequent ambiguity in the use of the very words
'chain' and 'suspension bridge' in pre-twentieth
century technical writing.
63 APC 1832, 2e. sem., pp. 363-404, 1 plate; 1834, ler.
sem., p. 363ft
64 Pope, pp. 45-46 cites his source as Hutchinson, p. 56,
and, more precisely, in Cumming, 3rd. ed., pp. 41-43
65 Cumming, p. 42
66 Tyrrell, p. 204
67 Kemp: Brown, p. 2 27
 --- -----
3 4 , Po S FERIlEV S
Verantius's chain bridge
proposal, 1615
--~~~,,""==-----~-----£.-- I!!~~~---
To date it has been impossible to find a trace of the
next project, Niklaus von Fuss's 1794 design for a
long-span chain bridge over the Neva in St. Peters-
burg. Fuss was a Swiss mathematician and Leon-
hard Euler's assistant and successor as Secretary of
the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences at
St. Petersburg. By means of a single, gigantic span,
Fuss proposed obviating the problem of protecting
bridge piers founded in the riverbed from the per-
ennial danger of spring ice floes - the same site
and problem incidentally, that later prompted Sir
Marc Isambard Brunei to develop his celebrated
tunnelling shield for underwater excavation in soft
ground in 1818. It would have been illuminating to
examine Fuss's audacious plan. It predated the first
Western stiffened suspension bridge actually built,
that of James Finley in Pennsylvania, by just two
years, and would therefore have afforded insight
28 into the state of the art in other countries on the
- ____ '_-
eve of the appearance of the modern suspension
bridge. However, no trace of the proposal has yet
been discovered in the Fuss or Euler Archives in
Basle, or in those of Moscow or Leningrad.
Many proposals were put forward just before the
turn of the century, when the scene of development
shifted briefly to the young United States. James
Finley, justice of the peace and member of the
Pennsylvania State Legislature, proposed and also
built the first suspension bridge to have a horizon-
tal, truss-stiffened deck. It spanned Jacob's Creek
in Pennsylvania on the turnpike from Uniontown to
Greenburgh.
The history of this bridge is incompletely document-
ed. Bender, writing in 1868, claims it to have been
built in 1796,68 whereas Finley himself states that
he built the first one in 1801 and patented it in
1808.69 Tyrrell subsequently claims 1801 as the
construction date?O
The bridge had two main spans of 21 m (70') sup-
ported by a chain on either side of the decks. Al-
though the plate published by Finley in 1810 was
of another two-span bridge measuring 200', Pope
illustrates it in 1811. A painting of it by Thomas
Birch, published in 'Engineering News' in 1905,
shows the same configuration: a double span with
backspans and continuous chains supported on
three timber trestles built on masonry piers. Tyrrell's
claim that it had only a single span is, therefore,
probably incorrect.
The deck joists rested directly on the chains at mid-
span, in a manner reminiscent of the early Chinese
stayed bridges. But, in contrast to these, the re-
maining joists were hung from the same chains on
suspenders. Each link connection in the main chains
corresponded to one suspender. This meant that
the joists were not quite evenly spaced, being
slightly closer together at the ends than in the
middle. The difference was not great, however,
since the catenary was rather flat in order to sta-
bilize the structure against sidesway.
Finley arranged the deck stringers in a double
layer and paid s~ecial attention to their longitudi-
nal connections? He also suggested that the railing
construction be made as stiff as possible. It was to
be a number of years until stiffening trusses were to
become an adequate means of preventing move-
ment in suspension bridges. As long as only timber
was used for such trusses, the stiffening could only
be partial. The timber connections of early proto-
trusses functioned perfectly in compression, but less
so in tension. In a true, stiff truss, the members and
their connections must be designed to take both
tension and compression equally well.
Pope, writing a few years after Finley's invention,
lists five difficulties in the construction of the early
chain bridges. They demonstrate the formidable
technical and theoretical obstacles to be overcome
before such structures could become common:
lilt is an axiom that where a structure of any
kind depends wholly on two parts, [i.e.:
having two main chains] if one of those parts
fail, and the other is not fully competent to
support the whole, a downfall must ensue;
hence we infer there can be no security in a
Bridge wholly dependant on two chains for
the following obvious reasons:
68 Bender, p. 28
69 Finley, p. 442
70 Tyrrell, p. 204
71 Finleys' patent description in 'The Port Folio', June
1810, pp. 414-453 with 1 plate.
The rebuilt Winch Catwalk
over the Tees, County
Durham, England, 1802.
First built 1741. Sketch by
Cumming 1 824
29
James Finley's bridge
system patented in 1801.
From Portfolio 1811
"First, the sudden vibratory motion which is
created by even an animal of small weight
passing over these structures, is sure to
produce a friction sufficient to destroy the
same in a short period of time.
"Second, as every piece of iron differs more
or less from another in strength, by the
superior soundness or fineness of its grain,
so it is impossible to furnish a chain, the links
of which shall be of equal strength through-
out.
"Third, if the former position was possible,
yet, as the strength of each link so much
depends upon the goodness of the work-
manship in the tempering and forming of the
same, it would be altogether erroneous to
assert that every link in a chain would be
made alike sound.
"Fourth, could these two last objections be
cancelled, there yet would remain another
important truth behind, that must greatly
conspire to prevent any sound calculation on
the strength and durability of a Bridge
constructed of chains; namelYt the inequality
30 of strain or longitudinal pull on the different
links composing each chain.
"Fiftht may be added another important
defect t attendant on this kind of bridge,
namely, the natural and certain tendency
that frost produces upon all iron t to make
it brittle t and consequently to lessen its
strength t derived by cohesion. If this be a
fact, we many naturally infer that t were the
chains for a Bridge made strong enough to
carryall the weight required t in Summert yet
they are liable to break down with half that
weight in Wintert and as it is also a fact that
we have a right to calculate on double the
weight being on such a Bridge in Winter,
more than in Summer, through rain, ice t and
snowt then t quere whether a Bridge of this
kind, if it even possessed four times the
strength it required in Summert could in any
wise be depended upon in Winter, while it
was subject to the unfriendly embraces of an
enemy so capable of effecting its destruc-
tion? And as the breaking of one link would
not only endanger the whole fabric t butt
very probablYt utterly destroy itt how easy is
it to prove that a structure so easily effected
cannot be of long duration t and that t at
 the best, the~ are but mere temporary
expedients./I 2
In spite of the fact that the landscape architect and
engineering layman Pope was trying to sell his own
utopian idea for a wholly unbuildable gigantic
cantilever bridge in timber, the argumentation he
followed is typical of the time. In trying to discount
the popular and successful new development, Pope
had recourse to a gamut of emotional argument
and semi-scientific observation in support of his
viewpoint. The passage is all the more interesting
in retrospect inasmuch as it disparages the most
dynamic innovation in building to appear in sever-
al centuries. It was also written just a few years
before the introduction of mathematically based
scientific aids to engineering and contrasts clearly
with the arguments later made in sU~f0rt of the
introduction of the wire cable bridge.
But far from being uniquely quaint and indicative
of a primitive standard of engineering achievement
in the United States at that period, this type of
argument, compounding fact and fantasy, was
usual on both sides of the Atlantic. In certain re-
spects, Pope was correct, however. The quality of
the iron of the time was undependable. Manufac-
turing methods were poor and uneven and hidden
flaws were common. Not much was yet known
about metallurgy, a field traditionally fraught with
myth and superstition.
The first scientific treatises on the strength of mater-
ials, containing descriptions of duplicable experi-
mentation, were just being written at the time,74
Abstract, mathematical theories had yet to be
translated into tools capable of explaining the
vaguaries of everyday engineering experience. At
the same time Pope's impassioned attack suggests
the wide vista just opening up with its plethora of
unrecognized problems which was presenting itself
to the innovative builder at every step.
Viewed thus against the daunting background of
problems to be solved, it is surprising that the new
type spread as quickly as it did. Finley states that
no chain bridges were built after his first one until
1807 i but by 1810 there were eight/ 5 and by 1820
there were more than 40/ 6 the largest of which
measured 306' (93 m) in two spans over the Schuyl-
kill Falls at Fairmount, then not yet part of Philadel-
phia,77
Fairmount was one of the most interesting sites in
the development of bridge building in the United
States and perhaps in the world. Finley's Schuylkill
Falls Bridge was perhaps too lightly constructed
and collapsed in 1811. It was replaced by another
which gave way under ice in 1816. Then followed a
first, temporary wire cable bridge, to be discussed
anon,78 Besides these, Lewis Wernwag's 'Colossus',
an innovative timber arch, which matched the
world record span of 103.6 m, established in 1803
in Glasgow, was built not far from the suspension
bridge in 1812. When this too disappeared, con-
sumed by fire in 1838, Charles Ellet Jr. replaced it
four years later by the first permanent wire cable
suspension bridge to be built in the United States.
There were Finley patent bridges over the Potomac
above Washington D. c., at Cumberland, MD, over
the Brandywine at Wilmington DL, at Allentown PA
over the Lehigh, another over the same river near
Northampton and two at Brownsville, PA. All have
disappeared, most of them shortly after being built,
thus apparently giving justification to Pope's opin-
ion of them. With the exception of the Wilmington
Bridge which had four, all of these bridges had
only two chains and were too weak. The only sur-
viving bridge of the Finley type is that over the
Merrimac three miles from Newburyport MA. It was
built by John Templeman of Georgetown, MD, Fin-
ley's licencee, in 1809, and its survival can be ere-
dited to the fact that it had ten chains. Over the
timber pylons the number of chains was tripled 79
and made out of shorter links, probably for extra
strength to offset wear and to accomodate the
72 Pope,pp.189-190
73 see chapter 'Controversy between adherents of cable
and of chain construction', pp. [145-146J
74 see chapter 'Strength of materials', pp. [55-57J
75 Finley p. 442
76 Both Cordier, who had visited the United States before
1820, and Tyrrell (p. 205) mention 40. Pope, in 1811,
(p. 12) gave the same number as did Finley. It would
seem, therefore, that enormous activity had occured in
the intervening decade.
77 Finley, p. 442/Drewry, p. 12
78 see chapter 'Wire cables' pp. [34-36]
79 Newburyport Herald, 14 December 1810, quoted in
Mills, p. 257 31
Chain bridge over the
Merrimac at Newburyport,
Massachussets, by John
Templeman on the Finley
system. Original condition
1809-1910. Photograph
1891-1910, after electrifi-
cation of tramway (photo-
graph: Smithsonian Institu-
tion, Washington, D. C.)
32
small radius of the saddles over which they
passed. 8o
One of the chains did break in 1827 and the wood-
work was renewed in 1869 after the sale of the
structure to Essex County. Two wire cables were
added to strengthen the bridge between 1894 and
1900, after the streetcar tracks, laid across it about
1870, had begun to be used for heavy electric tram
cars in 1891. 81 Other than that, the Merrimac
Bridge remained in its original condition until 191 0,
when it unfortunately underwent massive and ill-
guided reconstruction. The wooden towers with
their double openings were replaced by concrete
ones with a single opening, shingled in simulation
of the originals. At the same time, the ten chains,
three on either side and four between the separate
decks, were replaced by modern wire cables and
the twin decks united to form a single one. So all
that was genuine in the structure has disappeared.
However, several photographs taken shortly before
restoration document the original and there is also
an excellent report on its history and on the testing
of the chain links in 1911.82
News of the Finley system spread swiftly through
the Western world in spite of the restrictions im-
posed on the flow of technical information by the
French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. The
80 Tyrrell, p. 205
81 ibid, p. 206 and more detailed in Mills, p. 261
82 Mills, pp. 252-282
first country to adopt the construction was Great
Britain, then the enemy of the United States. There
were soon several small chain bridges built in
southern Scotland, notably the Dryburgh Abbey
Bridge of 1817 and several proposals made by
Thomas Telford and others for long spans over the
Straits of Menai, the Firth of Forth, the Wear and
the Mersey.
The British soon developed a new form of chain
derived from experiments made with iron chains
for standing rigging and anchor chains for war-
ships.83 William Hawks was the first to patent a
British eyebar link in 1805, and Samuel (later Sir
Samuel) Brown and Thomas Telford subsequently
followed suit. The British development was clearly
autonomous, borrowing neither from the Chinese
nor from the ideas of Verantius.
Brown had been experimenting with iron chains
ever since 1808 and took out a patent in 1817. His
first trial bridge appears to have been influenced
by Pope's report of the Finley patent. 84 Telford was
working along similar lines at the time and finally
adopted the flat eyebar system with punched holes
which was to become standard for a full century,
starting with his own Conway and Menai Bridges of
1826 to David Barnard Steinman's Florianopolis
Bridge of 1926 in Brazil, the last major chain bridge
built to date. 85
Brown used round eyebars with welded eyes, very
similar to those used in China. With these he built
the first British suspension bridge to take vehicular
traffic, the unstiffened Union Bridge over the
Tweed at New Waterford in 1820, connecting Eng-
land and Scotland with a single span of 133 m. The
Union Bridge is one of the few that Brown built
which still stands, and it was influential in further
developments, particularly as a model for the de-
tailing of the first wire bridges in Switzerland and
France. The deck was carried by three parallel
chains hanging one above the other. Each chain
was made of a pair of eyebars linked together side
by side by means of a bolt passing through the
eyes. Two bolts were connected by means of ir~n
hoops hooked over them. Suspender rods were at-
tached to cast-iron yokes fixed at these points and
hung down to the deck between the link pairs. In
order that the suspenders hanging from the upper
and intermediate chains should not conflict with
each other and with the lower ones, the three main
chains were hung with their links staggered by a
third of their length. In this manner the upper sus-
penders passed unhindered between the double
links of the lower chains.
Wire cables
French engineers were slower to adopt the new
system than were the British for several reasons. For
one, French iron production methods lagged con-
siderably behind those of Great Britain. This caused
difficulties with the quality of the product and also
led to the production of far less iron. Moreover,
the elan of the French Industrial Revolution had
been hampered from the outset by the stultifying
centralized burocratic structure of pre-revolutionary
France, and had been all but truncated in the tur-
moil accompanying the beginning Revolution when
many inventors and technologists fled the country.
Thus the war, which increased productivity in the
British metallurgical and other industries, severely
impaired French industrial organization.
Napoleon was acutely aware of this fact and was
an avid supporter of French scientific and techno-
logical effort, but the economic drain of an overex-
tended empire combined with constant warfare,
hampered swift development.
As soon as peace returned, however, the French
authorities, government, military and educational,
were quick to improve their industrial potential by
sending experts to Britain to study new techniques
and by having all the latest technical literature
translated. This, supported by the solid French
academic technological background, led to rapid
changes. French engineering moved quickly in new
directions, in many respects at a tangent to an
equally active empirical British development. As
soon as they did begin building suspension bridges,
83 Kemp: Brown, pp. 8-9
84 ibid, p. 9
85 There were a few minor chain bridges built thereafter in
the United States: the Point Pleasant Bridge, West
Virginia and the Gallopolis Bridge, Ohio, both over the
Ohio River and the St. Mary's Bridge, West Virginia, all
built by the firm of J. E. Gremier & Co. and reported in
the 'Engineering News Record', June 20, 1929,
pp.997-1003 33
 French engineers succeeded in evolving new
materials and techniques to correspond to their
own industrial and economic situation.
Several experiments using wire cables had already
been done prior to those carried out by the Seguin
brothers in 1822. Their cable bridges, however,
never evolved beyond the prototype stage. The
field of suspension bridge construction had not yet
found a clear-cut path to follow, and, aside from
the chain type which was fully developed in Tel-
ford's flat eyebar chain by 1826, a multitude of
experiments were made using rods, wire, welded
bands and other more exotic ideas such as wooden
catenaries and stays.
The first proposals for using wire in bridge cables
were put forth by Telford in 1814. One was for the
utopian Runcorn Bridge project, a 300 m span over
the Wear, with which Telford had concerned him-
self from 1810 on. The second was for a smaller
and more realistic span of 61 m over the Mersey in
Latchford, near Warrington. Both were proposed in
wire and chain variants, and in both cases the wire
versions were abandoned for financial reasons.
Telford had a 50-foot (15.25 m) model built for the
Runcorn proposal, using 1/10" (2.55 mm) wire to
simulate the cables, and load tests, including
dynamic loading, were carried out presumably on
this model. 86 William Alexander Provis, who had
been Telford's assistant since 1805, and who was
later to be resident engineer on the construction of
the Menai Suspension Bridge, developed the de-
tails for both proposals and published them in
1828.
Telford had found no data on the tensile strength
of iron wire ready to hand and accessible in
English. He therefore proceeded with a series of
over 200 experiments using a Bramah hydraulic
press. He was aided by Peter Barlow, mathematics
professor and material technologist at Woolwich
Academy.87 Barlow published a book on the
strength of materials in 1817 but included only the
results of the experiments on wrought iron. The re-
sults of the wire tests were included only in the third
edition of his book in 1826.88
Telford also examined a variant with 'cables' made
of rolled iron bars, using this to check the results of
34 his wire experiments. The difference in price be-
tween the wire and rod cables was not great, but
both cost far more than the eyebar chain, even
though he discovered that his wire was 1.37 times
stronger in tension than the bar iron he used. 89 In
contrast, modern cable wire is 5.5 times as strong
as today's mild steel. 90
Telford was never to build a wire cable bridge. The
first suspension bridge to use wire for the main
supports appears to have been a Schuylkill River
Bridge built in the spring of 1816 at Fairmount. The
temporary, unstiffened catwalk was more than re-
gionally famous and quite a tourist attraction. 91
Nevertheless, not a single plan or authoritative
view and only a very few sketchy reports of the
bridge have survived. From the little that is known,
it appears fairly certain that the bridge was in-
tended as a temporary structure, since the wire
cables were bound to a large tree on one bank,
passing through an attic window in the Harzard
and White wire factory on the other, and anchored
somehow or other to the frame of the building, or,
as was improbably claimed, to a window mullion.
Erskine Hazard was the businessman of this venture
and Josiah White, one of the most original of the
early North American inventors, was the designer.
The partners had first founded a rolling mill, prob-
ably for producing wrought iron plates, and then a
wire factory on the banks of the Schuylkil1. 92
The French engineer Joseph Louis Etienne Cordier,
who visited the United States only a few years after
the bridge was built,93 gives us the most detailed as
well as the earliest description of the structure. The
second volume of his book, 'Histoire de la naviga-
tion interieure ... ', in which the bridge is discussed,
was published in 1820. This second volume was
translated in the main from Albert Abraham Al-
phonse Gallatin's report of 1808 on North Ameri-
can roads and canals, a source published 8 years
86 Paxton, p. 91
87 Gibb, p. 326
88 Barlow, 3rd. ed. 1826 pp. 241-254, subsequently in
Provis, 1828, and then quoted by Drewry 1832, p. 15
89 Paxton, p. 90
90 Information from Ulrich Morf, Swiss Federal Institute for
Testing Materials
91 Morton, p. 99
92 Scharf, p. 541
93 Tarbe de Saint-Hardouin, p. 144
before the bridge was built. Cordier explains:
lilt was not part of Mr. Gallatin's plan to give
the description of the bridges built in
America. The author mentions only the
largest. We here add some details taken
from the best works .. ."94
But Cordier does not mention his sources, and no
previously published account of the bridge from
which he could have taken such a detailed descrip-
tion has yet come to light, so he probably saw it
himself.
Whether or not Cordier saw it, he states that the
wire was made of 'archal', an archaic French term
for brass. However, the word was occasionally used
for iron as well. Henri Louis Duhamel du Monceau
refers for instance to the "art of reducing iron to
wire, known under the term 'archal' wire", in
1768. 95 Iron is indeed the more probable material,
as it was the less expensive of the two, and as
White had by then built both canal locks and a
boat of iron.
liThe bridge of iron wire erected over the
Schuylkill near Philadelphia is also worth
describing as it is the very first to have been
built in this manner. It is attached to one of
the window mullions of an iron wire factory
on the one bank, and to a great tree on the
other. The two curves which carry the bridge
are made up of three iron wires which, taken
together, have a diameter of 3/8". From
time to time, vertical iron wires are hung
from these curves. These in turn support the
iron wires which carry the deck 16 feet
above the water. The planks of the footpath
are 2' long, 3" wide and 1" thick. 8 iron
wires attached on either side, serve as
guiderails.
the total weight of the iron wire is 13141b
that of the woodwork is 3380lb
that of the nails is 8 Ib
total 47021b
A bridge of this type can be erected in 15
days in summer, the total cost being less than
300 dollars."96
A cable diameter of 3/8" or 9.525 mm,97 gives a
wire gauge of 4.40 mm, not quite twice that used
by Telford (2.55 mm) in his experiments in 1814.
Guillaume Henri Dufour was later to use wire of
0.85-3.7 mm for his tests in Geneva in 1822, and
the Seguin brothers 0.85-4.14 mm for theirs. The
extremely large gauge of the wire, (modern bridge
cables use 5 mm wire), leads us to believe that it
must have been rolled rather than drawn. Enor-
mous force would have been required of machin-
ery to draw wire of such a gauge. Rolling would
have decreased the useful tensile strength, as the
stress-hardening effect of drawing would have
been missing.
Navier, who published his description of the
bridge, using additional sources three years later,98
gives the span as 124 m (400') which would have
been by far the longest span in the Western world
at the time. Although such a span is just possible for
so flimsy a structure, it is unlikely, given the extreme-
ly slender cables. It may be that this figure repre-
sents a total length and that, although no source
mentions intermediate piers, those of the two
earlier, Finley-type structures of 1809 and 1811
had been reused.
Cordier gives the deck width as 46 cm although
the joists were longer. They were hung from the
main cables in stirrups. Cordier calles the joists
'planks' and explains that they were supported
from beneath by iron wires which were, in turn,
hung by iron suspenders from the cables. Here he
differentiates between iron and 'archal', only the
suspenders being 'archal'. Navier clarifies the de-
tail: boards were nailed lengthwise to the joists
which were interconnected by wire beneath in or-
der to increase the lateral stiffness. Neither
explains how the nails were expected to hold under
the continual oscillation which such a structure
would undergo.
A single sketch is known which purports to be of the
Hazard and White bridge. 99 It does seem to show
94 Cordier, vol. 2, p. 172
95 Duhamel: title of a brochure
96 Cordier, vol. 2, pp. 182-183
97 ibid, vol. 2, p. 349. French inches differed slightly from
British
98 Navier: Rapport et Memoire ... 1823
99 'Note on early American Suspension Bridges'
Engineering News 1905, p. 270 35
Kings Meadows Bridge
over the Tweed, Scotland,
by Redpath & Brown 1817.
Demolished 1950-1960.
The catenary cable is a later
addition. Illustration from
an old journal (photograph
Redpath Dorman Long Ltd.)
36
a very flimsy cable structure with a single span, but
none of the other data, such as the attachment of
the cables to a tree and to the window frame of the
factory tally with Cordier's description. The sup-
ports for the structure claiming to be 400' in span
are shown to be so weak and improbable (simple
stakes on one side and a tripod on the other), that
the illustration appears to have been an 'artist's
reconstruction' from hearsay rather than drawn
from life.
Aside from these sources, Scharf and Westcott
only mention the bridge of 1809 100, while Tyrrell in
1911, gives no new information. Morton mentions
the wire bridge in 1946, but without a detailed
description. However, she does state that it could
be used by 40 persons at a time. 101 This seems
excessive given the slender cables, although it ap-
pears that up to 30 boys ran to and fro enjoying
the swing without anything untoward occuring.
Navier states that the bridge was only designed for
a load of eight persons. The fact is that it was
indeed weak, and it collapsed under a load of
winter ice before it was fully a year old.
The bridge was probably intended as a prototype,
but nothing ever came of it, and the wire suspen-
sion system was only reintroduced to the United
States in 1843 by Ellet in yet another Schuylkill Falls
Bridge of 109 m span at virtually the same site.
Ellet, whose bridge was built just a year before
John Roebling commenced his distinguished sus-
pension bridge career with the Allegheney Canal
Aqueduct at Pittsburgh in 1844-1845, was a
graduate of the Ecole nationale des mines in Paris.
And it was in France and in French-speaking wes-
tern Switzerland that the wire cable bridge evolved
as a structural type.
There were several attempts to introduce the wire
cable into bridge building in Scotland too. In
November 1816, six months after Hazard and
White's catwalk was built, Richard Lee, a cloth
manufacturer, built an experimental wire bridge of
34 m span over the Gala River, a tributary of the
Tweed in Galashiels. In contrast to the North Amer-
ican bridge, the Scottish one was cable-stayed, not
in a harp-like arrangement of parallel stays as the
Chinese bridges had been, but arranged fan-like,
radiating out from the pylon tops at either end of
the deck. This bridge was also thought of as tem-
porary.102 It did, however, influence the construc-
tion of two other small, cable-stayed bridges in the
vicinity a year later. The first was the Thirstane
Castle Bridge over the Etterick River, another tribut-
ary of the Tweed, with a span of 38 m, about
which little is known, and the other was the Kings
Meadows Bridge.
The 33.5 m Kings Meadows Bridge spanned the
Tweed on the property of Sir John Hay, Bart., just
downstream from the village of Peebles. The pylons
were of cast-iron covering a wrought iron bar to
100 Scharf and Westcott: History of Philadelphia
1609-1884
101 Morton, p. 99
102 Stevenson, p. 241

={t...1 I JO
I
which the stays were fastened. l 03 The stays were of
7.6 mm gauge wire which was even larger and
more surprising than those of the Hazard and
White structure. These 'wires' were formed to prim-
itive eye bar links, apparently similar to those of the
first Dryburgh Abbey Bridge of the same year. As
the wire could be bent to form the eyes, it cannot
have been cold-drawn wire which is stress-
hardened by pulling it beyond its elastic range until
it elongates like chewing gum and then subse-
quently hardens again to form a new and elastic
material with much higher ultimate stress. Such wire
is very strong in tension, but also very brittle and
not at all flexible. It cannot, therefore, be bent to
form eyes. The so-called wire used here was prob-
ably rolled, as that of the Schuylkill Bridge had
presumably been. Stevenson specifically called the
material of the main stays 'wire',l 04 and, although
the term was often used loosely at the time, he
differentiated between this material and that of the
19 mm thick rods of the backstays, which he called
'bolt iron', perhaps steel?
The bridge had the first iron deck structure ever to
be built on a suspension bridge. 105 It was erected
by the Edinburgh firm of Redpath and Brown which
still survives under the name of Redpath Dorman
Long Ltd. This firm's archives have been able to
trace the demolition of the Kings Meadows Bridge
to the late 1950s or early 1960s, but cannot find
more documentation than a poor reproduction of a
published photograph. This shows a catenary cable
above the stays which must have been a later ad-
dition, since it is missing in both the Stevenson and
the Navier plates of 1821 and 1823.
Drewry claims that the three Scottish bridges were
First Dryburgh Abbey
Bridge, 1817 by John and
William Smith. From
Stevenson 1821
influenced by the French engineer-architect Ber-
nard Poyet's spider-web like system of interconnec-
ted chain stays fanning out from the pylon tops.l06
But this could hardly have been the case. Poyet's
patent dates from 1819 and his publication from
1820, several years after these bridges had been
built. In fact, Poyet's system only became well-
known in engineering circles after Navier pub-
lished it in 1823. The case for independent invention
is a far better one; or there may have been another
source: John James mentions that the British engi-
neer Ralph Dodd had had an idea for what he
called 'bridges of tenacity' around 1814. These
may have been of chain stayed construction,l 07 or
perhaps underspanned beams, one of the many
common uses of the word 'suspension' at the
time. l0a
There was one more Scottish project for a wire
cable bridge of stayed construction, that of John
Anderson for a three-span bridge to cross the Firth
of Forth at Inchgarvie. This little-known proposal,
with a total length of 1600 m and spans even
greater than those of Telford's fantastic Runcorn
project, was designed in 1818 to have stood on the
same site as the famous later railway bridge of
1890. Anderson published a pamphlet about his
proposal which seems to have excited very little
comment. In it, he described two variants, the
103 Drewry, p. 24
104 Stevenson, p. 242
105 Berg 1824, p. 11, confirmed by Drewry 1832, p. 24
106 Kemp: Brown, p. 3
107 James: Dodd, pp. 170-171
108 compare chapter 'A truncated development: The
underspanned suspension bridge' p. [172 + 173] 37
 cable-stayed version and a catenary chain bridge,
both with three main spans and no back spans.
Today, the largest cable-stayed span is about
100 m less than what Anderson envisaged. It
is possible that the idea was inspired by the
three small Scottish bridges built the preceeding
year.
The pamphlet, which seems to have been relatively
unknown in Britain at the time, was first mentioned
by Louis Figuier in France in 1890,109 and by Wil-
liam Westhofen in his description of the Forth Rail-
way Bridge the same year. 110 The Scottish develop-
ment of the wire cable bridge, although longer
than the North American contemporary one, was
38
also short-lived. It ended with the Anderson pro-
ject, and no further wire bridges were built there
until 1881. 111
All the early wire bridges actually built appear to
have been of rolled wire which is really nothing
other than wrought iron. Other bridges and pro-
posals which were often termed 'wire' bridges in
the early literature all prove, on closer exami-
nation, to have been made of wrought iron chains.
There was therefore no real precedent for the
development which was shortly to begin in
Annonay in Savoy and in Geneva in Switzerland, in
1822.
°
109 Figuier 1890, 34th year, p. 165
11 Westhofen, pp. 1-3
111 Hume, p. 99
3 Background
Geneva and the transmission of engineering information to the French-speaking world
1789-1815
We need to examine the transmission of informa-
tion to France at this period in order to determine
to what extent French-speaking engineers were in-
formed of occurences in the anglo-saxon world.
The media and information access we now enjoy
was non-existent. Personal examination, word-of-
mouth, manuscript reports, rare printed works and
occasional lay articles in the fledgling public press,
were all that was available. The spread of such
information was not quick. The first medium of in-
stantaneous transmission of information, the elec-
tric telegraph, was still decades off in the future. In-
formation meant travel, and that incurred long and
arduous journeys over bad public roads, in poor
repair in the wet season, and, of course, it also
meant open national borders.
French engineers had scant access to British infor-
mation for the quarter century from 1789-1815,
particularly in a field as strategically vital as bridge
building. Information from the United States, a
country which was sympathetic to French revolu-
tionary causes, was more readily accessible. But, in
spite of the fact that the modern suspension bridge
had been invented there, the United States were
still technologically underdeveloped. The seeds of
a future industrial potential were even then being
laid by enterprising tool makers and industrialists in
the Northeast, but these were only to bear fruit at
mid-nineteenth century, and only to become grad-
ually known abroad thereafter. Britain was still the
international leader in industrial and in structural
innovation and development.
The isolation occurred at a time when the British
Industrial Revolution had begun to proliferate and
the French temporarily to stagnate. French engi-
neers were effectively cut off from sources of pro-
fessional information at the beginning of the Re-
volution in 1789, and their isolation lasted up to the
Treaty of Vienna in 1815. There were, of course,
loopholes in the embargo on classified information
and products. For example, the world leaders in the
manufacture of steam engines, Boulton and Watt,
sent two entire machines to Paris in 1798, in spite of
a ban on such exports in Britain. Notwithstanding
such sporadic contacts, French engineers felt
underinformed on the evolution of technical fields
in general, and of steam technology, metallurgy
and bridge and naval construction in particular.
The trickle of information seeping from Britain to
France flowed mainly through Geneva. Geneva
was, for the sixteen years from 1798-1814, official-
ly part of France. Nevertheless, the learned and
scientific societies of that city state managed to
retain their traditional intellectual independence
and international contacts.
Small political units, such as Athens and Florence,
once played key roles in European history, and
the international role played by the Republic of
Geneva in science and technology in the eigh-
teenth and early nineteenth centuries, although
perhaps not as spectacular, was also out of all pro-
portion to its population, size and industrial impor-
tance. The role of Geneva in the political, financial
and intellectual life of nineteenth century France
can be gauged by the statesman Duc Charles
Maurice de Talleyrand's epigram: "There are five
parts of the earth: Europe, Asia, Africa, America
and Geneva."l Similar tributes came from: the
diplomat Conte Giovanni Capo d'istria, the eco-
nomist Jean Charles Leonard Sismonde de Sismon-
di and from Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, the
celebrated literary critic.
Ever since the Middle Ages, Geneva had fought
the repeated annexation attempts of the House of
Savoy, heirs to the Contes de Geneve. The Treaty
of Seyssel in 1124 placed the city under the direct
1 Muetzenberg, p. 16 39
 suzeranity of a bishop who reigned in both a reli-
gious capacity and in state matters in the name of
the Emperor. This unusual, but by no means unique
union of ecclesiastical and temporal power, is still
to be seen in the Genevan coat-of-arms which
sports half an imperial eagle and one of the keys of
Saint Peter.
From the settlement of Seyssel on, a political strug-
gle raged between the House of Savoy and the
Prince Bishop. Gradually, however, the influence of
Savoy increased, until in the fifteenth century, the
bishopric came to be considered the fief of the last
born, the bastards, or the favorites of the House of
Savoy. An act of treason committed by Bishop Pierre
de la Baume in 1533, abruptly terminated this rela-
tionship. With the help of the powerful protestant
Berne, which was rising to international promi-
nence in European power politics, the bishop was
driven out and a republic declared. Under the fol-
lowing strict rule of Jean Calvin, the protestant re-
formation established itself permanently from 1536
on. Geneva became a city-republic in religious and
often political opposition to both Savoy and France,
and oriented its politics towards the fledgling
Swiss Confederation and the powerful Berne as a
safeguard against the unabating designs of Savoy.
The status of the Republic became delicate after
the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 which
deprived French protestants of their civil and reli-
gious rights. Geneva was the only protestant
French-speaking state in Europe. Whereas the
neighboring Valais was, in fact, a protestant nation,
and the population did speak French, it was sub-
ject to Berne whose official language was
German.
Forced into a balancing act between the surround-
ing powers, Geneva carefully maintained good re-
lationships with all potential enemies of its danger-
ous neighbors and remained, above all, at all times
politically flexible. In time, the city-state granted
asylum to many French religious and political re-
fugees, while also providing France with some of
her leading figures in public service. Finance Minis-
ter Jacques Necker, who played an important role
in several French governments, notably in that of
Louis XVI, and his brilliant daughter, Anne Louise
40 Germaine de Steel-Holstein, whose 'salon' was for
many years a center of the intellectual life of the
French capital, were only two of many examples.
Other international ties were equally important. Al-
bert Gallatin, the first Secretary of the Treasury of
the United States, was a citizen of Geneva. The
city's close relationship to Great Britain was dictat-
ed both by political expedience and by inclination.
Philip, the second Earl Stanhope, resided in Geneva
from 1763 to 1773. Stanhope was the scion of a
politically influential family and son of a Secretary
of State under George II. Both Lord Stanhope and
especially his second son, Charles, Vicount Mahon
and later the fourth Earl, were highly regarded
members of a select group of renowned scientists
and philosophers in Geneva. Lord Mahon was a
pupil of the Genevan mathematician Georges
Louis Le Sage and later became himself a famous
inventor, mathematician and physicist. In his Gene-
va years, Mahon cultivated membership in several
cultural, political and social organizations. 2 Both he
and his father were granted honorary citizenship of
the Republic. As a result both of the uneasy politi-
cal situation and of such lively international con-
tacts, it was understandable that Geneva should
also develop an actively cosmopolitan society.
The scientific and intellectual life of the Republic
was no less intense than the political and financial
life. Internationally reputed scientists founded the
'Societe de physique et d'histoire naturelle de Ge-
neve' in 1790. Foreign honorary members testify to
the wide contacts of this society and to the esteem
in which it was held. Among the members were
Conte Alessandro Volta in Milan and Graf Alexan-
der von Humboldt in Potsdam. From 1821 on, the
society published regular transactions.
The industrial background of Switzerland further
enhanced Geneva's position. Switzerland was not
yet mechanized to the same extent as Britain, but it
was nevertheless industrially highly organized. The
novel mechanized production methods emanating
from Britain were embraced at an early date and
incorporated into the ready socio-industrial fab-
ric. 3 This was especially true of the German-
speaking cantons which produced native mechan-
2 Neuman, p. 115-122/129-133/170
3 Biucchi
ical pioneers of international stature such as Georg
Fischer and Georg Bodmer, but it also influenced
the outlook of the whole country and therefore
also of the financial center, Geneva, long associat-
ed with the Confederation and soon to become a
canton in 1815.
When the relations between France and Britain,
never very cordial at the best of times, degenerat-
ed into chaos at the outset of the French Revolu-
tion, it was Geneva alone which upheld a small but
steady flow of technical and scientific information
in French. The vehicle of this transfer was a unique
periodical, the 'Bibliotheque Britannique'. As its
very name implies, it was specifically founded for
the purpose of information transfer in 1796, when
a lack of information was beginning to make itself
acutely felt in France.
This periodical quickly began to publish interesting
original articles as well. The founder, Marc Auguste
Pictet, was a lawyer, professor of philosophy, sider-
urgical researcher, reorganizer of the 'Societe des
arts' and charter member as well as president of
the 'Societe de physique et d'histoire naturelle'.
Pictet undertook the ambitious task of running the
journal with the help of his brother, the diplomat
and reformer Charles Pictet de Rochemont, and of
the lawyer and politician Frederic Guillaume
Maurice.
The French Directorate annexed the Republic of
Geneva in 1798. The city became the capital, not
only of the territories belonging to the former Re-
public, but of the whole new Departement Leman
which included the arrondissement Gex (Ain),
Thonon, Bonneville and Saint-Julien (Haute Sa-
voie). In spite of this, Pictet continued publication of
his periodical freely and without interruption until
liberation. Thereafter, it appeared from 1816 on as
the 'Bibliotheque Universelle'. It was the most wide-
ly read, and indeed the only scientific periodical
in the French-speaking world to provide engineer-
ing and other technical information in detail and
on a regular basis until 1831 when the French 'An-
nales des pants et chaussees' appeared as the offi-
cial organ of French academic civil engineering.
Thanks to its special political position, sandwiched
between the antagonistic spheres of influence of
Savoy, France and the Swiss Confederation, Ge-
neva was able to participate actively in the avant-
garde of scientific and technical research and in
the dissemination of information to an astonishing
degree.
This participation was evidenced in a wide range
of fields, from botany, biology and medicine to
engineering, physics and geology. Genevan citi-
zens were also influential in service industries,
such as in banking and in the founding of the Inter-
national Committee of the Red Cross.
French access to information
in the immediate post-war period
As soon as the great Continental War ended in
1815 and peace returned, the vacuum of technical
information made itself doubly felt in France. The
government and the various official corporations
strove to fill it as quickly as possible. The 'Biblio-
theque Britannique' had served its purpose well
throughout the war years, but it could hardly be
expected to suffice alone as basis for a normal
technological development in the boom period
which followed the war. The Genevan journal
gradually settled to the level of influence of a pro-
vincial journal while continuing to provide high
quality scientific information.
Eminent French engineers were sent on study trips
to Great Britain by their respective employers, fol-
lowing a tradition established long before the Rev-
0lution. 4 Pierre Charles Lesage had, for instance,
journeyed to England in 1784 and 1785, although
his report was only published in 1810. 5 During the
Napoleonic occupation of much of continental
Europe, the subject countries had been gleaned of
whatever technical information they could provide.
Mathieu Joseph Sganzin, professor at the presti-
gious Ecole polytechnique, had published a com-
pendium containing reports on the bridges of the
Grubenmann family in Switzerland, on those of Rit-
ter Karl Friedrich von Wiebeking in Bavaria, and
on other engineering structures which he had visit-
ed all over occupied Europe in part with G. C. F.
M. Riche Baron de Prony in 1807. But Great Britain
4 Steiner, p. 705 footnote 17 gives an example
5 Lesage's 1810 edition of the 'Receuils de divers
"
memolres ... , 41
 was still by far the most interesting country in this
respect.
Joseph Michel Dutens was one of the first to be
sent to study projects in England after the war. His
voyage of 1818 took him on a tour of canals for
inland navigation. He exceeded his mandate by
publishing a comprehensive study of British build-
ing technology in 1819. 6 Pierre Simon Girard was
the next. He was sent to England in 1819 by the
Minister of the Royal Household in order to study
the manufacture and distribution of gas and gas-
lighting. Cordier's book on inland navigation of
1819 and 1820 followed. He had, as we have seen,
even travelled to the United States and was also to
visit England twice in 1823 to study the McAdam
method of road construction. Claude Louis Marie
Henri Navier also visited Britain twice in 1821 and
1823, sent by Louis Becquey, the enlightened Di-
rector of the Ponts et chaussees, and Baron Charles
Dupin was sent to study naval installations. Both
published influential reports upon their return.
Navier's 'Memoire sur les ponts suspendus' of
1823, was to be the first theoretical and practical
book on suspension bridge construction, giving
precise plans and details, as well as the first widely
used theoretical work on analytical statics. Dupin's
encyclopedic 'Voyages dans la Grande-Bretagne'
appeared in three parts in 1820-1824 and immed-
iately thereafter in a second edition in 1825-1826.
It was so comprehensive and of such great interest,
that it was translated into English for the benefit of
British engineers.
An intense period of technical publication in
France ensued. Not only were there major and
many minor reports published, but all available
British treatises on engineering and related topics
were immediately translated into French. France
was soon the best informed of all industrial nations.
This reaction to the generation - long period of
relative technological deprivation retained its
momentum throughout the 1830s. It was supported
by the influential Saint-Simonians, many of whom
were engineers, and whose cosmopolitan outlook
was especially directed toward the Anglo-Saxon
world, as well as by the novel system of academic
engineering education which had evolved in
42 France.
Evolution of method and thought
in French engineering education
Not only were the French engineers the best in-
formed of any, they were also the best trained. The
academically educated French engineer played an
important role in the development of modern tech-
nological method, an essential component in the
evolution of the wire cable suspension bridge.
Technology evolved primarily empirically until the
very end of the eighteenth century. The systematic
introduction of mathematics in aid of technological
innovation had its origin in France and was fos-
tered by an academic tradition which had been
systematically constructed in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries through far-sighted govern-
ment policy.
The first documented connection between the
government and civil engineering was an edict of
1508 charging the State Treasurer with the exam-
ination and the care of state roads? Although this
centralized organization was abandoned in 1626,
Jean Baptiste Colbert, Minister of State under
Louis XIII, reestablished it in 1661, and, under his
administration, the name 'Ponts et chaussees',
meaning in essence, the administration of public
transportation networks, was coined.
The most prestigious French engineer at the time
was Marquis Sebastien Le Prestre de Vauban, a
builder of military works famed far beyond the
borders of France. As early as 1672 he pointed out
the convenience of organizing the army engineers
into a special branch of the armed services. As a
result of that suggestion, the 'Corps royal du genie'
was incorporated in 1675. 8 Vauban was apparent-
ly also the first person in Europe to show an interest
in the professional training of civil servants. 9 Till
then, architects and engineers, not being members
of traditional guilds, had no organized and con-
trolled training program. It was Vauban who first
proposed public exams for choosing the best
6 J.M. Dutens: 'Memoires sur les travaux publics de
l'Angleterre ... ' 1819, mentioned for example in:
Behrnauer, p. 128 footnote
7 Tarbe de Saint-Hardouin, p. 7
8 Gillmor, p. 9; Michel: The Geneology ... , p. 192, gives
1690
9 Michel, p. 193
entrants to a school devoted to their training and
who generally advocated a system of civil service
education. This then, was the origin of the high
social standing of engineering in France, as the
men issuing from this program soon became the
highest paid civil servants, forming the first Euro-
pean technocracy. A royal examiner was appoint-
ed to select officers in 1702.
The naval engineering corps, and then the artillery
officers corps were formed on the model of the
Corps royale du genie, the latter with a school
which opened in 1720 at La Fere. Bernard Forrest
de Belidor, the Catalan father of French hydraulic
engineering, taught there. The 'Corps royal des
ponts et chaussees' had also been chartered four
years before, in the first year of the reign of the
then infant Louis XIV, and Jacques Gabrielli, pupil
of the architect Hardouin Mansard, made 'Premier
Ingenieur'. The main task of this corps was to or-
ganize the mapping, the planning and the 'corvee'
system of serf labor for public roadbuilding in
France. Based on its mandate, the Corps soon be-
came a semi-autonomous, para-military govern-
ment institution, a French engineering guild, with its
own code of practise, its own standards, commit-
tees and governing board and its own uniformed
hierarchy. It held the power to grant or withhold
building permits in the realm of public or private
transportation works, to review them and to control
the development of the whole public transporta-
tion system of France. Later, only the alumni of the
'Ecole des ponts et chaussees' were eligible for
membership in this institution. At the outset, how-
ever, when there was not yet such a formalized
training program, it was a more open body. The
Corps was responsible for the high social esteem
which all engineering professions soon came to
share in France, and indeed, still do, in contrast to
the comparitively lowly position they consistently
garner in the Anglo-Saxon and particularly in the
British world. The difference in social status was, by
the way, partly responsible for the relative dece-
leration of British technological development in
comparison with the French after mid-nineteenth
century.
Shortly after the foundation of the Corps, Daniel
Charles Trudaine was chosen by Comptroller Gen-
eral Orry to be 'Intendant des Finances' and there-
fore ex officio head of the Ponts et Chaussees.
Trudaine took office in 1743. One of his first acts
was to create a draftsmen's office to review and
coordinate planning for the royal highways in im-
plementation of a government directive which had
been issued by Orry in 1738. 10 The 'Bureau central
des dessinateurs des plans des routes', as it was
then called, opened in 1744. Three years later, in
1747, it was placed under the direction of the
39-year-old Jean Rodolphe Perro net, son of a Swiss
officer in French service. At the same time, Trudaine
and the then Comptroller General Machault, gave
this modest office the additional task of training
engineers. Perronet was to become one of the most
influential of French engineers and one of the first
great civil engineering educators. He pioneered
the introduction of scientific method into the in-
struction of design and construction. Under Per-
ronet's capable directorship, the 'bureau' became
the first institution of its kind, semi-officially known
as the 'Ecole des ponts et chaussees'.
In 1750, Perronet was appointed one of the 'In-
specteurs generaux' of the Corps, and in 1764,
'Premier Ingenieur', succeeding his former teacher,
Hupeau. He retained this influential post until his
death thirty years later, dominating civil engineer-
ing education and forging it into the basis for the
modern engineering profession. But Perronet was
not the only educator working toward this end. In
fact, his influence retarded other, more radical, de-
velopments initiated by Jesuit mathematicians,
who had to fight their own way to the fore
against the Perro net school.
New movements in French society, encouraged by
the various groupings of philosophers and theore-
ticians, were later held partly responsible for the
Revolution. Among other innovations, they instigat-
ed the foundation of the 'Ecole royale des mines' in
Paris, the same year 1747 as the 'Bureau des des-
sinateurs', and the opening of the 'Ecole royale du
genie' for military engineers at Mezieres two years
later, in 1749. Comte d'Argenson, then Minister of
Defense, was responsible for this, and the direction
this new school was to take was determined largely
10 Tarbe de Saint-Hardouin, p. 11. 43
 by the Royal Examiner of engineering officers, the
academician Charles Etienne Louis Camus. Like
Perronet, Camus was keen to introduce the most
modern scientific methods into the curriculum.
The courses he introduced were more structured
than those of the Ecole des ponts et chaussees. The
very latest available texts were used, and where
they were insufficient or missing, Camus wrote them
himself. Course books for arithmetic, geometry and
the new and then developing science of mechanics
appeared from his pen between 1749 and 1752.11
Hydraulics was first taught on the basis of the
works of Edme Mariotte and Pierre Varignon and
later based on those of Charles Bossut who was
appointed to the chair of mathematics in 1752 over
the protests of Nicolas de Chastillon, the Military
Governor of the school, who thought him too
theoretical. Cartography, stereometry, probably on
the basis of Amadee Fran~ois Frezier's work, forti-
fication design, machine- and building construction
based on Belidor's 'La Science de I'lngenieur' of
1729, were also required courses. The two-year
course became a graduate program eight years
after the founding of Mezieres, when Camus be-
gan requiring a previous course or an equivalent
education to that available at the newly reorga-
nized Le Fere Artillery Academy. Chasti lion, a prac-
tical engineer of the old empirical school, severely
criticized the direction that this form of training was
beginning to take in 1757. But Chastillon died in
1765, and after that, no more dissenting voices
made themselves heard.
Camus died three years after Chastillon, and Bos-
sut succeeded him to the post of examiner. Bossut
then designated the 22-year-old Gaspard Monge,
soon to emerge as one of the most influential men
of his age in engineering education, to fill his
vacated chair. It was around these two men that the
opposition to the Perronet system of education
began to coalesce. While at Mezieres, Monge in-
vented Descriptive Geometry, a discipline with
which the most complex three-dimensional prob-
lems can be reduced to simple geometric opera-
tions in coordinated planes. This invention was
considered so basic and strategically useful, par-
ticularly for ballistics, that it was classified a state
44 secret and Monge was not permitted to publish it
until 1798.
Perronet's teaching system was based on free
choice of curriculum and therefore quite different
from the highly organized and structured system at
Mezieres. Perronet, being himself a practising en-
gineer, used peer teaching extensively and an inter-
change between work and training periods, a form
which resembled more traditional apprenticeship
than the academic instruction persued by the Jesuit
scientists at Mezieres. Courses were followed ex-
ternally by the students which would have been im-
possible in provincial Mezieres. Perronet's methods
were no less modern than Camus's at the time, but
much less of a radical departure from engineering
building practise. Perronet was by no means less
informed than Camus and Bossuti if anything, he
was more broadly informed. He had participated in
the editing of the great Encyclopedie of Diderot
and d'Alembert. He was a knowledgeable reader
of Voltaire and Rousseau, of whose works he pos-
sessed almost complete sets, and his library also
contained works by Euler, Leibnitz and Descartes. 12
He was a corresponding member of many Euro-
pean academies and also counted Denis Diderot,
Belidor, the Swiss engineer Charles Labeleye, who
trained in France and worked chiefly in England, as
well as Comte Georges Louis Leclerc de Buffon
among his personal friends. There is no doubt at all
that Perronet was very much abreast of the scien-
tific, literary and philosophical knowledge of his
time, and this may very well have prevented his
system of educating young engineers from becom-
ing too one-sidedly scientific in orientation.
The Mezieres group began to level criticism against
Perronet's form of education, particularly after
Trudaine's retirement in 1766, when his son, Phili-
bert Trudaine de Montigny became Director of the
Ponts et chaussees. Anne Robert Jacques Turgot,
then 'Intendant de la genera lite' of Limoges, a
pupil of the political economist Fran~ois Quesnay
and of the Marquis de Condorcet, as well as a
personal friend of the new Director, criticized the
school, as did Bossut. Bossut also belonged to the
group surrounding Quesney, the so-called 'phys-
iocrates', who reproached the program of the
11 Camus: Cours de mathematique, 3 parts in 4 vols
12 Michel: Le patrimoine. , " p, 26
Ecole des ponts et chaussees with narrowness. This
movement, generally considered as the first scien-
tific school of economics, invented the slogan 'lais-
sez faire', based on the anti-mercantilistic argu-
ment that 'natural' agriculture and not 'artificial'
industrial production, hedged about with tarifs and
legislation, was the true source of national wealth.
We might say that the civil engineer Perronet was
an 'internalist' to the profession of engineering,
whereas the military group at Mezieres represent-
ed a 'generalist' approach.
One can understand the lack of sympathy of the
younger group for a form of education so totally
different in concept from theirs. But, in spite of the
well-constructed logic, the alliance between the
engineering theoreticians at the military school and
the 'physiocrates' does seem somewhat contrived.
We must remember that the civil engineers were
highly regarded and powerful civil servants, and
they were, of course, exposed to every imaginable
form of political jealousy, infighting and career
pressure from all sides - and especially virulently
from a young outsider group.
As a result of this pressure and of a general trend
toward the reorganization of higher education in
France, the curriculum of the Ecole des ponts et
chaussees was revised, but not quite in the way the
'young turks' may have wished. Pierre Charles Le-
sage entered the school as its Vice-Director in 1776,
the year before Trudaine de Montigny retired as
Director of the Corps, and a new series of four
compulsory courses in mathematics, architecture,
stone cutting and timber framing were introduced.
A system of competitions was also instigated to
encourage higher performance, replacing exams
and reviews. It was at this juncture that the school
officially received its name. How different this so-
cially highly acclaimed and very competitive system
was from the equally dynamic, but empirical, un-
structured and socially 'low-caste' tradition of en-
gineering in Britain! And these differences were
established long before the onset of both the In-
dustrial and the French Revolutions.
The year 1776 saw other sweeping changes in
France as well. Acting on the 'Six Edicts' report by
Turgot, then Naval Minister and Comptroller Gen-
eral, the old system of 'corvee' or tax paid in kind
by the labor of serfs on road construction, was
finally abandoned for a system of paid labor.
Although this was immediately revoked by order of
the King upon Turgors fall from power the same
year and only reintroduced eleven years later, the
date still marks a point of departure from the old
system.
Attacks on the Ecole des ponts et chaussees, as on
all old French institutions, increased during the Re-
volution. The Director of the Corps at the time,
Chaumont de 10 Milliere, managed, by means of
two reports published in 1790 and 1791, to influ-
ence the new laws which established the administra-
tion and the corps on a solid basis in 1791. 13
1794 was the year that Perronet, the figurehead of
the old guard, died. According to Prony, his succes-
sor should have been his former assistant, the
eminent Antoine de Chezy, inventor of the Chezy
formula in hydraulic engineering. However, Chezy
was so retiring and modest, and apparently did not
care to participate in political lobbying and infight-
ing, that he was passed over, the choice falling
instead on Jacques Elie de Lamblardie, who had by
then distinguished himself in the organization of
the new 'Ecole centrale des travaux publics'.
The specialized civil and military service schools
were totally disorganized by 1793. Professors and
students had disappeared, some to escape political
persecution and others for active military service.
France was at war. The Ecole des ponts et chaus-
sees was nearly abandoned, as the Convention
had decided to disband all existing universities and
schools as seats of elitism and to supplant them
with an egalitarian form of education by founding
new trade schools. The Duc de Liancourt had, long
before, made a modest start in this direction in the
foundation of the 'Ecole des arts et metiers', and it
was this type of institution that the Convention had
in mind. Due to the influence of the writings of
Rousseau, public instruction was very much in the
foreground of revolutionary thought which led to
the foundation of the 'Ecoles centrales' in 1794-
1795. There were the 'Ecole normale', a teacher
training college, three medical schools or 'Ecoles
de Sante', a school of oriental languages, a school
13 Tarbe de Saint-Hardouin, p. 13 45
 of fine arts or 'Ecole des Beaux-Arts' and a conser-
vatory of music. There were other institutions de-
signed with pedagogical objectives in view too: the
Museum of Natural History, the Louvre for art, the
Bibliotheque Nationale and the Archives Nation-
ales. The traditional 'academies' were replaced
by the monolithic 'Institut Nationale des Arts et
Sciences'.
An article of the Convention of March 1794
empowered the Commission of Public Works to or-
ganize one of the new schools. The opening date
of the 'Ecole centrale des travaux publics' was
fixed for December 21. The founding committee
based its work on a report presented by Monge and
the chemist Antoine Franc;ois Fourcroy. Realizing
that there was a glaring lack of trained officers, as
a large percentage of the graduates of Mezieres
and the other schools had espoused the royalist
cause, the committee determined that it should not
only train public works engineers, but also military
officers.
The new school was headed by a committee con-
sisting of the Professors Marquis Pierre Simon de
Laplace, Comte Joseph Louis de Lagrange, Claude
Antoine Prieur-Duvernois, knows as Prieur de la
Cote d'Or and Monge whose Descriptive Geome-
try became a main element of instruction. Lam-
blardie, who was also given a professorship at the
new institution, was made its first director. 391
pupils were admitted after national exams in arith-
metic, geometry and elementary algebra. 14 All
started in a three-month preliminary course in order
to determine their placement into first, second or
third year courses. A decree of September 1, 1795,
changed the name of the new institution to corres-
pond to its expanded role. It thenceforth became
known by the name it still bears: the 'Ecole poly-
technique'.
The new school was not enough to fill the void left
by those officers who had decamped, so the old
Ecole des ponts et chaussees was reopened at the
end of October 1795. Lamblardie was also named
director of this institution. However, in order to
establish the dominance of the new school over the
old, the Ecole des ponts et chaussees was only
allowed to admit students who had failed the en-
46 trance exam to the Ecole centrale. Lamblardie, re-
alizing that this situation would only harm the sys-
tem in the long run, resolved the problem of a
budding competition between the two institutions
politically. He suggested that the Ecole polytech-
nique should become a basic school providing a
scientific training for all engineers and officers,
while all the older schools were to be reopened
and become specialized graduate centers. In order
that the older schools not be considered superior,
but rather subservient to the new one, he proposed
that they be called thenceforth 'Ecoles d'applica-
tion', indicating thereby that they were mere cen-
ters of applied knowledge and not the fountain-
head of theoretical knowledge. A mode of exam
for transfer to the graduate schools was approved
and became law in March 1796. Besides the Ecole
des ponts et chaussees, this group included the
Ecole de genie, the Ecole des constructions na-
vales, the Ecole des ingenieurs geographes and the
several Ecoles d'artillerie. This diplomatic solution
seems to have appeased all parties, as it worked
and has survived to the present.
Lamblardie died in 1797, the year that the influen-
tial Monge retired from active teaching. Chezy was
finally appointed director of the refurbished Ecole
des ponts et chaussees, but his tenure was to be
short, as he died a mere ten months later.
The bias of the new Ecole polytechnique became
ever more theoretical which was both its strength
and its ultimate weakness. The scope of instruction
was reduced to two years in 1799. A new genera-
tion of teachers was called upon to instruct. The
dynamic and prolific Gaspard Clair Franc;ois Marie
Riche, Baron de Prony, engineer of the draining of
the Pontine Marshes in Italy, tied the two genera-
tions together. He had been among the first to
transfer to the new school after having been cho-
sen to teach at the old Ecole des ponts et chaussees
by Perronet only three years after his own gradua-
tion. He stayed at the Ecole polytechnique until
1815, teaching mathematical science, analysis and
mechanics. It was he who was elected director of
the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussees after the death of
Chezy, continuing the link between the two insti-
tutions initiated by Lamblardie.
14 ibid, p. 271
The shift of scholastic emphasis to theory was
strongly supported by Napoleon, surely based on
his close friendship with Monge. The Premier Con-
sul recognised the need for scientific and technical
education, being himself an officer by training, and
at the same time he insisted on the militarization of
the whole of French higher education for the pur-
poses of the centralization of administrative power
and for conquest.
To this end, the chemist Jean Antoine Chaptal,
Napoleon's first Minister of the Interior, prepared a
general report on French education. This was sup-
plemented by another, authored by Fourcroy who
had worked with Monge on the report leading to
the founding of the Ecole polytechnique. As a re-
sult, a six-man commission of 'Inspecteurs gene-
raux de I'instruction publique' reorganized the
whole of French primary and secondary education
under the strict censorship of Napoleon himself.
The schools of higher education followed suit and
were again reorganized along military lines, re-
verting to extreme elitism.
In 1802 the Ecole militaire at St. Cyr opened, and
the Ecole d'artillerie at Metz now incorporated both
the Ecole de genie and the Ecole d'artillerie. Two
years later the Ecole polytechnique received its mil-
itary charter. Monge's influence there was still
strong, even though he no longer was actively en-
gaged in teaching. He remained a mentor to the
school and was ideally suited to the role as his
interests ranged far beyond mathematics, from
metallurgy to archaeology, and he had even been
Minister of the Navy until 1793, when he had
resigned to devote himself to research and teach-
mg.
Napoleon's reforms in higher education did not
stop at the Ecole polytechnique. The same year,
1804, saw another reorganization of the Ecole des
ponts et chaussees and of the Corps itself too.
Then, followed, in 1806, a new Ecole des Arts et
metiers at Chalons-sur-Marne, founded especially
for the purpose of training non-commissioned of-
ficer engineers for industry. Two years after that,
the Ecole normale also received a new charter
and was made responsible for the education of all
teachers in institutions of higher education. A fur-
ther Ecole des arts et metiers at Angers followed in
1811, indicating a rising need for industrial engi-
neers.
The elan of this development tapered off as the
military situation of the Napoleonic Empire faded,
but the strength of the system perpetuated the
tradition of royalist French civil service and carried
it to new extremes. It aimed at the formation of a
strong, hierarchic, patriotic civil service corps of
engineers, serving and at the same time, also dom-
inating government, industry and the military. The
disadvantages of so monopolistic and monolithic a
system only became evident later, when the form
gelled and began to become exceedingly inflexible
and conservative. Bossut, Monge and Napoleon
had reacted against just such a conservative sys-
tem: it only came full circle thirty years later.
But before this reossification could come about, the
movement generated by this development led to
the mutation of the empirical attitude toward in-
dustrial and military technology and gave rise to a
new tradition straddling both empirical knowledge
and scientific method. Ecoles polytechnique were
soon founded all over Europe, and eventually
spread to the United States. The first was founded
in enemy Prague in 1806, a creation of the eminent
Austrian engineer Franz Joseph Ritter von Gerstner.
The next was in Vienna, in 1815, setting a wry
footnote to the end of the Napoleonic Wars with
the victor adopting the form of education created
by the vanquished. Then the movement spread to
Berlin, to Karlsruhe in 1825, and to many other
cities. 15 Although many of these schools were at
first more vocational schools than they were true
Ecoles polytechnique, their foundation determined
the evolution of our present hybrid, technological
culture. Progress vacillated, as as is inevitable when
change is so complex. It did not follow a clear,
linear evolutionary path. And there were parallel
developments too: several treatises have been dis-
covered which show that there may have been an
earlier, independant creation of analytical statics in
German-speaking cultures, which led to an em-
bryonic indigenous academic tradition. 16 However,
15 The first academic engineering programs in the
English-soeaking world were organized in 1824 in
Liverpool and in Albany, NY at Rensselaer Polytechnic. 47
 the French development fuelled all parallel efforts,
and the engineering world became polarized be-
tween the empirical anglo-saxon and the theoret-
ical gallic approaches. Brave attempts were made
in Great Britain to introduce theory into practise as
exemplified in the work of Eaton Hodgkinson in the
1820s and 1830s or in the publisher John Weale's
encyclopedic compendium 'Theory, Practise and
Architecture of Bridges' of 1843. But for many
years such efforts remained isolated attempts, and
it was a characteristic of British theoretical papers
that they were based on test cases rather than on
general problems and abstract analytical premises
as were the French. Engineering was a 'trade' and
not a 'profession', let alone a science in Britain, and
the tendency to reject what was seen as an arbi-
trary interference with practical understanding
prevailed for many years.
The traditional, purely empirical attitude to engi-
neering died hard. T. G. Cumming typified the British
approach around 1826. The object of his critique
was an accident which led to the demolition of
Navier's chain suspension bridge over the Seine in
Paris, built where the Pont des Invalides now stands.
Although the reason for demolition was partly
movement in the abutments and partly political ex-
pedience,17 Cumming puts the blame squarely on
Navier and on French theory:
"The engineer was called on for an explana-
tion, when he said, 'c'etoit seulement une
petite distraction dans mes calculs' ['it was
only a minor error in my calculations']. The
ruins are removed, but the deed shall exist in
the traces of our hand, that our countrymen
may proudly shew that English modes of
calculation, combined with practical skill, are
infinitely superior to being 'initiees aux
conoissances mathematiques les plus ele-
vees' [familiar with the most theoretical
knowledge of mathematics]. The reason is
obvious; no man can make progress in the
highest departments of mathematical learn-
ing who does not consume by far the
greater part of his time in them; while with a
certain degree of power in comparing
quantities, and knowing the exact nature of
48 the thing to be done, it is easy to make
stability certain without having recourse to
refined calculation."18
This was indeed a daring assertion in view of the
frequent and almost expected failures of new
structures at the time in Britain. 19
Even Telford agreed with this attitude. The lengths
of the suspenders for the Menai Chain Bridge of
1826 were measured on a 1/4 scale model of a
single suspended main chain. Provis mentions that
the information might have been obtained through
calculation, but
"with a practical man, an experiment is
always more simple and satisfactory than
theoretical deductions."2o
The formulae for the catenary and the chain load-
ed with an horizontal deck were known at the time.
Important contributions were then being made, on
the instigation of Telford, to the theory of catenary
construction by Gilbert Davies. So the calculation
of a suspender length would certainly not have
cost more effort than the manufacture, suspension
and measuring of a model chain. It was not at all a
matter of 'theoretical deduction', but merely of cal-
culation, and the expense would have been far
less. The problem seems to have been one of a fear
of non-visual means of understanding engineering
rather than of an alternative to experimentation.
Such an attitude was unthinkable at the time in
France and would have been cause for scathing
professional ridicule.
The French gradually became more and more ex-
clusively oriented toward theory as the nineteenth-
century progressed, often to the detriment of prac-
tical experience. In this, Cumming's remarks did
contain a grain of truth. And this had perhaps also
been Perronet's reservation to the new tendencies
16 Rosemarie Wagner and Ralph Egermann, working at
the Institut fOr Massivbau of the University of Stuttgart
found a correct, if esoteric form of the theory of the
bending beam in Johann Albert Eytelwein, 1816,
predating that of Navier by ten years. They also
discovered an interesting German treatise on statics of
about 1785. See Wagner
17 see chapter 'Controversy between adherents of cable
and of chain construction', pp. [145-146]
18 Cumming, 2nd. ed., p. 51
19 Vignoles pp. 225-226, footnote 3
20 Gibb, p. 171
in French engineering: surely both practise and
theory were needed. Engineering knowledge ad-
vanced through the work of the French pioneers of
modern statics and of material technology, and
created the field we know today. At the same time
it was also this work which led farther and farther
away from practical building experience. Among
those chiefly responsible were Louis Joseph Vicat,
Navier and Gustave Gaspard de Coriolis, all
of whom were engineers with only a moderate
amount of practical experience and with great
theoretical gifts.
Coriolis, who perhaps influenced the negative as-
pects of this development the most, was called to
the Ecole poly technique in 1826 as 'repetiteur' or
subordinate lecturer, by Baron Augustin Louis
Cauchy, professor of analysis and applied mechan-
ics. He taught these courses when Chauchy retired
in 1830 until Navier replaced him. The following
year, Coriolis was named associate professor of
applied mechanics at the Ecole des ponts et chaus-
sees and then became titular professor there after
Navier's death in 1836. Two years later, he retired
from active teaching upon his nomination to the
post of Director of Studies at the Ecole poly tech-
nique. In this position Coriolis was able successfully
to lobby for the complete abandonment of project-
oriented teaching at the school in favor of lecturing
and exams only. His argument was that school can-
not ever, and in fact, need not simulate practise, an
argument which has its rationale in the assumption
that the graduates of the system subsequently go
into practise and do not return immediately to
teaching and theory. However, this was often not
the case, as own Coriolis's career demonstrated.
The inbreeding of theoretical talent gradually led
to the alienation of a large group of practically-
minded and experienced professionals in France
who were strongly supported by the Saint-Simo-
nians, many of whom were themselves engineers
by training. This strange, socialist, reformist, quasi-
religious group, followers of the teachings of Comte
de Saint-Simon, exerted a great and Anglophile
influence on certain aspects of French thought until
the group's dissolution in the early 1830s. The field
of engineering education was one such area.
Times were once again revolutionary and ripe for
change by 1830. Industry was beginning to evolve
forcefully in France and the restrictive system of the
Corps of Engineers stifled economic development.
A reaction set in, the most successful issue of which
was the founding of the 'Ecole centrale des arts et
manufactures', a private institution of which Per-
ronet might have approved, in 1829. The school
grew out of a disenchantment with the current
overemphasis of engineering theory. Antoine Remy
Polonceau was made director and the faculty in-
cluded many gifted teachers: Louis Charles Mary
taught the course on public works.
The credo of the school was the maintenance of a
careful balance between theory and practise, and
it was able to retain its in dependance from the
official school system until 1856. The obvious suc-
cess of this route was later demonstrated in the
careers of two of the internationally most influen-
tial builders in iron, the North American William
Le Baron Jenney, one of the developers of the
Chicago form of iron frame construction, a gradu-
ate of 1856, and Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, gradu-
ate of 1855. Eiffel was the engineer and builder
who rationalized and standardized connecting and
manufacturing techniques in bridge construction
and popularized Culmann's revolutionary system
of graphic statics, both of which gave the neces-
sary impetus to the evolution of the modern steel
truss and frame.
But it is the beginning of the evolution of the in-
fluential and complex educational system which
concerns us here, not the end. The technologically
liberating exertions made by the Napoleonic re-
gime and by Napoleon's own quest for the most
modern materials and newest methods, permitted
the world to enter a new epoch and France, by the
way, to finally to enter the Industrial Revolution.
Under the push for new materials, France received
its first cast-iron bridge in 1803, a quarter of a
century after the first one in Great Britain and after
the first wrought iron truss roofs had been built in
France itself. The reason for this time lag had been
the conservative attitudes adopted by the Director-
ate of the Ponts et Chaussees. 21 At the beginning
21 compare chapter 'Arch bridges in cast-iron',
pp. [188-191] 49
 of the nineteenth century, it was the obvious ad-
vantages of the new interest in a theoretical and
scientific understanding of engineering, rather than
the yet invisible, ultimate shortcomings, which were
apparent.
As far as the future was concerned, as it was then
discernable, the new generation of teachers in
engineering, spearheaded by Monge, Prony, Sgan-
zin and others, and followed in a second and third
wave by Navier, Dupin and Coriolis, initiated the
penetration of statics into the vocabulary and the
philosophy of engineering and led the field from
an art to a technology.
Development of statics
Statics is a special branch of mechanics, namely
that part which deals with the equilibrium of bodies
at rest as opposed to dynamics which deals with
bodies in motion.
There are three classical foundations of statics. The
first is the principle of the fulcrum, first formulated
by Archimedes and expounded in his now lost
treatise 'On Balances and levers' of the third cen-
tury B. C. The second is Simon Stevin's theorem of
the triangle of forces which is equivalent to the
parallelogram diagram of forces and which he
published in 1586 in his 'Beghinselen der Weeg-
konst'. Finally, the third is Sir Isaac Newton's third
law of the conservation of matter, 'actio-reactio',
meaning that forces always appear in equal and
opposite pairs, and which he formulated in the late
seventeenth century. All three principles were well
established and recognised long before they came
together in the form of a codified theory of statics,
and these three principles alone suffice for the
solution of most of the major problems encoun-
tered in elementary civil engineering projects.
The theoretical elaboration of these principles fol-
lowed much later than their discovery in the spe-
cialization of the general theories of mechanics
as developed by the brothers Jacob and Johann
Bernoulli, Alexis Claude Clairault, Jean Le Rond
d'Alembert and others in France before 1760. Their
application to problems of equilibrium provided
the means for understanding the behavior of struc-
tures. This application was, howeyer, a very difficult
50 task.
Theoretical works were of no use to the practitioner
at all until the 'pure' mathematical theory could be
translated to suit the random practical and 'inex-
act' situations common to every building site and
couched in terms a practitioner could readily un-
derstand.
Such a feat of translation was not to be achieved
by mathematicians applying their theories to the
solution of practical problems, in other words
through the medium of 'applied mathematics', but
rather through ~he opposite way, by engineers
choosing mathematical methods for the solution of
practical problems. The distinction is a fine one,
but important. Direct experience of the practical
problems of construction is necessary to compre-
hend the type and precision of result required.
Only when this has been understood is it possible
to design a model of just the right degree of ab-
straction to suit the purpose. A model which is too
approximate will provide a useless result: too many
variables which are known by experience to in-
fluence stability will have been ignored. Conver-
sely, too precise a model will include factors irrele-
vant to the practical result and would become
overly cumbersome to use. 'Rules of thumb', the
fruit of practical experience and acute obser-
vation, would still be more reliable and easier to
use than these.
There is one case in which it is fairly easy to apply
mathematks directly to the examination of struc-
ture, and that is the analysis of existing construc-
tion. As the structure is given, there are no design
variables to be considered, and the basis for such
an analysis consists in the search for a mathemati-
cal theory to suit the facts. And it was indeed in the
field of the analysis of structural failures that statics
was first applied to structure. A report on the state
of the dome of Saint Peter's Cathedral in the Vati-
can was completed in 1743 by three Jesuit mathe-
maticians: Thomas Le Suer, Franc;:ois Jacquier and
Ruggiero Giuseppe Boscovich.
However, for the synthetic purposes of design,
without the basis of a predetermined structure,
statics could not develop by approaching the prob-
lems from the standpoint of a mathematician with
a method in search of a problem. Leonhard Euler
had, for instance, solved the general problem of
elastica in his 'Methodus inveniendi' of 1744 and
had simplified and adafted, or as Heyman has it,
'coarsened it' in 17572 to fit the example of the
buckling of columns in 'Sur la force des colonnes'.
This theory would have been immediately appli-
cable to practical purposes within certain limits. But
it was not even known to practitioners until Navier
reinterpreted it for their benefit 70 years later in
1826. Similarly, in another branch of technology,
Euler's project for a water-driven turbine and his
method of calculation for the form of gear cogs,
although both perfectly correct, did not gain entry
into the technical world of his age either.
Euler was one of the most conscientious scientists
of the age in his attempts to render the results of
his theoretical research practically applicable and
readily comprehensible to the layman. He failed,
however, as there were very real difficulties in
translation from the mathematical into the tech-
nological idiom, from algebraic formulae into tech-
nical drawings and descriptions; then too, there
was the basic shift in viewpoint needed from theory
to practise mentioned previously. The publication
of the basic mathematical engineering treatises, al-
most a century later, broke through the impasse.
What had been missing previously was a codifi-
cation of problem types: the formation of models,
the adoption of standards for the application of
forces and the introduction of variables in calcu-
lation corresponding to parameters of design. This
then provided a basis for comparative studies of
the behavior of structures.
It was Charles Augustin Coulomb, a physicist and
military engineer trained at Mezieres, who was to
lay the basis for the development of modern statics
in his 'Essai sur une application des regles de max-
imis et minimis a quelques problemes de statique'
(an Essay on the application of the rules of maxima
and minima to some problems in statics). Coulomb
presented this paper to the Academie des Sciences
in 1773 and published it three years later.
In his essay, Coulomb adopted the methods of the
practitioners who had earlier attempted to use
mathematical formulae in the calculation of de-
signs, such as Belidor, and expanded them on the
basis of newer theoretical work.
liThe outstanding feature of the Essai is, of
course, the use of limiting principles. No
previous writer had allowed the plane of slip
behind a retaining wall to enter the problem
in terms of an arbitrary parameter ... he
does not begin to compete with the mathe-
matical ability of Euler or of the Bernoullis:
mathematicall{, the Essai is of negligable
importance." 2
In other words, the value of Coulomb's work lay in
the fact that he went the opposite way, regarding
mathematics simply as a means to an end, using it
as a tool, introducing parameters where it suited his
intensions and experience as a builder. Coulomb
was not interested in the systemic aspects of the
methods he used, but only in their application. The
result was not primarily novel insight or knowledge,
but a functioning structure. Herein indeed lies the
difference between technological and scientific
thought, and the deceptively minor differences
render an act of translation necessary.
Dual gifts in theory and practise, in scientific and
technological thought, were needed to bridge the
gap. Coulomb possessed these gifts to a high de-
gree, and even though he did succeed in making
this translation, his treatise had no immediate im-
pact on engineering. The engineer of his day was
used to working with empirical design tables such
as those Perro net and Chezy had complied rather
than with typological models. 24 The breakthrough
only occurred later, when a new generation of
engineering students had been trained in mathe-
matics and physics, prepared for change by the
teaching methods of Camus, Bossut and Monge.
The engineer who issued from the truly revolu-
tionary Ecole polytechnique at the beginning of the
nineteenth century was ready for this change. Pro-
ny had been educated in the Perronet system, but
he soon adopted the viewpoint of the new. Duleau
(= Alphonse Jean Claude Bourgnion), Dupin, Vic at
and Navier were trained under the new system,
and it was particularly Navier's work which foster-
ed the adoption of statics into engineering.
22 Heyman,pp.196-197
23 ibid
24 Gillespie: Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol. 3,
p.442 51
 Navier: the scientific and technological
modes of thought
Navier was orphaned at the age of thirteen in
1779 and brought up and educated in the home of
an uncle, the theoretician, professor of mathe-
matics at the Ecole des ponts et chaussees and
practising engineer, Emiland Marie Gauthey. Gau-
they encouraged his nephew to apply to the Ecole
polytechnique where he studied from 1801-1804.
Navier therefore received the best of both forms of
education, the Perronet system under the tutelage
of his uncle and the Monge system at the Ecole
polytechnique. He then went on to attend the new
Ecole des ponts et chaussees, reorganized on Lam-
blardie's plan, from 1804-1807.
When Gauthey died in 1806, Navier became his
executor and published his uncle's unfinished
'Traite des Ponts' between 1813-1816. He sub-
sequently reedited Belidor's 'La Science de I'Inge-
nieur' in 1813 and his 'Architecture Hydraulique' as
well. This he accomplished while in the service of
the Departement de la Seine which he had entered
upon graduation and where he was to remain until
1822.
The publication of Gauthey and the reediting of
Belidor not only gave him an opportunity to sup-
plement what was to remain a relatively short span
of practical engineering experience, it also brought
him an assistantship under Armand Joseph Eisen-
mann, professor of applied mechanics at the Ecole
des ponts et chaussees in 1820. Named associate
professor in 1821, he left active service as an en-
gineer the following year, inheriting Eisenmann's
chair when the latter retired in 1830. Also in 1830,
Navier was called to the chair of analysis and ap-
plied mechanics vacated by the retirement of
Cauchy at the Ecole polytechnique, thus carrying
on the established tradition of close personal con-
tact between the two schools. He continued to hold
both these posts until his death in 1836 at the age
of 51.
Navier's unusually broad educational background
crossed the borders of time and system and en-
compassed the whole history of engineering ed-
ucation in France: a detailed study of preacademic
engineering as practised by Belidor at the La Fere
52 Artillery Academy, the Perronet system taught to
him by his uncle, the new Ecole polytechnique and
finally the renewed Ecole des ponts et chaussees.
This education was supplemented by travel, first
with Prony on one of his three trips to occupied
Italy and then on his own to England, and by some
practical experience. Navier was a cultural 'border-
crosser' within the confines of French engineering
culture, perhaps to a higher degree than anyone
before him. He was thus ideally suited and placed
to bridge the gap between practise and theory. On
top of this he was an excellent teacher, his style
being characterized by a former student as meth-
odical, clear and elegant. 25
Navier's prime contribution to engineering theory
was the ability to base a random case on a system
of mathematical principles by intelligent choice of
simplification. He undertook the development of
simple models with the dual intention of advancing
structural theory and finding solutions to definite
structural problems. In this manner he was able to
impart a decisive impetus to technological devel-
opment, not only in structural engineering, but in
other fields such as mechanical engineering and
hydraulics as we". The result of the application of
his methods was the evolution of our present tech-
nological culture. Of course, no one could have
accomplished this single-handedly. Navier's work
was supplemented, preceeded and followed by
that of many others. Practising engineers were able
to understand and use his work, as they had not
been in the case of Coulomb. But the fact remains
that the evolution of analytical statics did crystal-
lize in Navier's teaching and writings.
For example, Navier understood the bending of
the simple beam, one of the classical problems of
statics, as ern elastic phenomenon. His model sim-
plified the calculation of the forces greatly by sup-
posing the planes of the cross-section of such a
beam to remain plane during bending. It now ap-
pears that Johann Albert Eytelwein had done this
before him, and so had Jacob Bernou"i. But the
former's work rested in obscurity, while the latter
had not taken the consequences of this simplifica-
tion to their practical conclusion. Bernou"i had like-
wise discovered the neutral axis, although he did
25 Tarbe de Saint-Hardouin, p. 170
not know its position, and the equation of the mo-
ment distribution in a bending beam, again how-
ever, without being able to apply them to practical
problems, as he was no engineer.
In truth, however, the cross-section of a beam does
not remain plane when subjected to bending, nor is
the phenomenon of bending a purely elastic one; it
is really far more complex. Navier knew this of
course, but his particular genius was the ability to
recognise that the adoption of intelligent simpli-
fication gave a result of sufficient degree of
approximation as to be useful for the practical
purposes of construction.
I expand here on one of the concerns voiced in the
first chapter. It is a most important point and bears
iteration in context. The balancing act between the
points of view of pure science and empirical prac-
tise continues to constitute the essence of the vitality
of technological development even in our own day.
Hybrid technical thought may appear as 'impure',
primitive and inexact to the natural scientist, but it
continually provides the engineer with fresh start-
ing points leading to novel work by means of the
incessant juxtaposing of what are in reality anta-
gonistic goals, differing points of view and varying
types of problems defined by contrasting interests.
In contrast to science and the humanities, which are
basically concerned with systems of thought, sys-
temic concerns in technological thought are re-
duced to problems of interface. As long as the
method works and meshes with other methods em-
ployed on the same set of problems, that is all that
concerns the technologist. Thus parts of a theory or
system may be appropriated and altered to suit the
problem at hand. This basic unconcern with syste-
matic thought can thoroughly aggravate the mathe-
matician, natural scientist or philosopher. Not
being able to understand the logic of what is being
done, they are bound to conclude that the techno-
logist has not understood their theories at all, and is
consequently of inferior intellect. In fact, the op-
posite is true. Engineers are educated in the same
humanistic and scientific culture as are the rest of
us. Being at least as intelligent as others sucessfully
completing the same courses of education, they
understand the system of thought at least as well.
On becoming creative technologists, however, they
.adopt a novel mode of thought in which they are
able to free themselves from slavish adherence to
the systemic aspects of scientific thought, and mix
and match portions of it to suit their purposes. The
proof of the value of this freedom is, of course, that
technical development has come to dominate our
culture and that technical objects work. This brings
us to the even more basic difference between tech-
nological and other modes of thought:
Scientific and humanistic thought aims at insight or
knowledge; therefore its concern with system. Tech-
nological thought aims at the creation of a func-
tioning object and therefore its totally different
bias. Although this does not explain why Coulomb's
paper had no success, it does explain why Euler
was unable to influence engineers.
The great accomplishment of the pioneers of mod-
ern statics, and particularly that of Navier, was the
achievement of a creative dialogue between these
essentially dissimilar worlds. The toleration and de-
velopment of such an undogmatic attitude toward
traditional thought patterns was perhaps only pos-
sible in the revolutionary atmosphere of the early
nineteenth century, when doubt was being cast on
all existing values of whatever origin and all ax-
ioms were being reexamined.
Navier published his first major theoretical work in
1823, the celebrated memorandum on suspension
bridges. This was followed by the first part of his
more influential work three years later, the 'Resume
des lec;:ons ... ', consisting of his lecture notes on
the strength of materials, foundations, masonry
and timber. The second and third parts, containing
further material on hydraulics and machine con-
struction, were only to appear posthumously in
1838 in conjunction with the second edition of the
first volume of 1834.
Each succeeding generation of engineering pro-
jects thereafter has demonstrated the increasing in-
fluence of the mathematical approach to the solu-
tion of engineering problems, with the practising
engineer gradually adopting both the idiom and
the attitude implied by the new methods.
The later success of Navier's work benefited great-
ly from the commentary and corrections of Adhe-
mar Jean Claude Barre de Saint-Venant, the editor
of the third edition of 1864. It appears to have 53
 been from this edition that the use of analytical
statics finally became an internationally accepted
method in engineering the world over.
Graphic statics
There was another path by which mathematics
began to enter engineering design at the begin-
ning of the nineteenth century, although it was not
to mature for another half century. This branch of
statics evolved not from analytical roots, but from
the early theories of stereometry, proportion,
geometrical relationship and formal analogy. Such
theories had originated in antiquity, been elaborat-
ed in the Middle Ages and developed in the Re-
naissance. 26 They were based partly on practical
experience and partly on esthetic theory. Monge's
Descriptive Geometry was the latest step in this
tradition. His theory supplemented stereometry
and perspective geometry and proved useful for
some types of graphic calculation. A complete
graphic method of engineering calculation was
formulated in a system called 'graphic statics' in the
late 1850s by Carl Culmann, originally from the
Franco-German border region. like Navier before
him, he had had the advantage of studying in sev-
eral systems.
Culmann's uncle taught at the Ecole d'application
at Metz, and it was during a year's sojourn there in
1837, that he first became aquainted with both
Monge's work and with analytical engineering
theory. Culmann subsequently studied at Karlsruhe
and then found employment with the new Bavarian
State Railway. His employer and mentor, Johann
Wilhelm August Schwedler, then working on a
theory of truss analysis, sent him to Great Britain
and the United States in 1849 and 1850 and,
based on the proto-truss bridges he examined
there, he began to develop his graphic method for
truss analysis and design. The report of this trip,
including his first thoughts on the subject, was pub-
lished in the most widely read German language
building journal, the 'Allgemeine Bauzeitung' of
Vienna in 1851-1852. Others were also working
on truss analysis, many of them using graphic
methods. Squire Whipple of Albany, NY, had al-
ready published a workable theory in 1847, but it
54 had been totally ignored by the profession. Cul-
mann seems not to have been aware of Whipple,
as the manuscript notes of his trip27 make no
mention of meeting Whipple in Albany. Schwedler
published an article in 1851, and August Ritter in
Germany, D. J. Jourawski in Russia, William John
MacQuorn Rankine and the physicist James Clerk
Maxwell in England were all working along similar
lines. 28
Culmann honed his method in his teaching at
the new Swiss 'Eidgenossisches Polytechnikum' at
Zurich where he taught the fully developed theory
from 1859 on, and finally published it as 'Graphi-
sche Statik' in 1866, two years after Maxwell pub-
lished his research in the field. It was, however,
Culmann's work which was further developed by
Luigi Cremona in Turin and thus influenced the
spread of truss and then also frame construction in
iron, particularly through the bridges and tower of
Eiffel.
As in the case of Navier's work, Culmann's theories
were also restructured and rendered clearer and
more complete by others after him. Otto Mohr
made his contribution in 1870, Cremona in 1872
and Culmann's pupil and successor at Zurich, Wil-
helm Ritter, published 'Anwendungen der graphi-
schen Statik' in four volumes 1888-1906. Aspects of
the analytical and graphic sides of engineering
theory continued to supplement and supplant each
other well into the twentieth century.
Strength of materials
A further component of the development of mod-
ern engineering was the study of the strength and
properties of materials. Although many reports had
been published on particular aspects of material
technology in Italian, French and German before
the end of the eighteenth century, the French treat-
ises which appeared on the market between 1798
and 1820 were the first general examinations of
material properties in the modern sense. They form-
ed a significant exception to the general lack of
26 Gillespie: Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol. 3,
p.442
27 Culmann ms nr. 7, ETH Zurich
28 Chariton, p. 58-60. This excellent discussion of graphic
statics shows the complexity of the simultaneous
development by many people.
technological information in France before the
Congress of Vienna.
Todhunter and Pearson, and Timoshenko have
traced the evolution of theory and practise in this
field. The work of the Italians in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries (Leonardo da Vinci, Niccolo
Tartaglia, Galileo Galilei and Alessandro Marchet-
ti) was succeeded by that of Musschenbroek and
the French in the eighteenth, among which the
treatises of Antoine Parent, Pierre Varignon, Jacob
Bernoulli, who although Swiss, was closely connect-
ed with French science, Jacob Leupold, a German
who based his report on work done in France and
Comte Georges Louis Leclerc de Buffon, are out-
standing. 29 Portions of the works of Mariotte and
many others also dealt with aspects of the strength
of materials.
However, the information these works provided
was of restricted use to practitioners as difficulties
in the construction of good testing apparatus, the
lack of accepted standards for their construction,
calibration and theories of measuring and inter-
preting results, as well as the widely differing sys-
tems of measurement all over Europe, prevented
them from being compared, repeated and tabulat-
ed in useful form. Materials such as iron and ce-
ment were still very unreliable in quality and differ-
ed widely from place to place, and even from one
lot to another from the same manufacturer. They
would gradually become more reliable in the course
of the first third of the nineteenth century as
industrial processes and methods of quality control
were introduced, standardized and continually im-
proved. Reliable materials and standards were,
therefore, needed in order to develop reliable ma-
terials and standards, a 'Catch 22' situation which
seemed to have no solution.3 0 Attempts were made
to introduce standard weights and measures which
met with success for the first time in the French
Revolution when the kilogram-meter-second sys-
tem was invented and then forced upon the whole
of occupied Europe. Napoleon cut the 'Gordian
knot' in this case and allowed a resolution to the
problem. Standardization of the quality of mate-
rials on the basis of rational and repeatable expe-
rimentation then followed. This was the historical
underpinning of modern materials research. Com-
bined with the nascent field of statics, materials
research led to the adoption of safety factors for
the use of materials and structural forms. Gradual-
ly, the basis of modern construction evolved.
The crusty, slightly excentric Pierre Simon Girard,31
most of whose work was done in the field of hy-
draulic engineering, was the first to publish a mod-
ern, comprehensive treatise in 1798. His 'Traite an-
alytique de la resistance des solides .. .', was a
model for others to emulate. Girard was concerned
chiefly with the strength of timber used in naval
construction. The same had been true for many of
the earlier researchers too, such as Buffon, whose
'Experiences sur la force du bois .. .' of 1742 de-
veloped out of naval construction. Ships were of
great importance for wars and colonial conquest.
But ship construction rapidly depleted the great oak
forests of France. Almost any effort was, therefore,
justified to save precious timber, whether through a
more rational use of the material based on re-
search into its strength, or through the examination
of alternative construction methods using an infer-
ior material. 32
Dupin published his 'Experiences sur la flexibilite,
la force et I'elasticite des bois .. .' in 1813. His was
not one of the major works as far as its scope and
size were concerned but it showed the tendency of
research being conducted in material technology
at the time. While the emphasis lay on naval con-
struction, it clearly stresses the practical appli-
cability of his experiments to engineering works in
general.
Iron had also been the subject of early research.
Rene Antoine Ferchault de Reaumur's first treatise
on the subject, Tart de convertir Ie fer forge en
acier .. .', was on the production rather than on the
testing of iron. It appeared in 1722 and was fol-
lowed by another in 1726. Just before the outbreak
of the Revolution, Monge, Charles Vandermonde
29 Buffon, who worked under Duhamel du Manceau on
shipbuilding, claimed in his first article, 'Experiences sur
la force du bois' in 1740 (published in 1742), p. 453,
that nothing substantial had yet been done in that field.
30 see chapter 'Examination of wire in preparation for
erection', p. [85]
31 Tarbe de Saint-Hardonin, pp. 89-93
32 Peters: Time is Money, pp. 59-61 55
 and Claude Louis Berthollet had formed a commis-
sion to study the quality of the iron produced at the
state iron foundry at Le Creuzot. Their report was
presented to the Academie des Sciences in 1786
and published by the War Department in 1788 as
'Les Differents etats de fer'.33 The intention of this
report was not an examination of the strength of
materials per se either, but it was concerned with
quality, and therefore could be used as a basis for
the standardization of production. This, in turn,
provided the premise upon which the scientific test-
ing of materials could proceed.
Many general works on construction contained ac-
counts of experiments on the tensile strength of
iron, such as those of Poleni (1748) and Perronet
(1776) quoted by Navier in Gauthey's 'Traite des
Ponts' 1809-1816, or those of Rondelet on the re-
sults of his and Jacques Germain Soufflot's experi-
ments written up in the 'Traite de I'art de betir' of
1812. There was a close connection here, as Ron-
delet and Soufflot had been the architects of the
Pantheon in Paris, and Gauthey, their engineer.
The structural use of iron was retarded in France,
and it was therefore in Britain that the first work
devoted largely to the strength of iron was pub-
lished in 1817. The author was Peter Barlow, pro-
fessor of mathematics at Woolwich Naval Acad-
emy, the same who had been involved in Telford's
experiments with wrought iron chains and wire in
1814. Notwithstanding the confining title of his
book: 'Essay on the Strength and Stress of Timber',
it contained a sizable portion of text on a report of
the wrought iron tests. Perhaps Barlow had origin-
ally intended to follow the French lead and write a
work on timber alone, only to find the material on
iron gradually gaining in prominence. Be that as it
may, the modern history of the strength of materials
in Britain is generally dated from this publication.
It went through several continually expanded edi-
tions, in which iron played an ever increasing role,
up to mid-century.
Barlow was followed by Duleau's 'Essai theorique
et experimental sur la resistance du fer forge' of
1820, the first work to be entirely devoted to the
strength of iron. Duleau had been motivated to
undertake research in this field by the head of his
56 department at Bordeaux, Claude Deschamps, In-
specteur divisionnaire of the Ponts et chaussees. A
great iron bridge was to be built in that town, and
research into the material was called for. Duleau
did the research in conjunction with the building of
the bridge and, as a result, was offered the position
of assistant to Barnabe Brisson, professor of con-
struction at the Ecole des ponts et chaussees, in
1822. Upon Brisson's death in 1828, Duleau inherit-
ed his position as titular professor. This would have
allowed Duleau to continue his research, but this
was not to be, as he died in 1832.
Thomas Tredgold's 'Practical Essay on the Strength
of Cast Iron and other Metals' appeared in 1822
and was immediately translated into French in
1825 as part of the wave of technical publication in
France.
A series of monographs on particular aspects of
material technology began to appear, accompany-
ing the more comprehensive works. Many of these
dealt with the invention of new construction mate-
rials, such as the work on laminated and bent wood
by Armand Rose Emy, an endeavour connected
with the growing scarcity of good construction tim-
ber in France. Others dealt with novel structural
systems.
It was at this juncture that Eaton Hodgkinson's
paprs began to appear in Britain. 'On the trans-
verse strain and the strength of materials' was the
first, written in 1824 in conjunction with his work for
William Fairbairn (later baronet), on the develop-
ment of iron ship construction. This was soon fol-
lowed by 'Theoretical and experimental researches
to ascertain the strength and the best forms of iron
beams' in 1831 which led Hodgkinson to his in-
volvement with the design and erection of the first
large beams in wrought iron, the Conway and Bri-
tannia Bridges of 1849 and 1850. It was also at this
period that John Weale, the publisher, began to
collect all the available theoretical material in
'Theory, Practise and Architecture of Bridges' in
1843, an attempt to introduce Britain to the new
mathematical basis of engineering.
Studies of cements and concrete also began to ap-
pear on both sides of the English Channel. These
were based on John Smeaton's discovery that ce-
33 Steiner, p. 704
ment needed not only a good limestone in its com-
position, but also an admixture of silicon, or clay in
order to be 'hydraulic'. Although this discovery had
been made in connection with the building of the
Eddystone Lighthouse in 1856, it was only pub-
lished a year before Smeaton's death in his mono-
graph on that structure in 1791. A multitude of
artifical cements came to be based on this. Particu-
larly influential were the papers of Vicat, a whole
series of monographs and articles on his artificial
cements begun in 1818 and stretching into the
1850s. Duleau published work on the crushing
strength of cements while assistant to Brisson
in 1825 and interesting work was done in England
as well by Sir Charles William Pasley and Henry
Reid at the Royal Engineering Establishment at
Chatham.
Navier also worked in the field of material research
as did Charles Louis Aubry, Texier de Norbeck, Pro-
ny, and many others in Britain too, including
Thomas Young and George Rennie Jr. It swiftly be-
came established alongside statics as an important
engineering speciality.
This then was the background against and in which
Guillaume Henri Dufour was to participate in the
development of the wire cable bridge.
The education of Guillaume
Henri Dufour
Guillaume Henri Dufour's importance to Swiss his-
tory is such that his papers are counted among the
treasures of the Geneva State Archives. Among
papers on many other subjects, they contain a
wealth of original material by Dufour and others
on the genesis of the wire cable bridge. An exam-
ination of these papers presents a panorama of the
evolution of a new structural type from its inception
in 1822 to its flowering decades later. Through
them it becomes possible to trace the invention des-
tined to dominate long-span bridge building from
that day to this, and we can piece together, in
first-hand accounts, the events and the technolog-
ical background against which this took place.
Since 1834, thirteen bridges have held the world
record for span length; all but two of them have
been supported by wire cables. 34 A multitude of
sketches, letters, projects, proposals, variants, de-
scriptions and published reports enables us to gain
insight into a personal professional view of a cru-
cial period of transition in the development of civil
engineering. The fact that Dufour was only one of
several principal participants working in this new
field at the time, is an added advantage, as he
both used information provided by collegues and,
in turn, provided detailed input for their own ef-
forts. This situation presents a much broader picture
and imparts a far greater depth to our view of the
period than would have been possible had there
been only a single outstanding innovator. Dufour
was not only a very gifted engineer, he was also an
acute observer and reporter of what he experi-
enced and did. His notes are always precise and he
ordered and annotated his own papers in so de-
tailed a manner that they present a cogent, contin-
uous development. It is also a great advantage that
Dufour wrote easily and clearly, a rarity among
creative engineers.
Biography tends drastically to impoverish the image
of complex events and historical figures. All incerti-
tude, dilemma, conflict and contradiction disap-
pear and leave behind the mere husk of fact, a
falacious determinism, a caricature of persons and
events. Dufour, one of the most interesting and
complex figures in modern Swiss history, is no ex-
ception. He was a pivotal influence in the develop-
ment of modern Switzerland. Every large Swiss city
and most smaller ones have their Dufour Street or
Square. Every school child knows him to be the
founding-father of the confederation and the con-
ciliatory commander-in-chief of the brief civil war
of 1847. Those more interested in history encounter
his seminal work in cartography and know him to
be the creator of the first precise map of the coun-
try, a work of such graphic intricacy and polished
technical accomplishment, that it could not have
been the work of a dilettante, however gifted. On
the basis of this work, Dufour is counted among the Guillaume Henri Dufour
(1787 -1875 ). Engraving
founders of modern cartography. He organized the from old 20 frank Swiss
Swiss federal army in a novel manner, as a multi- banknote
lingual and cross-cultural modern militia. He helped
found the first military academy in Thun where he
trained and befriended the exiled French prince
34 see list on p. [155] 57
 Louis Napoleon, later to become Emperor Napo-
leon III. Dufour utilized his friendship with this
monarch, and through him with many influential
statesmen and ruling houses of Europe, to help
shelter the young and fragile Swiss Confederation
in a difficult process of political integration and
consolidation during the revolutionary period of
mid-nineteenth century which rocked even the most
stable nations of Europe. Less known is his influen-
tial work in the founding of the International Red
Cross which would have been far less sure of suc-
cess without the advantage of Dufour's diplomatic
and personal connections. And it is totally unknown
that he spent a sizable portion of his adult life as a
practising civil and military engineer, helping to
mold Geneva into a modern city and building the
world's first permanent wire cable suspension
bridge which also was the first permanent suspen-
sion bridge on the European continent.
The fact that Dufour's accomplishments encom-
passed such a variety of engineering fields is also
worthy of note, although in this he was aided by
the state of the art at the time, when engineering
had just begun to incorporate scientific method.
The beginning diversification then included only
the specialities of military, civil and mining engi-
neering. The fields of mechanical, structural, agri-
cultural, hydraulic and ecological engineering, the
specialities of surveying, road building, tunneling,
material technology and a host of other modern
fields still formed a single body of knowledge and
only began to subdivide with the growth of profes-
sional experience and theory in the course of the
early nineteenth century.
The flowering of the exact sciences and with them
technology, unfolded against the background of the
'age of reason' and spread from England and
France to the other developed countries of the
time. Technology struck roots in Prussia, Russia and
Austria, then in Belgium, the Netherlands and
Scandinavia, and somewhat less in the countries
bordering on the Mediterranian. Switzerland con-
tributed an inordinately large effort to this de-
velopment, in spite of its small size and perhaps in
part due to the complex character of its political
structure. Many Swiss, particularly Balois, Bernese
58 and Genevans, who had the closest ties to French
culture and tradition, developed a lively scientific
activity in the generation immediately preceeding
Dufour's. The Bernoulli family of Basle, especially
Jacob, Johann, Nicklaus I and Daniel were inter-
nationally renowned, as were Leonhard Euler, his
son Johann Albert and Niklaus von Fuss. But so
were Johann Jakob Bodmer, Johann Kaspar Lava-
ter and Heinrich Pestalozzi of Zurich, Albrecht von
Haller of Berne, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Horace
Benedict de Saussure, Marc Auguste Pictet, Charles
Pictet de Rochemont and Jean Daniel Colladon of
Geneva.
Although most of the activity in Geneva happened
to be concentrated in the areas of botany, zoology
and medicine, important work had also been ac-
complished in physics and geology as well. 35 Du-
four therefore grew to adulthood in an urban back-
ground of inspiring intellectual endeavour.
Dufour's father, Benedict Dufour came from a fam-
ily of citiziens who had enjoyed the privileges of
full citizenship from 1640 on, but he was a simple
journeyman watchmaker and not a member of the
ruling aristocracy. Geneva had a population of
25 000 inhabitants before the French Revolution,
only about an eighth of whom, or just over 3500,
were citizens invested with civil rights including
suffrage. The remainder were mere inhabitants.
Political power was concentrated in the hands of a
few families whose members shared official duties
and positions. Due to the tenor of the times, and
influenced in particular by the writings of the Ge-
nevan Rousseau, a popular party had formed and
fought against the entrenched hegemony of the
aristocracy. Many of the less powerful citizens were
members of this camp, among them Benedict Du-
four. In 1782 this party won a decisive victory, but
the aristocrats counterattacked and entered the
city on July 2 at the head of an army of 11 000
mercenaries raised with the military help of France,
Sardinia and Berne. The heads of the revolt were
banished. Many of their followers chose exile rath-
er than repression. Among them was Benedict
Dufour, an ardent admirer of Voltaire and Rous-
seau whose ideas were anathema to the aristocrat-
ic party. His copies of their collected works still
35 Muetzenberg, p. 17
stand proudly on the shelves of his son's library
which the family has preserved.
The elder Dufour followed the banished revolution-
ary Franc;ois d'ivernois to Waterford in Ireland
where the British Viceroy planned to found a watch-
making industry and a colony to be called New
Geneva. But the colony did not prosper and devel-
op to the liking of the colonists. Some left after two
years for Brussels, others for Neuchatel, and a few
returned in dispair to Geneva. Dufour and the
young wife he had married in Ireland, left with
900 others for Constance in the Grand Duchy of
Baden in Southern Germany, where the govern-
ment planned a similar venture to stimulate the
economy of the backward region. It was in Con-
stance, therefore, that his son Henri was born on
September 15, 1787. Henri received the name
Guillaume Henri, the name of his godfather, only
at the age of fifteen, apparently in order to
distinguish him from other Henri Dufours.
The struggle between the aristocratic and the rev-
olutionary parties was not yet over, however. The
French Revolution was fermenting across the bor-
der, and the struggle in Geneva was protracted.
Political matters were not as clear-cut as may be
supposed after the crushing defeat of 1782. Al-
though the aristocratic families once again held
power, Geneva was nonetheless a heterogeneous
mix of repression and liberalism. Montesquieu's 'Es-
prit des lois' had first been published there, and
Voltaire had for a long time found haven in Les
Delices, on Genevan territory and under Genevan
protection. Rousseau had also formulated the doc-
trines from which the French Revolution was sub-
sequently to derive its theories while living in Gen-
eva, and anti-aristocratic ideas were fairly openly
discussed in the Republic at the time. Although the
ruling party had rescinded the revolutionary
changes of 1782, the defeated had retained
equality in professional life.
When the aristocrats finally fell from power in 1789
under the influence of events in France, Benedict
Dufour and his family returned from exile. He was
elected to the National Assembly and to the '(0-
mite de Securite' in 1792. The following year he
created the 'Comptoir patriotique' with Jacques
Daniel Fol, and was elected to the bench in the civil
courts in 1794, while Fol became a member of the
Legislature.
After the bloody riots of that year, which provided
the French Directoire with a pretext to intervene
and annex Geneva in 1798, the elder Dufour relin-
quished his posts in disgust and returned to private
life. Together with Fol, he founded the watchmak-
ing firm of Dufour, Fol et Cie. on October 12,
1795,36 in which the Department of Finance seems
to have been willing to invest the sum of 30000
Livres in silver as sleeping-partner.37 But Dufour
soon abandoned this venture, while Fol went on to
become a member of the 'Grand jure' in 1795,
executive director of the Comptoir, and later
member of the committee formed to implement the
union between France and Geneva in 1798. Be-
nedict Dufour had lost the taste for public office.
He withdrew to a farming estate he had purchased
just over the French border, named Montrottier,
and there he tried to build a new life away from the
political strife of the city. His wife and ten-year-old
son returned to town in 1797, so that the boy could
attend school.
The family had only very modest means, and the
mother was obliged to earn her livelihood and help
support Guillaume Henri through school by taking
in embroidery. Together with the little his father
could spare from the farm, this barely sufficed.
Dufour was a very indifferent scholar, seemingly
chiefly interested in drawing and in military games.
He vacillated between dreams of becoming a
painter and a physician. Marc Auguste Pictet,
founder of the Bibliotheque Britannique, happened
to be his physics teacher in school, and it is known
that he was a very devoted and gifted teacher.
This had not the slightest immediate influence on
Dufour, however, who remained a poor student
throughout. When, in 1798, a French troups
invaded Geneva, Dufour, as all other boys, was
delighted. It meant a holiday as the troups were
billeted in the school buildings. Instead of lessons,
he spent his time listening in on the instruction given
the troups.
36 Repertoire alphabetique des Actes des Societes
1699-1882, Geneva State Archives
37 Commerce D2, p. 112, Geneva State Archives 59
 After stumbling through school, graduation could
hardly be the term here, Dufour spent a year study-
ing medicine, opting for surgery. The compassion
and disgust of the impressionable young man for
human suffering and the waste of war, did not pre-
vent him later from following a military career, but
they did determine the decisive role he was to play
in the conference leading to the founding of the
International Committee of the Red Cross.
After a year of surgery, he fell ill and, while recu-
perating, he heard by chance of the new Ecole
polytechnique in Paris, and that it educated stu-
dents for various public offices both civilian and
military. Moreover, there was no charge for tuition,
and students were also exempt from the draft lot-
tery. By virtue of the fact that he was, by annexa-
tion, now a French citizen, Dufour found that he
was eligible to take the entrance examination.
The reasons for this sudden interest, after years of
scholastic indifference, are unclear. But Dufour was
determined to go. The school was a prestigious
military establishment, and the military had always
exerted a fascination on the boy. It also meant the
adventure of leaving Geneva, which may have
been an added attraction. At first his father was
more than skeptical, in fact frankly incredulous.
Gradually, however, he was won over and realized
that his son was in earnest. The eighteen year old
was badly in need of coaching in mathematics, and
his father finally consented to lessons for which the
son paid in part himself by teaching drawing. The
lessons, coupled with the goal he wished to attain,
whetted his appetite for intellectual endeavor.
Being visually gifted, Dufour never forgot his de-
light on discovering that algebraic formulae, when
certain conventions were accepted, corresponded
to geometrical curves and that the combination of
several such equations described a geometrical
construction. 38
The entrance exam for the Ecole polytechnique
was held annually in each Departement capital,
and therefore also in Geneva. It was very difficult,
and Dufour was therefore not surprised to have
received no acceptance letter by November 1807
when courses were due to start. The news that he
had indeed been accepted arrived six weeks later
60 in the form of a peremptory directorial order to
proceed immediately to Paris with the information
that he was being considered 'absent without
leave' from the paramilitary establishment. The or-
iginal letter of acceptance had been lost in the
mail.
Dufour found to his chagrin that he had barely
managed to fulfil the entrance requirements in the
nation-wide competition for the coveted places.
When he joined the school in 1807 at the age of
twenty, school fees were levied for the first time,
and, as a further blow, the pupils were no longer
exempt from the draft. The conscripts were chosen
by lottery, and Dufour drew a conscript's number,
and had to be bought off as well. Luckily there
were any number of enthusiastic youths who were
eager to become part of Napoleon's 'Grande Ar-
mee', and the price was therefore not too high. It
was in this manner that Dufour avoided the butch-
ery of Spain and Russia.
These unexpected expenses imposed a grave ad-
ditional burden on the straitened Dufour family
budget. Friends helped. Dufour was fully aware of
this situation and compensated by performing so
well, that he was soon one of the best in his class.
He had entered the school as 140th of 144 en-
trants. The course on Descriptive Geometry, taught
by Jean Nicolas Pierre Hachette, Monge's succes-
sor to the chair in 1797, was almost over by the
time Dufour arrived. He applied himself with such
ardour to the subject, however, that he, who had
formerly had such great trouble in school, almost
immediately became the 'repetiteur', or teaching
assistant for the whole class. His performance was
generally so good that the governor of the school,
Gerard Jean Lacuee, Comte de Cessac, reduced
his school fees for the second year by 50 %, and, at
the end of the course in 1809, Dufour graduated
fifth in his class.
Dufour missed being a contemporary of Navier at
the Ecole polytechnique by five years, and of Vicet
by three. Nevertheless, several of his collegues
were to become eminent in their fields. Perhaps the
most famous was Duleau, the material technologist
and professor at the Ecole des ponts et chaussees,
who, however, died young in 1832. Baptiste Alexis
38 Sayous, p. 15
Victor Legrand was also in the class of 1809. He
later became Director General of the Ponts et
chaussees in 1834 and president of the Public
Works Sector of the 'Conseil d'Etat' in 1847. Jean
Victor Poncelet was another of his collegues as was
Leonor Fran<;ois Fresnet brother of the celebrated
scientist Augustin, and a noted canal and light-
house engineer who was to become Director of
Lighthouses in France and Secretary of the General
Council of the Ponts et chaussees in 1832. Many
more of his classmates, however, were to die on the
battlefields of Russia and Spain.
The teachers at the Ecole were, of course, excel-
lent. In spite of the fact that Monge no longer
taught, Sganzin, the engineer and physicist who
discovered the polarization of light, Hachette, Pro-
ny and Laplace taught his courses. Among the
many friends he made at this time, Nicolas Prosper
Gellibert des Seguins was later to be influential as
major and member of the French Legislative.
Charles Dupin, who had graduated from the Ecole
polytechnique in 1803, and therefore long before
Dufour came to Paris, was another who became a
friend for life.
As one of the best in his class, Dufour was per-
mitted free choice of his own graduate program,
and he opted for the career of military engineer.
In the course of his two years in Paris, he had de-
veloped a serious interest in mathematics. There-
fore, after graduation, he spent the next two years
at the Ecole d'application at Metz, in which the
Artillery and the Military Engineering Schools had
been combined in 1802. There he further improved
his scholastic performance, rising to the top of his
class.
Dufour's rapidly developed interest in mathematics
explains his choice of the engineering profession.
Had he been born just a few years later, he might
have opted for engineering theory, as some began
to do after Navier became professor in 1821.
In 1810, Dufour and the other five best students at
Metz were ordered straight from the school bench,
and without being given a chance to graduate, to
the defense of Corfu for which the British navy was
preparing a blockade. Dufour and his collegues
were very much disappointed at this order which
prevented them from participating in the glory of
the Grande Armee which included the enticing
promise of rapid advancement under fire, but they
had no choice but to comply. Once again, this
saved Dufour from the early grave vouchsafed
most of his class in Russia or in Leipzig where
the Grande Armee was virtually annihilated on
October 18, 1813.
Corfu was the easternmost outpost of the Imperial
Napoleonic Empire. The seven Ionic Islands, of
which Corfu is the largest, had belonged to Venice
until the end of the eighteenth century. The con-
quest of Italy brought them into French possession.
In 1799, the Russian-Turkish combined fleet had un-
seated the French who, however, recovered the is-
lands by the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807. The British soon
captured six of the islands and began to besiege
Corfu, the seventh. As a British attack was expected
momentarily, the fortifications had to be readied
for defense quickly, and five young military engi-
neering officers were required. The British seemed
content with the blockade of the island, however,
and during the enforced lull, Dufour, newly pro-
moted to Captain, mapped the old Venetian forti-
fications at such a large scale and in such detail,
that the map excited interest at the High Command
in Paris. The Minister of War ordered the plan en-
graved using the novel relief depiction method de-
veloped by the young officer. The Corfu map later
became the direct forerunner of Dufour's pioneer-
ing map of Switzerland (1833-1864) which was to
be exhibited with great success at the International
Exhibitions in Paris in 1867, in Philadelphia in 1876,
and in Vienna in 1878. Dufour also used the time
on his hands to author a short but good 75-page
treatise on perspective in 181l.
These preoccupations brought him swiftly to the
attention of Colonel Etienne Francois Henri Bau-
draud, Commander of Corfu, who 'gave him more
and more responsibility in order to train him and to
prevent him from becoming too one-sidedly an
engineer. Dufour spent a total of three years on the
island under Baudraud, in the course of which he
was wounded in an encounter with the enemy, tak-
en prisoner, and then returned to his garrison under
escort, as the British had no desire to encumber
themselves with a wounded prisoner. Baudraud,
who was captured unwounded in the same 61
 encounter, was taken prisoner to Malta where he
was to remain for the rest of the war.
The blockade of Corfu was so complete that it was
some time after the abdication of Napoleon that
the news reached the island and it was abandoned
to the British.
Repatriated to French soil, Captain Dufour march-
ed toward Paris in an attempt to retrieve the
troups' arrears in pay before they mutinied. He was
threatened by them at Aix, but managed to rejoin
the body of the army at Grenoble before retiring to
Geneva in 1814. The brief restoration of Napoleon
saw him busy again repairing the fortifications be-
tween the Rhone and the Saone Rivers necessary to
the defense of Lyons, and for which he had briefly
been made responsible. During the 'Hundred
Days', he received the Croix de la Legion d'Hon-
neur for his work.
After the debacle of Waterloo, Dufour was put on
half-pension as a prominent bonapartist officer, in
spite of his education and achievements. He soon
resigned his commission out of sheer boredom and
lack of funds and returned to Geneva. There he
opted for Swiss citizenship in 1817, two years after
Geneva had joined the Swiss Confederation, a-
gainst the best advice of his collegues and in spite
of the enticing offer of a commission in France. He
was thirty years old. Twenty years of his life had
been spent in Geneva and the most interesting ten
in France. The decision was a hard one for him
to make, but he never had occasion to regret the
choice. He married and, in 1817, was named com-
mander of the Geneva Cantonal Military Engineers
which was probably the motive for his renouncing
the French commission. Included in this position
were the creation of a new cantonal map and a
property registry, as well as a professorship of
mathematics at the Geneva Academy. Dufour im-
mediately introduced the study of Descriptive
Geometry into the curriculum. In 1835 he was to
publish a treatise on the subject based on his
course, and in 1839 he took on the course on hy-
draulics too, part of which he published in 1847.
Among the many who flocked to Geneva to study
at the renowned Academy after the cessation of
hostilities were the Crown Prince of Denmark, the
62 Prince of Holstein and the Grand Duke of Mecklen-
burg. All of them were students of Dufour's. In this
manner he was able to lay the foundation of his
international contacts, all of which greatly aided
his later diplomatic work.
Dufour remained professor at the Academy for the
next twenty years. During this period he also found
time to write a course on military tactics which went
through several editions and was translated into a
number of foreign languages. He was furthermore
a frequent collaborator of the Bibliotheque Univer-
selle which had published his first article while still a
student at Metz in 1810. The papers he left at his
death in 1875 contain numerous unpublished manu-
scripts on astronomy, geometry, applied mechan-
ics, hydraulics and many other technical fields. A
memorandum he wrote on the bending of beams
just before Navier published his solutions in 1826,
shows exactly the level of French professional
understanding of these problems at the time. The
manuscript demonstrates how much theoretical
work was then invested in a revision of the tradi-
tional understanding of statics, an effort which
makes doubly evident how Navier's work respond-
ed to an urgent need in the profession. 39
During this period, Dufour was to become Secre-
tary of the Societe des arts which he remained for
32 years, and honorary President of the Alpine
Club and of the Swiss Society of Engineers and
Architects until his death. As though this were not
enough, he became a member of the upper legis-
lative chamber, the Grand Conseil of Geneva in
1819 and masterminded the transformation and
expansion of the city. For this purpose he was offi-
cially appointed State Engineer in 1828, although
in fact, he had already filled the post since 1817.
Dufour remodelled the pumping station in the
Rhone, built the quais and several bridges, chang-
ed the bastion at the river mouth, the lie des Bar-
ques, into a monument to Rousseau, the present lie
Rousseau, installed an observatory, a limnograph,
a panorama of the Alps and organized, together
with Co"adon, the first steamboat service on the
lake as we" as the first public gaslight installation.
It was the transformation of his city, the map of
Switzerland and his handling of the brief civil war
39 Baeschlin et ai, p. 114
of 1847 which he considered to be his chief claims
to fame. Volumes would be needed to record and
analyse this vast career adequately. Most of his
work was of importance for the development of
modern Switzerland and some of it internationally
notable, but a comprehensive biography of Swit-
zerland's most popular national figure has yet to
be written.
In the field of his first love, the military, Dufour
founded the federal officers' association to pro-
mote contact and understanding between the dif-
ferent language and cultural groups forming the
astonishing nation. Thus he contributed not only to
the quality and coherence of the militia, but also to
the political cohesion of the whole nation.
In 1819 he was invited to participate in the found-
ing of the first federal officer's academy at Thun
in the canton of Berne. This remained one of Du-
four's favorite projects, as he clearly foresaw that c
federal army had to train together in order to pre-
sent a unified defense force in times of need. Du-
four was immediately appointed chief instructor at
this institution, spending a quarter of each year
there until 1830, the year in which the government
commissioned him to examine the state of modern
military technology in France. He gladly accepted
this task in spite of the fact that it meant spending
several months of the exceptionally severe winter
of that year on the road. It enabled him to renew
the friendships of fifteen years before which the
press of work and the political events of the inter-
vening period had caused to lapse. He visited
Baudraud, his old mentor at Corfu, who had since
been rehabilitated and promoted to the rank of
Lieutenant General. In later years Baudraud be-
came first 'Pair de France' and aide-de-camp to
the Duke d'Orieans, and then, in 1838, 'Gouver-
neur du Comte de Paris', all of which was useful to
Dufour.
While in France, it became apparent to him that
the government of Charles X had not long to sur-
vive, and when it fell, the whole of Europe feared a
renewal of war. A special Diet was convened in
Switzerland and Dufour, who was elected Genevan
delegate to the Diet upon his return, was appointed
Quartermaster General and Chief of Staff of the
federal troups in 1832. His military duties included
the refurbishing and improvement of key fortifica-
tions all over the country. In 1829, the federal
troups had numbered 33000 and were poorly
equiped and trained. By 1836, the army had
100000 troups and was well organized and inte-
grated in every respect. Much of this was due to
the efforts of Dufour. The principle of armed neu-
trality, still today the basis of Swiss defense, was to
a great extent his concept. His experience in Paris
and Metz, but above all, his training under Bau-
draud at Corfu, influenced to a high degree the
organization of the new Swiss militia army, a form
which has since inspired emulation by many coun-
tries. From Baudraud he also adopted the principle
of general studies, preventing too narrow a spe-
cialization of his officers.
Far from being disturbed by Dufour's military activ-
ities, the new French 'July Monarchy' of King Louis
Philippe realized that it profited France to have a
powerfully defended neighbor between its borders
and Austria. The government showed its apprecia-
tion of Swiss 'armed neutrality' by conferring the
high honor of the Officier de la Legion d'Honneur
upon Dufour.
Part of his appointment to Quartermaster General
and Chief of Staff in 1832 included coordination
of work on a map of Switzerland at a scale of
1: 100000, although this was only formally decided
and communicated to the appointee more than a
month after he had accepted the job. Work on the
map had begun under his predecessor, Quarter-
master General Wurstemberger in 1826, but had
not prospered, chiefly due to lack of proper organ-
ization and sufficient funds. Dufour had no idea
what awaited him, as he wrote to one of the em-
ployees of the geodetic service:
"I haven't yet been sent the papers concern-
ing the geodetic work; I have no idea what
has been accomplished and what yet
remains to be done. But I hope that the
work is sufficiently advanced so as to be
able to see an end of it." 40
This turned out not to be the case; the map was to
require a monumental effort which was to occupy
the next 32 years of his life. Dufour had a special
40 Schweizerische Landesvermessung, p. 32 63
 flip-top secretary built to his specifications, the in-
side of which was dimensioned to the size of the
individual sheets of the map. It was on this table
that Dufour personally drew or at least modified
and completed all the sheets of what is now known
as the 'Dufour Map of Switzerland'.41
Such an activity was very much in the air: most
modern European states were beginning to publish
maps of this scope at the time. They were intended
not only fo fulfill military or other governmental
purposes, such as all previous national maps had
done, but for the first time they would be for
general public use as well, aiding growing civilian
trade and travel. The French Quartermaster Ge-
neral's office had put the many experts, repatriated
to France after the defeats of 1813 and 1815, to
the task of replacing the great Cassini map, bring-
ing it up to date and to the standards of modern
cartography. The theoretical basis for such work
existed while the problem of graphic representa-
tion, a question which had particularly concerned
Dufour at Corfu in 1813, was not yet resolved.
Standards had not yet been set. Many questions
remained open, especially ones relating to so com-
plex a terrain as presented by many parts of Swit-
zerland.
Dufour's early love for drawing, his sudden and
unexpected expertise in Descriptive Geometry at
the Ecole polytechnique and a small work he had
published in 1828 on graphic notation for officers
in the field based on the best contemporary theo-
retical works, had prepared him well for the task,
perhaps better than anyone else in Switzerland. He
must have had access to Louis Puissant's theoretical
work on cartography, some of which described the
work of replacing the Cassini map. Dufour, the true
technologist, did not subscribe to anyone dogma
relating to map making but invented and adapted
methods to suit Swiss needs and topography.
Dufour's position as instructor at the military aca-
demy at Thun, had a curious influence on his later
role as mediator, diplomat and statesman. Prince
Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, the later Napoleon III,
was a protege of Dufour's at the establishment.
This friendship was not without its difficult moments
for Dufour who deplored the aborted attempts his
64 pupil made to seize the throne of France on two
occasions. After the unfortunate Strassbourg coup
of 1836, he was forced to counse the prince to
leave the country on the strong recommendation of
the Diet. This the prince did, embarking for the
United States, only to return to the canton of Thur-
gau the next year upon the illness of his mother,
Queen Hortense. Once Napoleon III had become
Emperor of France in 1852, however, he complain-
ed that his own enemies were taking refuge in
neutral Switzerland, as he had formerly done. This
once more taxed Dufour's friendship, diplomacy
and integrity of principle to the full. The measure of
his success was that the Emperor continued to hold
Dufour in high esteem even after it had been made
perfectly clear to him that Switzerland was not
about to deviate from its policy of political neutra-
lity and asylum, even for the honorary and very
popular citizen Bonaparte of Thurgau! As sign of
an end to the affair, Dufour was invited to be the
Emperor's personal guest at the opening of the
Universal Exposition of 1855 in Paris, built to rival
that held in London four years before.
Dufour continued to visit Paris on many occasions
thereafter, often for conferences on the proposed
Lyons-Geneva railway, or for other diplomatic
questions, such as the delicate problem of Neu-
chatel. Neuchatel was both a Swiss canton and a
province in personal union with the Crown of Prus-
sia. When the royalists were overthrown by repub-
licans in 1856, Dufour was asked to appeal to
Napoleon III to negotiate with the Prussians in
order to avoid war.
The Emperor tended to side with the royalists, of
course, but was convinced by Dufour, whose efforts
were rewarded with success in 1857. But the follow-
ing year, there was another affair, the question of
Savoy, certain parts of which interested Switzer-
land. This time the Emperor took the French view-
point and Dufour found himself on the other side of
the fence. Nevertheless, the friendship remained
intact, and, in 1865, the Emperor paid a personal
and nostalgic visit to Thun incognito, accompanied
by his Empress.
41 Information from Professor Olivier Reverdin, great
grandson of Dufour and the present scion of the family,
in whose possession the secretary remains.
With the help of Napoleon III, the other contacts
Dufour had made with former pupils of the Geneva
Academy and Marchese Michele Benso de Cavour,
father of Conte Camillo Cavour and himself a Sar-
dinian minister, he was able to guide the fledging
Confederation through the difficult years of mid-
century and protect the small nation from invasion
in unstable times. He was thrice nominated
Commander-in-Chief of the federal forces. He re-
fused the honorific appendage 'Le Pacificateur' of-
fered him by a grateful, reunited Switzerland after
the civil war of 1847, a war which Dufour's diplo-
matic skill had turned into a brief incident. His inter-
national contacts with heads of state and high gov-
ernment officials were also responsible for the
success of the founding congress of the Inter-
national Committee of the Red Cross in 1864, over
which he presided as convention president.
Dufour's fame spread over the borders, and the
King of Sardinia, Carlo Alberto as well as the Diet
of Frankfurt (Main) in Germany offered him the
supreme command of their armies. He declined
both in order to devote himself to the service of his
nation. In 1849 he again led the federal troups to
repulse an attack expected from the Grand Duchy
of Baden. He was to head the Swiss Army twice
more, during the Neuchatel affair of 1856 and in
the Savoy crisis of 1859.
In 1866, the Grand Croix de la Legion d'Honneur
was confered upon him, and the following year
he retired from the army. Thereafter honors were
awarded him by Brazil, Russia and many other na-
tions, and he received personal visits from the Shah
of Persia, the Emperor of Brazil, the royal family of
Prussia as well as from the Grand Duke of Baden,
the erstwhile adversary, in whose domains he had
been humbly born so long before.
But it was at the beginning of this long career, as
the unofficial State Engineer of Geneva, responsi-
ble for the upkeep of the fortifications of the city,
that he was to become involved in a project which
was to prove one of the most important develop-
ments of the age in bridge building.
65
 4 Genesis of the wire cable bridge
In the early autumn of 1822, Marc Auguste Pictet
received an unusual letter from one of the regular
correspondants of his journal, the Bibliotheque Uni-
verselle. Pastor Chaponniere informed him of a
small wire test bridge hung between two rocks over
a brook called the Cance, just outside the town of
Annonay, in Savoy, about 170 km south of Geneva.
It so happened that Pictet was preparing an editor-
ial on the building of Telford's Menai Bridge in
Wales based on information supplied by another
correspondant in Britain. He had planned to ac-
company this with a translation of Robert Steven-
son's article 'Description of Bridges of Suspension',
Marc Seguin (1786-1875). the first overview of the new chain bridges which
Engraving from Figuier: had appeared in the Edinburgh Philosophical Jour-
Merveilles de la Science, nal the year before. Pictet had also undertaken a
vol. 1
series of experiments on the elasticity of iron, and
therefore had an immediate interest in examining a·
variant type using wire. He immediately journeyed
south to examine the structure at first hand accom-
panied by the botanist, Augustin Pyramus de Can-
dolle.
The narrow, unstiffened and very primitive catwalk
which was the object of his trip south, had been
built by the five brothers Seguin on a site belonging
to the Saint-Marc textile factory owned by their
father, Marc Fran~ois Seguin. Marc, Camille, Jules,
Paul and Charles Seguin were grand-nephews of
the Montgolfier brothers, Joseph and Jacques, the
pioneers of hot-air ballooning.
The Seguin brothers
The oldest of the brothers was Marc, born a year
before Dufour in 1786. He was a prolific inventor
and entrepreneur, and is best known for the 1825
invention of the fire-tube boiler, first tested in a
steam boat on the Rhone and then, after being
patented in 1827, used as the multi-tubular boiler
for locomotives. The invention developed into a
technical breakthrough incorporating a forced
draft system using a fan driven by the tender
66 wheels, permitting a more effective use of boilers
for locomotive purposes. It was immediately adopt-
ed internationally. Anticipating the success of the
invention, the Seguin and Biot Company obtained
a concession in 1826 to build a railway between
St. Etienne and Lyons which opened in 1829, two
years before the famed Manchester and Liverpool
Railway in England, from which the commercial
railroad era is generally dated. Marc Seguin also
invented a compressed air railway and published
treatises on air pumps, aviation and other technical
and scientific subjects. He was also among the ear-
ly steamboat pioneers. These pursuits were his first
love and had been encouraged at an early age by
his great uncle and mentor, Joseph Michel de
Montgolfier, Director of the 'Conservatoire des arts
et metiers' in Paris with whom he had been sent to
study at the age of thirteen. The young Marc had
soon advanced to the position of the older man's
assistant, and when the latter died in 1810, Marc
remained in Paris for another eleven years, con-
tinuing his studies until the age of 35. Then he re-
turned home to Annonay with the intention of tak-
ing over the family firm. But his interests still lay in
scientific and technical matters. In 1836, at the age
of 50, after a short professional career, he with-
drew from his many financial interests and devoted
himself for the rest of his long life to scientific stud-
Ies.
His first step in the direction of a technical career
was to invent the wire cable bridge, of which he
and his brothers were said to have built 186 in the
course of about twenty years,l while other sources
mention a more probable 86. 2 'Seguin aine' ('the
elder'), as Marc was also known, wrote a treatise
on the subject of wire cable bridges in 1824 which
appeared just after Dufour's. Since, however, Seg-
uin was French (which Dufour no longer was) it was
the Seguin book which made such an impression in
France that Louis Becquey, Director General of the
1 Marchal, p. 39
2 Ostenfeld, p. 53
Ponts et chaussees, had copies sent to all Inge-
nieurs en Chef and informed all Prefets of the De-
partements of France about the publication in a
letter dated February 1, 1824. The first edition of
3QOO copies was thus soon exhausted. 3 A second,
abbreviated edition appeared in 1826 after the
completion of the Seguin brothers' first large wire
bridge over the Rhone.
The second brother, Camille was born in 1793. He
was known as a shrewd administrator and headed
the financial side of the many family enterprises.
The five brothers apparently had a standing agree-
ment which associated all of them in any industrial
venture. 4 Aside from his role as family financial
manager, Camille also built many of the Seguins'
Italian suspension bridges, notably the two erected
over the Arno in Florence in the mid-1830s when
the firm began to branch out over the borders.5
Jules, the third, was born in 1796. In spite of the
fact that Marc is today the best known, Jules was
perhaps the most inventive of all the brothers, and
was tutored by Joseph de Montgolfier as his oldest
brother had been. At first Jules's work proved to be
a great asset to the family group, but he was very
impulsive and undiplomatic, and chafed at his el-
dest brother's paternalistic rule. He therefore soon
broke away from the family association and
launched out on his own. He had many conflicts
with the Directorate of the Ponts et chaussees and
with the various ministries with whom he had deal-
ings. Nevertheless, both in collaboration with his
brothers and outside that association, he was able
to build some 37 suspension bridges, among them
the early one between Beaucaire and Tarascon
over the Rhone in 1828, one at Feurs in the Depar-
tement Loire, at Chasey in the Departement Ain,
two more at Chauvigny and at Bourg des Ormes
(Departement Vienne) in 1834,6 as well as several
at Lyons, one of which, over the Rhone, still stands.
In Spain, Jules built wire bridges over the Guadal-
quivir and the Macaneres. Four of them are known
by location: at Quena, Agandia, Corandia and
Saragossa. Both Joseph Chaley, later to become
the builder of the world record span of the 'Grand
Pont Suspendu' at Fribourg in 1834, and Camille's
son Ferdinand, the builder of the Midi Bridge over
the Saone in 1849, the Rhone Bridge in Lyons of
1851 and others, collaborated with Jules for sever-
al years. Chaley, one of the most inventive of the
French suspension bridge builders, worked on the
Beaucaire-Tarason and the Chasey Bridges, while
Ferdinand trained on the Lyons bridges and the
four in Spain.
Jules Seguin published a single article in the An-
nales des Ponts et chausses on the building of the
Bry-sur-Marne Bridge of 1832, the first to have
cast-iron columns pin-connected top and bottom.
This was built under the collective family name.! It
is quite remarkable that a builder who was not a
member of the Ponts et chaussees should have
been able to publish in the prestigious Annales. But
Jules is the brother most often mentioned as having
dealings with the Directorate of the Ponts et chaus-
sees in Paris, although this may very well be due to
the conflicts he caused. Aside from building
bridges, Jules was also concerned with proposals
for lighter-than-air flight, devising a fantastic pro-
ject for long-distance captive balloon flights. A
modest project of the Jules Seguin type was later
realized by Henri Giffard for the Paris International
Exposition of 1878.8
The fourth brother, Paul, born a year after Jules,
was an excellent organizer and site manager for
the family company; and Charles, the youngest,
born in 1798, was the only professionally trained
engineer of the five and a member of the Pants et
chaussees. He was the second 9 of the Seguins to
travel to Britain, sent by Marc in the early 1830s to
3 Marchal, p. 36
4 Daumas, p. 400
5 A letter sent by the Seguins to the Prussian Ambassador,
Baron von Werther in 1835, documents that the firm had
been negotiating to build two bridges in Prussia before
the political disturbances of 1830 cancelled them. They
were to have been over the Havel between Potsdam and
Berlin and over the Elbe at Wittemberg. (Copy of the
letter brought to my attention by Rosemarie Wagner
and Ralph Egermann, Stuttgart)
6 ms nr. 3: Charente Inferieure & Vienne. Centre
Canadien d'Architecture, Montreal
7 Annales, 1832, ler sem., pp. 210-234 + plates 21 & 22
8 However, Gaston Tissandier's charming small book on
the subject, with exquisite illustrations by his brother
Albert, does not mention Jules Seguin.
9 The first was Marc in 1823 (Marc Seguin, 1st ed., p. 3) 67
Wire cable catwalk over
Cance at Annonay by the
Seguins, 1822. From Marc
Seguin: Des ponts en fil de
fer, 1 st ed. 1824
68
study the organization of the Manchester and
Liverpool Railway. Charles had diplomatic talent,
and became the family negotiator, particularly with
the various government agencies including his own
Corps, who, protective of their prerogatives, re-
garded the unconventional Seguins as interlopers.
Camille, Paul and Charles continued the family rail-
way construction business after Jules left and Marc
retired. Daumas does not rate the achievements of
the Seguin brothers very highly, most emphatically
those of Marc. This is, in part, perhaps due to
Daumas basing his opinion on that of French aca-
demic engineering tradition which has never per-
mitted itself fully to accept the self-made engineer.
Although I disagree with Daumas, we shall soon
understand the reasons for his judgement.
The bridge at Annonay
Pictet enthusiastically published the first report of
the catwalk over the Cance, in the November issue
of his journal. 10 The dimensions Pictet gave in the
ariicle differ slightly from those which Seguin later
reported in his book,ll and which are the ones
cited here.
The narrow catwalk spanned 18 m, and was even
more primitive than the Hazard and White bridge
of 1816 in Philadelphia. Nevertheless, it was to be-
come the ancestor of all later wire cable bridges.
In 1822, in Great Britain and the United States,
chain bridges were becoming more and more com-
mon by the day, whereas cable-hung structures
would make their appearance only some twenty
years later.12 France, on the other hand, had to
wait until 1827 for its first chain bridge to open,13
by which time many cable bridges were in daily
use.
Like the Schuylkill Bridge, the one at Annonay was
only intended as a test structure. It had a single
continuous parallel wire cable made of eight
1.23 mm (no. 8 gauge) wires. The cable was an-
chored on one side to an eye-bolt fixed into the
rock face. From there it spanned the 18 m, with a
sag of 90 cm to a rock on the opposite bank, where
it was threaded around a wooden pulley of 10 cm
diameter and stretched back to the first side. There,
it was deflected around two similar pulleys placed
30 cm apart and spanned from there across the
stream and back yet again, forming four parallel
strands at the same height lying 10-30-10 cm ap-
art. Oak joists were laid on the cables and pine
planks nailed over these to form the simple deck.
Two more cables were hung as precarious guide-
rails. They were connected to the outermost strands
of the deck cable at intervals, both to keep the
guiderails in place and as a safety measure, in case
the continuous main cable should fail. A single wire
10 Bibliotheque Universelle (BU), vol. 21, 1822, pp. 123-
141
11 Marc Seguin, 1sl ed., p.5l2nd ed. pp. 30-31
12 Charles Ellet Jr.'s Schuylkill Falls Bridge of 1844
13 Crozet and Jourdan's Orac River Bridge near Grenoble
stay, fastened to the underside of the deck at mid-
span, and anchored to a rock in the bed of the
Cance, prevented the catwalk from excessive
movement. However, no sooner had the bridge
been finished, than the Seguins caused the plank-
ing to be removed again, as the site was visited by
droves of the curious, and the builders feared an
accident.
The construction seems to have been an indepen-
dent invention of the Seguins'. Very little profes-
sionalliterature was available on the subject at the
time, and what little there was, gave precious little
technical information.
The preface to the first edition of Marc Seguin's
book of 1824, mentions that he had no inkling of
the existence of any kind of suspension bridge
until informed by an article in the 'Moniteur' of
December 8, 1821, of those built in the United
States. 14 And yet it seems that he had had the idea
even before that, and that the news that it had
been attempted with success, encouraged the
brothers to try to build one in France.
The Seguins had obviously missed several articles.
The earliest recorded French publication on a sus-
pension bridge is that of G. Guermente of 1807 in
the 'Receuil polytechnique des ponts et chaussees'.
This was followed by 'Notes sur les pants en fil de
fer', which, in spite of its title, is on the Finley chain
system. It appeared in 1816 and 1817 in the 'So-
ciete d'encouragement pour I'industrie nationale'.
Then came the first article on wire bridges the fol-
lowing year written by Hericart de Montplaisir for
the same journal. In 1820, the Revue encyclope-
dique published on chain construction under 'Arts
mecaniques' and in 1821 on the Merrimac Bridge
('Etats-Unis-Massachuset'). The 'Moniteur' article,
which Marc Seguin had read, appeared on De-
cember 8, 1821. In March of the same year a brief
mention of the building of the Menai Bridge had
appeared in the 'Annales de I'industrie nationale et
etrangere', and in the 'Societe d'encouragement'
again in 1822 ('Note sur un pont suspendu ... ').15
The only book containing material on the subject in
French published by then was by Cordier. Marc
Seguin made no mention of Cordier, however, and I
am inclined to believe that the brothers had no
knowledge of the articles or the book. Seguin does
mention the Galashiels Bridge in 1824, but this is
inconclusive, as by then, two years after the build-
ing of the Annonay structure, both Stevenson's
article and Navier's report had received wide pub-
licity in French engineering circles.
Once, however, the idea had been born, Marc
Seguin bought a copy of Pope's 'A Treatise on
Bridge Architecture', which indicates that he might
have read English, and would, therefore, have had
many more sources of information at his disposal.
He also borrowed a copy of Verantius from Claude
Pierre Molard. 16 This may have happened after the
building of the Annonay Bridge when Molard was
defending the ambitious Seguin project for a wire
bridge over the Rhone before the Institut de France
in 1822, but the question is really academic, as it is
not the idea for the Cance catwalk alone, which
does indeed bear a faint resemblance to Veran-
tius's military rope brige of 1515, but rather the
development and implementation of that idea
which was of moment.
The Seguins were ambitious and did not content
themselves with a dilettante experiment which
might easily have been forgotten. On the contrary,
the Cance Bridge was erected to test the idea for a
great bridge to span the Rhone between Tain I'Her-
mitage and Tournon. And that project is certainly
original and cannot be derived from any before it.
The Tain-Tournon Bridge, opened in 1825, has till
now been known as the first permanent wire cable
bridge; in fact it was the third.
According to Marc Seguin,17 the idea for a suspen-
sion bridge in wire to span the Rhone arose out of a
discussion he had with de Plagniol, engineer of the
Ponts et chaussees in the Departement Ardeche.
The discussion had occurred one evening, when
Plagniol, who had stopped in Annonay overnight
on business, met Marc Se~uin at the house of a
Dr. Duret, a mutual friend. 8 It has been inferred
from this that it was Plagniol who suggested the use
14 Marc Seguin, 1st ed., p. viii
15 most of this material was uncovered by Chrimes and
published in his pioneering bibliography
16 ibid, 1st ed., p.5l2nd ed., p. 27
17 ibid, 1st ed., p. viiil2nd ed., p. 29
18 Marchal, p. 32 69
 of wire cables too. 19 Although this is quite possible,
it is far too vague an attribution to be considered
as more than hearsay, and it was in any case the
Seguins and not Plagniol who were to develop the
idea.
While in Annonay, Pictet saw the plans for the
Rhone bridge with its twin spans of 85 m. It was still
planned as a pedestrian bridge and not yet for
vehicular traffic. The proposal, complete with plans
and cost estimate, had already been submitted on
March 25, 1822,20 to the examining board of the
Ponts et chaussees in Paris, who had granted
a provisional permit pending 'a few minor
changes'.21 The plans were to develop between
Pictet's visit in autumn 1822 and the spring of 1823,
when Dufour reported that the bridge had already
been modified to accomodate wheeled traffic as
wel1. 22 The change from a pedestrian to a vehicular
bridge, originally proposed by the Seguins 23 as a
variant much more ambitious in scope, was directly
due to the influence of Director Becquey.24 The
final permit for construction was granted to the
Seguins on September 3D, 1823,25 and ratified by
the government on January 22, 1824,26 after hav-
ing been defended in a report to the Institut de
France by an eminent committee consisting of Ri-
che de Prony, Leonor Franc;ois Fresnel, Molard and
Girard. The chief reason for all this fuss was that
the granting of a private concession for a public
bridge was without precedent in France.27 Another
reason for the delay was that Navier, apparently
just back from his second British tour in 1823, had
advised against the use of wire and thus retarded
the final decision on the bridge. 28 Thus, although
the Seguin proposal indubitably predated the first
Dufour bridge in Geneva and was much more am-
bitious in scope, bureaucratic channels retarded its
construction until long after the Saint Antoine
Bridge was finished.
Planning the Saint Antoine Bridge
in Geneva
An attempt had been made to introduce a bill into
the Geneva legislative chamber in 1821 to demol-
ish the city fortifications. The two politicians
responsible, Charles Pictet de Rochemont and Marc
70 Antoine Fazy-Pasteur, considered that, as Geneva
was now part of the Swiss Confederation, it was no
longer imperitive to maintain the expensive earth-
works surrounding the city.29 Dufour, who was re-
sponsible for the fortifications, was also convinced
that the ramparts were useless, but for another rea-
son. His argument was that the partly waterlogged
structures were militarily obsolete 30 and indefensi-
ble. But the question of their abandonment was an
emotionally loaded political issue and something
of a generation problem as well. Dufour, State En-
gineer in everything but name and member of the
upper legislative House since 1819, voted for their
demolition. But it was still 30 or 40 years too early
for such an opinion to meet with success. Most Eu-
ropean cities only lost their fortifications after mid-
century, primarily to appease the surrounding rural
inhabitants and convince them that they now had
nothing to fear from the burghers within the walls,
as the cities could no longer make undue use of
their political influence by closing the gates and
defending their differing point of view militarily.
Appeasement of a rural population was not a prob-
lem in 1822, however, and it was therefore the
political differences between town and country
which underlay the retention of most city fortifica-
tions, rather than fear of foreign attack - even
though the French invasion was still a fresh
memory.
The bill was duly defeated in the Geneva Parlia-
ment, and the project abandoned. A law passed on
June 19, 1822, stated unequivocally that the costly
city defenses were to be maintained. Dufour was
obliged against his professional judgement, to pour
money and effort into their upkeep. However, the
19 Mehrtens, part 2, vol. 1, p. 427
20 Marc Seguin, 1st ed., p. viiil2nd ed., p. 29
21 BU, vol. 21, 1822, p. 131
22 SU, vol. 22, 1823, p. 51
23 Gillispie, p. 163. Gillispie, as opposed to myself, has
examined the Seguin papers. His analysis of the Seguin
development is a valuable complement to this account.
24 Marc Seguin, 1st ed., p. viii
25 Girard, cit. in Marc Seguin, 2nd ed., p. 4
26 Marchal, p.37
27 Gillispie, p. 165
28 ibid, p. 163
29 Muetzenberg, p. 12
30 Sayous, p. 41
 A J,.J
city planning problem which had sparked the de-
molition proposal remained unsolved: Geneva had
only three entrances leading through the Cornavin,
the Rive and the Porte Neuve gates. The first two
lay close together. Post-war changes in the political
and economic structure of the city called for more
routes of communication between the city inside
the walls and the swelling suburbs without. A viru-
lent building activity had begun in both the private
and the public sectors in 1820 which was to last the
rest of the century.31
The time was ripe for proposals to bridge the in-
violate fortifications. Pictet had hardly returned
from Annonay when he began to organize a com-
pany for the erection of a wire cable suspension
bridge, on the model of what he had just seen, to
bridge the ramparts between the Rive and Porte
Neuve gates.
The date of the foundation of the bridge corpora-
tion is not known. The Genevan business registers
for that year curiously show no corresponding en-
try, but the minutes of the Conseil Representatif for
March 26, 1823 give the names of the members of
the executive body petitioning for the construction
of the bridge, and they include Pictet and de Can-
dolle. 32
Only three days were needed to raise funds total-
ling 16154 frs. from 70 shareholders, although the
proposal was popular and Candolle claimed that a
single day would have sufficed. 33 The support of
Pictet and especially of the excellent organizer
Candolle served the corporation well. Candolle,
'i Elevation from the first
sketch for the Saint Antoine
~ Bridge in Geneva by Marc
~
Seguin, 21 October 1822.
» The three pencil marks over
each pylon probably
&J. indicate a discussion of the
pylon saddle geometry
(State Archives, Geneva)
whose glowing defense of the project carried the
day in the Conseil representatif on March 3,34 was
well chosen for such a task. He had just taken over
the presidency of the moribund 'Societe pour I'a-
vancement des arts', and had immediately raised
the membership by over 600%.35
Pictet wrote to Marc Seguin as soon as the venture
had been put on a solid financial footing. He
thanked him for his hospitality in Annonay and
consulted him on the feasibility of erecting a sus-
pension bridge over the fortifications. Seguin re-
plied immediately and sent a preliminary sketch, a
detailed description, a first cost estimate and the
results of two experiments on the strength of bar
31 Sayous, p. 15
32 According to the 'Memorial des seances du Conseil
representatif' of March 3, 1823, pp. 227-228, the sig-
natories of the contract between the government and the
corporation included Pictet, Conseiller d'Etat Antoine
Guillaume Henri Fatio, a politician who was then very
involved with public construction works in Geneva, and
Jean Heyer, a well-known pedagogue and popular
pastor, who became the first president of the corpora-
tion. He was later succeeded by Dr. Fran~ois Louis Senn,
a noted surgeon and politician until the dissolution of
the corporation twenty years later, when the franchise
expired and the bridge reverted to the city. (Travaux A
58, folio 40T, July 26, 1843. State Archives, Geneva)
33 Memorial des seances du Conseil representatif, March
3, 1823, p. 326
34 ibid, pp. 326-327
35 Mue,zenberg, p. 12: Two years after being founded by
Saussure in 1776 the membership had risen to 520. It
had dwindled to 60 by 1813, and rose to 400 after
Candolle became president in 1824 71
Plan from the first sketch for
the Saint Antoine Bridge by
Marc Seguin showing two
variants for the arrange-
ment of the backspan
cables. 21 October 1822
(State Archives, Geneva)
72
]_ 1_ • .-J
LL '
iron which Pictet had evidently requested. Pictet's
letter is not preserved in Geneva, but Seguin's re-
ply, dated October 21, 1822, is to be found among
the documents concerning the bridge in the State
Archives. 36 A note in Dufour's hand, signed with his
characteristic cartouche on the accompanying
sketch, the first for the world's first permanent wire
cable suspension bridge, designates Seguin as the
author. The description, calculations and sketch
constitute a unique documentation of the genesis
of a promising new structural type. Examination of
these documents provides insight into Seguin's
interests and abilities and into the state of the art
and the basic engineering problems facing tech-
nological innovators at the time.
The sketch shows one of the proposed twin spans.
Two variants were shown for the pylons and an-
chorages: to the left a construction in timber, and
to the right, one in masonry. The suspension system
is the same as that finally adopted and shows three
cables hanging from the pylons in a garland-like
'festoon' arrangement: at mid-span the topmost
cable hung to the height of the railing, the lowest
reached the deck, and the intermediate cable
halved the difference. Judging from the sketch
elevation, the cables lay at the same height next
to each other over the pylon tops. Although the
railing could perhaps be interpreted as an early
form of stiffening truss, this is contradicted by the
accompanying description.
t . . • . I ., ..... ~~" .. :..
The Seguins were indeed responsible for the in-
troduction of the stiffening truss in their second
bridge, built as a test structure for the Tain-Tournon
project, a year and a half later. But here Marc
Seguin conceived each half of the bridge as having
only two diagonal stabilizing stays attached to the
underside of the deck and anchored in the sides of
the double moat. Finley had previously stressed the
importance of stiff railings in addition to a stiff
deck, but the Seguins were the first to develop a
true stiffening truss as sole stabilizing member.
Three small pencil marks drawn above both pylons
in Seguin's sketched elevation seem to indicate dis-
cussion of the placing of the cables over the pylon
'saddles'. This problem had its origin in the odd
festoon arangement, and shall be discussed further
on.
The plan contains less information. It does show the
cables lying parallel to one another which is at
odds with the festoon arrangement as then built,
and it also shows two variants for the arrangement
of the backspan cables: to the left a puzzling detail
with crossed cables, and to the right, one with par-
allel strands. Further details cannot be read into the
sketch, but the left half of the elevation shows the
arrangement of vertical suspenders alternating
between the three main cables, just as it had done
36 Dufour ms nr. 8. Travaux E 16, State Archives, Geneva
in the Brown's Union Chain Bridge finished two
years before. By then Seguin had access to more
specific descriptions of the early chain bridges than
were generally available before. Pictet had been
working on a translation of Stevenson's article
when he visited Annonay, and he may have taken
the original with him to show Seguin. On the other
hand, the early, pedestrian version of the Tain-
Tournon Bridge was already well advanced, and
there may have been other sources available to
Seguin before that.
Marc Seguin's letter and the first project
for the Geneva bridge
"To Professor Pictet, Geneva
"Your kind letter arrived here recently.
Both my family and I are cognizant of the
great honor you do us, and it gives me
distinct pleasure to anticipate enjoying your
company again.
"As soon as your letter arrived, I began the
plan and the specifications which you re-
quested. You will find the various documents
enclosed. As this kind of structure requires
long and exacting work, and I understood
you to want it as soon as possible, you will
kindly forgive the errors which may have
escaped my attention and which are the
fault of the commotion continually surround-
ing the master of a workshop. You will, in
your wisdom, judge for yourself as to the
advisability of placing pylons in the middle
of the bridge which will indeed achieve the
goal you indicate, but which will perhaps
have the disadvantage of reducing the
structure's lightness and grace!
"You will observe that I have attempted to
estimate the costs so that they are more
likely to be less than more. If you judge our
37 In the following calculations, included together with
services to be of use to you, we think that an
estimate of the costs will about cover what
we may expect to incur for our travel and
stay and which will be the only costs we
envisage, inasmuch as we value highly the
pleasure of being able to do something
agreeable for you.
"You seemed desirous of obtaining the result
of the experiments on the tensile strength of
the iron. I include below the results of two
experiments done with the machine you saw
set up here for the purpose.
"With the assurance of my greatest respect, I
have the honor, Sir, to be your humble and
obedient servant.
"Seguin the Elder
"Annonay, 21 8ber 1822'
"According to the notes sent to us by
Mr. Pictet, the two bridges are to be 102 ft
[33.2 m]37 and 72 ft [23.4 m]long. In order
to conform to the unit measure given us, we
will do all our calculations in feet and in
pounds, being more or less equal to half a
kilogram.
"We presume the bridges to be 5 ft [163 cm]
wide and, since we lack a section through
the ramparts, we will calculate the abutments
as though they were to be built at the height
of the bridges where a solid foundation is
surely to be found.
"It will be both a great advantage and
economical to be able to use the middle
abutment for both bridges at once. An
inspection of the site will certainly show
whether this section of the ramparts could
serve either as anchorage or as abutment
resulting in economy of cost.
"We shall only consider the bridge of 102 ft,
as the same calculation can be made for the
72 ft bridge and serve to determine the
same respective quantitites. And, as many of
these decrease with the square of the
dimensions, we suppose the cost equal to
two thirds of the other. We will therefore
pass in succession to the description, the
Seguin's letter, the value of the French inch of the times
has been translated into the metric system using infor-
mation contained in a contemporary sketch of Dufour's
of a small cast-iron cylinder used for his bridge, in
which 1" = 2.71 cm. The metric value for the French Ib is
taken from Seguin's remark farther on in the manuscript,
that 1 cu ft of water weighs 72 Ib, making therefore
1 Ib = 478.5 9 (modern standard measures in com-
parison: 1" = 2.54 cm and 1 Ib = 453 g) 73
 calculation of the loads and stresses and the
cost estimate of the larger bridge."
Model laws had not been formulated when Seguin
wrote this, and, taking the difficulty into account
which the craftsmen of the late eighteenth century
had experienced in explaining the non-linear rela-
tionship between model and full-scale structure,38
Seguin's remark that they changed with the square
of the dimensions shows an unusual familiarity with
pre-Navier statics for a non-academic and a non-
engmeer.
• The main cables were to have 600 wires of
2.26 mm diameter bound into six strands of 100
wires each and anchored at the pylon tops to 16
vertical iron bars. At their lower ends, these bars
would hook over oak timbers weighted down by
the pylons. A mechanism of pulleys served as basis
for adjusting the cable length.
The deck planking was nailed to oak joists spaced
65 cm apart, tapering at either end to facilitate
drainage. Each joist hung from two suspenders of
six wires each, and the suspenders hung from one
of the three main cables alternatingly. Parapets
were formed of wire mesh attached to the suspend-
ers as necessary. The pylons were either of timber
or masonry. In either case they would also serve as
anchorages for the cables.
In his calculations, Seguin differentiated, as was
usual at the time, between deadload and liveload.
However, since no dynamic loading conditions
were considered, the differentiation was of no im-
portance for the dimensioning of the structure.
In computing the weight of the wire, Seguin substi-
tuted the chord for the arc of the cable. The error
lay between 1.3 and 1.9%, but the effect of this on
the total load was negligible, being only about
0.1 %. The skill of a practised engineer lies in
judging where such simplification is justified. In this
case, Seguin appears to have had this experience.
He also multiplied the length of the wire by the
value 313/400 or rei 4, and thus reduced the form
to a section of 1 square line. Using a specific grav-
ity of iron of 5441b per cu ft [7.55 t/m 3], which
corresponds well to modern values,39 he directly
obtained the weight of the wire in lb. This also
shows skill in the manipulation of mathematics as a
74 computational tool. However, his substitution of the
value of 3.13 for re, instead of the usual 3.14 does
not show the same familiarity and will be discussed
later together with other odd discrepancies.
Seguin calculated the weight of the oak and poplar
superstructure, supposing the specific gravity of
oak equal to that of water (72lb/cu ft) and poplar
48 Ib/cu ft. The weight of the timber was 92221b
[4412.7 kg] .
"Now in order to estimate the weight with
which it can be loaded, we shall presume
that a crowd presses on to the bridge due to
some accident or other, to such an extent
that each person occupies only one foot
square which is the limit of space into which
an individual can be pressed. There will be
500 at 120 Ib per person [57.4 kg], counting
men, women and children."
This gave 60000 Ib, to which Seguin added 7881b
for nails, railings, varnish, etc., to bring the com-
bined dead- and liveload to 70000 Ib [33495 kg].
The pedestrian liveload worked out to 542.75 kg/
m2 which is of the same order of magnitude as that
used for calculating pedestrian structures today.4o
However, it was far in excess of what was to be-
come the norm to be established by Navier the
following year.
"In order to determine the traction which this
weight will exercise on the point of suspen-
sion, one can observe that the weight, when
evenly distributed over the entire length, can
be taken as if hung at the point of junction
of the two tangents of the catenary or curve
represented by the equation
y = c log x + c + V 2 cx + x2
c
Seguin observed that the resultant of the load act-
ing on the catenary may be taken as the resultant
of the forces acting in a vertical line passing
through the intersection of the two tangents at the
points of suspension. It is interesting that he ex-
38 Hauri, pp. 153-154
39 pig iron 6.6-7.6 t/m 3, gray cast-iron 7.0-7.2 t/m 3, and
steel 7.85 t/m 3
40 The present Swiss codes require a liveload of 400 kg/m 2
+ an additional point load of 1000 kg placed in the most
disadvantageous configuration.
plained the geometrical principle rather than mere-
ly noting that the resultant lay at mid-span, since
the two points of suspension were assumed to be at
the same height. Seguin thus understood the gen-
eral geometrical problem, which we would expect
of him, as he had received his instruction in an era
in which geometry still formed part of a general
education.
The equation Seguin gives as that of the catenary,
seems at first glance to have nothing at all in com-
mon with the hyperbolic cosine. However, by taking
'log' as 'In', a notation then common, and the one
also used by Navier in his work on suspension
bridges the following year, this equation can be
transformed into the now common form
y = c (c cosh x - 1)
as can easily be proved by substitution. 41
The problem of the catenary and its role
in engineering research
Christian Huyghens discussed the problem of the
catenary in 1673, but the development of the cat-
enary equation is generally traced to Johannes
Bernoulli and the solution he first published in 1691
in the 'Actae Eruditorum Lipsiae'. Bernoulli then
went on to examine other, more general chain
problems, while his contemporary, the Scottish
mathematician, David Gregory, published further
work on the problem in 1697. Gregory also seems
to have been the first to demonstrate the use of the
inverted catenary as the pressure line for the con-
struction of arches. 42 Another Scot, James Stirling,
also contributed material to a theory of the caten-
ary in 1717, as did Leonhard Euler in his 'Me-
chanica' of 1736. Niklaus von Fuss, following Euler
in Saint Petersburg, was the first to state that a
parabolic approximation of the catenary curve is
quite sufficient for the practical purposes of sus-
pension bridge construction, a most surprising re-
mark in a theoretical mathematician. It shows an
unusually perceptive grasp of the relationship be-
tween scientific thought and technical practise. Fuss
may have thought about this in connection with his
now lost proposal of 1794 for a chain bridge over
the Neva.
The study of the catenary was already well linked
to engineering concerns when Thomas Telford con-
suited Davies Gilbert, member and later president
of the Royal Society, around 1820, on the correct
form of the catenary in connection with his Menai
Bridge, then under construction. As a result, Gilbert
began to concern himself with the general problem
and developed calculations for a chain of variable
cross-section, tapering from the points of suspen-
sion to mid-span, in which the tensile stresses re-
mained constant. Brown is reputed to have used
the Gilbert chain for his Trinity Bridge in 1821, and
Gilbert then published his examination in 1826. 43
This may have influenced Sir Marc BruneI's work of
1830. In Austria, Ritter Franz Joseph von Gerstner,
who had access to all published material in French,
English and German, also worked on various as-
pects of the catenary problem. 44
The attempts made to solve the problem of equal
stress in suspension chains under conditions of var-
iable loading, and the use of such chains in suspen-
sion bridge construction, illuminate a quirk in the
development of civil engineering thought. As the
catenary posed a clearly defined, and more import-
antly, a limited group of problems, it fascinated
many engineers who were grappling with the im-
plications of the impact made by mathematics on
engineering in the early nineteenth century.
Engineering practitioners, particularly in those
countries not dominated by the academic engi-
neering tradition, were already then being accused
of bowdlerizing pure mathematical theories and
savaging them for their mundane uses - without
really understanding their import. This criticism
was quite justified as far as it went, and it stemm-
ed, of course, from the general misunderstanding
by the scientific community of the methods used
in technical thought. By the same token, this
accusation worried engineers who were also
being assailed on the opposite side of the pro-
fessional spectrum for not being as cultured as
41 Ralph Egermann, civil en'gineer at the Institut fUr
Massivbau of the University of Stuttgart, has made a
detailed derivation and analysis of this form of the
equation. See: Wagner
42 Kuzmanovic, pp. 1095-1111
43 Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, part 3.
Pugsley attempted to develop a theory of limit spans
based on this theory. (Pugsley, p. 21)
44 von Gerstner, vol. 1, pp.473-488 75
 architects. This dual attack on the new profession
and the inferiority complex it created led, on the
one hand, to the widespread application of clas-
sical formal elements, quite out of context, to
machine and engineering structural design, and
on the other, to attempts to be 'scientific' about
the profession at all costs. In other words many
engineers began to ape scientific method in their
theoretical considerations.
The application of catenary theory to construction
was typical of these attempts, as it concerned a
problem which was as simple to grasp as it was
limited. It therefore received far more attention
than it really merited. Eminent British practitioners
at mid-century such as Roland Mason Ordish and
inventors such as James Dredge, went to great
lengths to develop and erect the most complicated
chain bridge systems in order to utilize the mater-
ial in equal stress through the length of their
chains.
This was uninteresting and even irrational from a
practical standpoint, as Fuss had correctly pointed
out half a century before. Minor savings in mater-
ial achieved by manufacturing chains of varying
cross-section were more than obviated by com-
plications in the design, manufacture and erection
of the bridges.
Many levels of complexity are involved in the
coordination and synthesis of the scientific and
empirical viewpoints in technology. A mathemati-
cally relatively simple problem can, as in this case,
lead to technically senselessly complicated results,
and, conversely, a technically simple solution can
be mathematically extremely complex to analyze.
The limits of the utility of mathematics in technol-
ogy were difficult to define, and they remain so to
this day, especially when the issue is obscured by
misunderstanding and emotional reaction. The
academic engineering theoreticians in France who
first applied mathematics and physics successfully
to engineering problems managed to avoid these
pitfalls with uncanny success.
Marc Seguin's statics
Seguin calculated the length of the cable curve
graphically by substituting a parabola of the same
76 'span' and 'sag' as that of the middle cable. And
in calculating the forces, he used similar methods
as those popularized under the name 'graphic
statics' after mid-century. Many graphical
methods were in use at the time, but usually only
to determine form and not to calculate force. The
method used here by Seguin represents an early
use of a graphical determination of forces in an
actual engineering project. The step from the cal-
culation of form to that of force is a simple one, as
the theoretical background had been laid by
Stevin in 1585 and by Monge more recently in
1798, but it did require a shift in thinking to
be accomplished.
"But as each point carries half the load, the
ratio is reduced to 57.5:42. Multiplying the
above number with this ratio, we get
approximately 96000 lb." [45936 kg]
Seguin mistook the cosine 61.6:21 for the cotan-
gent 57.5:21. He therefore inadvertently calculated
the horizontal component of the cable force in-
stead of the cable tension which he needed in or-
der to determine the loading capacity of the main
cable, which was really 103000 lb. The mistake had
no practical consequences, as there was a suffi-
cient margin of safety. But just as in using 3.13
for the value of 7r, such a basic error can only
occur when a person is not fully conversant with
mathematics.
"According to the experiments performed by
Sikingen [sic], as reported in Thenard and
verified by us, iron wire of one line diameter
[2.26 mm] can carry 400 Ib [i. e.: 47.85
kg/cm 2] which would necessitate 240 iron
wires of this dimension. 45 But as we wish
to be certain that no accident is possible, we
shall multiply this number by 2.5 which gives
us 600 as stated before."
45 Reichsgraf Karl von Sickingen had been a diplomat and
Minister Plenipotentary to the French Court. He
published 'Versuche uber die Platina' in 1782 in
Mannheim. Before publication, however, it had origin-
ally been presented to the Academie in Paris in French.
The book version contained reports on wire experiments
[pp. 91-136 + 2 plates and explanations pp. 309-324],
without, however, giving numerical values. Von Sickin-
gen's results were quoted with values by Louis Jacques
de Thenard in the 'Traite de chimie elementaire .. .'
The quotation is to be found on page 327 of volume 1.
Seguin used Archimedes's principle of the lever to
calculate the anchorages and totalled the torques
at the foot of the retaining mass. He transposed the
cable tension along its line of force to the intersec-
tion with that of the center of gravity of the anchor-
ing mass. However, instead of using V = P12 =
35000 Ib [16507 kg], Seguin calculated the vertical
component using his erroneous cable tension of
96000lb and the correct sine function. Just why
Seguin mistrusted the result is not clear, but he in-
creased it without comment to just under the true
value. I am tempted to consider this indicative of an
intuitive understanding of statics and not as an
error or oversight in his arithmetic.
Then Seguin calculated the anchor mass and
stated:
"In spite of it not being more than
approximately one and a half times the
presupposed amount [of cable tension], [it]
seems to us still largely sufficient· as it is by
nature constant."
This gave a safety factor of 1.5. The habit of think-
ing in terms of safety factors which appears several
times in Seguin's brief manuscript, made its debut
shortly before this time in France as a result of
experimentation in the strength of materials, chiefly
wood. In Great Britain the habit had been common
for longer, whereby British engineers had already
adopted a standard factor of three which was soon
to be adopted for general use in France as wel1. 46
Seguin did not consider that H increases with an
increase in V. His factor of safety was therefore
larger than he presumed it to be. The increase in
length of the main cable by moving the point of
suspension back to the intersection of the line of
A 2 mm wire was found capable of withstanding a load
of 249659 kg [= 7.95 t/cm 2]. Seguin quoted from
Thenard in his book of 1824, however, giving the wrong
value. Thenard quoted von Sickingen twice, the second
time on page 365 of volume 1, but erroneously as can
be seen from the errata slip bound in at the end of the
volume. This error is also contained in the 5th edition
which I examined and indicates that volume 1 must have
been an unaltered reprint of the first edition, or of one
available to Seguin in 1822. The misprint which Seguin
reproduced in 1824, being 242659 kg [= 7.73 t/ cm 2],
cannot, however, explain the value of 4.79 t/cm 2 which
he assigns in this manuscript claiming to have found it in
Thenard and verified himself as well.
force with that of the center of gravity of the an-
chorage mass, or by bl2, was too small a differ-
ence to influence the result appreciably, being less
than 0.5 % of the total.
No attempt was made to coordinate the various
safety factors. When talking about loading the an-
chorage, he neglected to include a factor of safety
altogether, whereas, for the vertical suspenders he ,.,
gives 4, for the joists 6, and for the deck planks 20.
Actually, the increase in the strength of the vertical
suspenders, the joists and the planking served a
purpose. By making the suspenders stronger, he
automatically compensated for stress due to shock,
that is to say, for dynamic loading. And by increas-
ing the size of the deck members, he reduced Diagram of Seguin's
graphic vector analysis for
deflection. the calculation of the abut-
"If one prefers wooden pylons, they should ments
be made of two or three pieces of timber,
whereby the front one, which is 15 in square
[40.7 X 40.7 cm], bisects the angle formed
by the cord passing over its summit and
anchored to a system of baulks of timber
loaded with stone blocks and earth.
"The piece of timber being perpendicular to
the two forces and capable of supporting
360000 Ib [17.2 t, and therefore 104 kg/cm 2],
according to experiments carried out at the
Ecole Polytechnique, will be of a force
greater than necessary."
This was then considered to be the allowable stress.
It is of the same order of magnitude as the
maximum allowable stresses for timber today,47
"Passing now to the details, we still have to
examine: the iron bars which join the cords
to the abutments. These bars, numbering 4
on either side, have a total cross-section of
400 lines [20.4 cm 2], as they are 10 lines
[2.26 cm] on each side, and, as a result,
correspond to the ratio of iron wire to bar
iron, according to experiments done at the
46 see chapter 'The safety factor', pp. [121-122]
47 The ultimate stress for timber ranges from 250-6000 kg/
cm 2, according to the type and quality of material. At
any rate, the values are all much higher than that used
by Seguin. Modern Swiss standards recommend
85 kg/cm 2 for both deciduous woods and conifers taking
a safety factor of 4-5 into account. 77
 Ecole Polytechnique, which show that the
cohesion of bars of this dimension is 360 Ib
per square line." [33.7 kg/cm 2, or almost as
much as mild steel]
Seguin was probably referring to Duleau's experi-
ments on wrought iron, published two years before,
in 1820. No experiments on the relative tensile
strength of iron wire and bar iron had yet been
published by any institution, however. Perhaps
Seguin was comparing Duleau's results on 'bar iron'
with those of his own preliminary experiments on
wire: he did mention two at the end of his letter of
October 21. But he might also have been using the
error published in Thenard. The first results of con-
trolled experiments on the tensile strength of iron
wire were those published by Dufour in February
1823,48 in which he correlated the relationship be-
tween gauge and tensile strength for the first time,
a year before Seguin made his own tests public. 49
Marc Seguin's knowledge
of engineering method
The calculation of the loads and stresses was slight-
ly confused and poorly presented by our stan-
dards. However, so was the first version by the
academically trained Dufour. Still, the uneven use of
mathematical terminology and symbols is peculiar
to Seguin's manuscript and shows him to have been
self-taught rather than a trained engineer. Never-
theless, he was still able to supplement his knowl-
edge of the laws on which statics is based with the
available, meagre experimental data on the
strength of materials. As Seguin repeatedly re-
ferred only to the Ecole polytechnique, his informa-
tion may have been of a personal nature, communi-
cated to him by aquaintances, possibly Plagniol,
Molard or his brother Charles, who must have
graduated from the Ecole des ponts et chaussees a
year or two before. Whenever the argument ad-
vanced beyond the basic laws and methods,
Seguin quickly reached his limits. On the other
hand, the cost estimate for the structure was
straightforward and more clearly formulated than
the statics. Seguin was obviously more at home in
the accepted forms of business practise than in
those of mathematics. He was still primarily a busi-
78 nessman and manufacturer.
Another fact that emerges from the material, is
Seguin's great gift for understanding the essence of
a structural problem. This gift manifests itself in the
way he chose to attack each part, separating and
simplifying it appropriately. It also appears in the
way he accepted apparent imprecision which was
later revealed to be irrelevant for the result. This
ability stands in contrast to certain weaknesses in
his arithmetic or in the inelegant solution of the
timber pylons after the elegant methods used in the
calculation of the cables and foundations which
immediately preceeded it.
Then we must also consider the elementary mis-
takes such as the value of 3.13 for n instead of 3.14
which had been common ever since Archimedes
first calculated it in his treatise on the measurement
of the circle. Mathematically speaking, this would
not even be considered an error, as the difference
is only one of 0.3 %. Psychologically speaking,
however, it is the mistake of one number for an-
other, just as in confounding a cosine with a co-
tangent. Such confusions can be understood as ex-
pressions of a lack of practise or of familiarity with
mathematics. The simplistic statement at the begin-
ning of the manuscript that "many of these quan-
tities decrease with the square of the dimensions",
suggests that Seguin had discussed statics with
someone who knew the subject. However, as cer-
tain values increase linearly, and others with the
square or the cube, and since safety factors too
playa role, the statement would have been correc-
ter if phrased more generally that dimensions often
do not increase in a linear fashion, rather than the
more confining declaration which seems to indicate
an only partial understanding of the principle.
Another indication of the unevenness of his mathe-
matical knowledge is shown by the unnecessary
calculation of the vertical component V of the
cable force S in the determination of the torque at
the abutment. Since Seguin had calculated it, how-
ever, it should have indicated to him the error in his
value for S. It is a measure of Seguin's intuitive
understanding of the essence of the problem he
48 Dufour: Experiences sur la force des fils de fer, lu dans la
seance du 20 fey. 1823 ...
49 Marc Seguin: Des pants en fil de fer, 1824, 1st ed.
was dealing with, that he did correct the value in
the right direction, even if he was not aware of the
actual error. All this shows that Seguin had not yet
reached an advanced stage in his engineering self-
education, and that each problem was still treated
as an independant entity for which a discrete
method was learned by rote. This also explains the
citation of the correct catenary equation which was
then not used.
These are, of course, very subtle indications. Any
one of them might be forced, but together they
allow us to conclude that Marc Seguin was, in spite
of his evident lack of training and experience, an
astonishingly gifted engineer with an eye for the
essential structure of a problem. Over the years, he
attained a solid working knowledge of analytical
methods through practise, from his associates and
from Navier's publications, and he put it to excel-
lent use. 50
It is because of the unevenness of his analysis,
rather than any unaccustomed terminology or
method, that Seguin's calculations appear strange
to the modern eye. They are an excellent example
of what may be termed proto-statics, that rough,
un systematized form which preceded Navier's
seminal publication on the analysis of suspension
bridges at the end of the following year.
The proposal for the Saint Antoine Bridge over
Geneva's ramparts lay at the beginning of Marc
Seguin's brief fifteen-year career as railway and
bridge builder. It documents an initial stage in his
professional development as well as in the evolu-
tion of the modern engineering profession in gen-
eral. Later, in his publication of 1824 on the Tain-
Tournon Bridge, he reached the second stage in his
professional development which also reflected the
changes that were beginning to revolutionize the
field of engineering.
Dufour's proposal
"In an act of extreme kindness, the elder
Seguin came to Geneva to share his exper-
ience with us. He visited the site with me and
together we developed the first basic ideas
for the project. This is how I came to direct
my attention to a subject to which I had
previously been a stranger, even though I
hadn't been completely ignorant of the
principle involved .. ."
wrote Dufour in the preface to his book. 51 Dufour
had by then filled the post of State Engineer for six
years, though he had another six to go before he
received the title officially.52 He had gained prac-
tical experience in bridge building, having com-
pleted the masonry Pont Neuf at Carouge, just out-
side the city walls in 1818 which had been begun
by others while he was in Corfu in 1810.53
In preparation for the meeting with Seguin at Ge-
neva, Dufour drew up a measured cross-section
through the double moat on the reverse of the
sketch Seguin had sent to Pictet. The sketch showed
the whole extent of the proposed bridge site. Du-
four carefully noted the differences in elevation of
the abutment emplacements which Seguin had
lacked.
Seguin later claimed the meeting to have taken
place in December.54 Dufour had said, however,
that the discussion with Seguin upon the latter's visit
to Geneva had been his first contact with the mat-
ter, and his short description of the project is dated
November 1822. Be that as it may, the cost esti-
mate accompanying the Dufour manuscript was
finished on December 28, and the plan to which
the description refers, is dated January 1 of the
new year.
The bridge was to be supported as Seguin had
proposed, by six cables of 100 wires each, three to
a side in festoon arrangement. All cables were to
be anchored at the central pier, a system subse-
quently adopted by the Seguins, at least for their
earlier multi-span bridges, but abandoned in favor
of a continuous cable by Dufour, in spite of the
problems this caused for the stability of the decks.
The middle pier was placed in the center of the
structure while the decks were arranged assymme-
50 For this reason I cannot endorse the derrogatory crit-
icism of the quality of his work in Daumas, p.398
51 Dufour: Description ..., 1824, p.6
52 Registre du Conseil d'Etat, 1828, ler. sem., folio 350,
28 March 1828. Geneva State Archives
53 Muetzenberg, p. 12. He was, therefore, far from being
an inexperienced, unimportant technician as Daumas
(p. 399) maintained.
54 Marc Seguin, 1st ed., p. 17 79
Measured sketch by Dufour,
prepared for the meeting
with Seguin, showing the
details of the cross-section
of the city moat between
the Bastion des Pins and the
Tranchees at the site of the
Saint Antoine Bridge. Verso
of Seguin's sketch (State
Archives, Geneva)
80
~:J ,7f.
~~ /!,-~-
--z=... - /0: ~~-JJ... ..r~~.,.&:
. /~ 9 .... ~. - :I./%.
~ ~ t?-JUj~-~t;..Y_~ . 1,'/.
,'/n)-- __ ~ 'l fl laa.."t:rUL,... -
<?I ;r-'''''' ~/~- ~I' 6'""".,6U",
trically, corresponding to the configuration of the
double moat. Three longitudinal stringers were to
be bolted over the deck joists. Their number was
later increased to seven to augment the rigidity of
the deck. In this, Dufour's project differs from the
original which had provided for planking fixed di-
rectly to the joists.
The railings were to be very light indeed, and made
of two horizontal, flat iron bars supported by ver-
tical rods bolted through alternate joists. Diagon-
ally crossed wires were to interconnect and stiffen
the posts and bars. The frail crossed wires could
only have been intended as stiffening for the rail-
ing and certainly not for the deck as well.
liThe suspension cords [main cables] will be
attached to the railings at the lowest point of
their curves in order to pull them out of the
vertical plan and draw them toward the
bridge axis, thus giving the system more
stability."55
As Dufour had retained the festoon system, this
gave a skewed arrangement of the main cables
and their suspenders, an awkward system, but one
I
I
I
I
I
I-
I
-r '-
I
I
~
:L;'. 41
. k,j ..D~ %'~I 2',4,"
>.1.9
'2
'n .Id'>
'11, qS-
"
used in France for most wire bridges at least until
the Argentat Bridge by Vicat in 1829. Between 50
and 100 bridges in all must have been built using
this geometrically frightful configuration. Dufour
abandoned it as soon as his first bridge was fin-
ished, and adopted a parallel cable system from
then on.
The alternating attachment of the suspenders
made the situation worse as each cable polygon
was different. Varying thermal expansion in the dif-
ferent cable lengths, it was feared, would shift the
burden of the load to the disadvantage of the
shortest cable in summer and the longest in winter.
This would overload one or the other if they were
interconnected through the suspenders. At the
same time, the alternating suspension system was
also that used in British chain bridges, particularly
in Brown's Union Bridge which had recently
opened and evidently served as model.
Dufour proposed that the cables be deflected to-
ward the bridge axis and fixed to the railings in
55 manuscript nr. 8: Dufour: Pont des Tranchees 1822.
 Detail from Dufour's manu-
script for the Saint Antoine
Bridge, November 1822
(State Archives, Geneva)

.... . - ' .t.._ L.~ 5'. .,. 11../", , /. ~ ~

~ r- 9 ... __ ~ ~ ~ r-r l aUl6 ' rbPO /;:
<)" /ua.. 1'7'~ u.... 0 . .-. 6.-... ~ ~~

=- / 0/" ~()
,. v",-1-I'-
f.Ij~ •
~ 1'..... . t f;;t:l.o~' ~. ~:~ / . -
.,r. ...... C
.. hf.f)_ r0p.. "
P: jon.t. = .iSS tyOU

7' . = 6 S'" b'tM> A :/.

<." k J ~ .

81
Plan of the Saint Antoine
Bridge by Dufour, dated
1 January 1823. Ink and
water color wash (State
Archives, Geneva)
•
JiIi~. -'"'-t""T""
-
'-'.4_~. l-_
~:==-:;
order to stiffen the bridge. The only way to do this
without substantially complicating the saddles at
the pier tops, was to lay the cables side by side
over the pylons and pull them in to the railings at
different heights. 56 The idea of cambering cables
inward to stabilize a suspension bridge can be
traced to the first Dryburgh Abbey Bridge of 1817
in Scotland, and it continued to influence design
right up to Ellet's record span, 303 m long Wheel-
ing Bridge of 1850 in West Virginia.
Stiffness was a problem: the railings were to be
fixed rigidly at both ends which seems pointless in
view of the fact that they were so flimsy. The decks
were to be anchored to the walls of the moats with
stays, and the longitudinal connections of the deck
stringers were to be carefully made, using the par-
tially torsion-resistant 'Jupiter joint'. Finally, the
number of stringers was increased from the original
three to five above the joists with two more below
reinforcing the edge beams.
It is significant that structural stiffness was not con-
sidered as a problem concerning the system as a
whole, but that it was obliquely approached
through a series of individual measures which all
seem somewhat gratuitous. In this transitional per-
iod, some engineers retained the older, additive
approach to problem solving, while others, such as
the Seguins and Joseph Chaley, whose work we
82 shall encounter, seemed soon to treat the problem
r
.J. - _ _---,._ _ __ • ..,!. .......J
.J.
~
,... . ...... -
•
as an aspect of the system they were developing.
Even much later, engineers such as John Roebling
never appeared to grasp the problem fully, and
relied on a series of partial solutions, overlayed
one upon the other, to achieve their goal. Like Du-
four's very early work, Roebling's Niagara (1855),
Cincinnati-Covington (1867) and Brooklyn Bridges
(1883), all attempted to achieve stiffness through
a combination of partial measures: cambered
main cables, diagonal stays from the towers, trus-
sing the deck underside with cables, counter-
cables, stays under the deck, stiffening trusses, all
superimposed upon the system, rather than con-
ceived part of it.57
Most of the dead load came from the timber deck.
Dufour suggested, in a later note added in the
margin, that using larch instead of oak would save
weight. He estimated the oak with a high specific
gravity of 930 kg/m3.58 Larch would have saved
56 Later Dufour changed his argument as to the meaning of
the skewed arrangement of the main cables. He
subsequently saw it more as a means to economize
pylon breadth by deflecting the load inward toward the
bridge axis. (Dufour: Description ... , 1824, p. 34)
57 compare this with the argument on the rise of the
'system' in construction as opposed to the traditional
'overlay' method advanced in chapter 'From overlay
to system', pp. [9-11]
58 current Swiss codes give 770 ± 250 kg/m 3 for oak and
590 ± 250 kg/m 3 for larch
only about 11 % or 318 kg which represented 7 %
of the deadload, or a mere 1.3 % of the total load.
The choice of timber had very little influence on
the structural dimensions.
The dead load was 4.S t per span or about 10%
higher than Seguin's, in spite of using a specific
gravity of 7.8 t/m 3 for wire as against Seguin's
lower value of 7.55 t/m 3•59 The two proposals dif-
fer substantially only in their liveloads, where Du-
four calculated with 8 persons at 70 kg per running
meter (321 kg/m 2 = 19.6 tL and Seguin, one per-
son at 57 kg per square foot (543 kg/m 2 = 28.7 t).
Both are far in excess of those they subsequently
used.
The ratio of live load to dead load in both projects is
noteworthy: 6: 1 for Seguin and 4:1 for Dufour.
Such ratios are amongst the most extreme to be
found in structural engineering and were far in
excess of anything then usual, including the chain
bridges praised by Dupin for their remarkable slen-
derness. 6o They remained the most extreme ever
proposed until the advent of modern membrane
structures.
The cable tension was about 40 t, or a third of the
ultimate force of the cables, and Dufour suggested
that the number of wires per cable could be re-
duced by 20-40 %. In the final version, the number
of wires was reduced by 10% to 90 per cable.
The anchor on the city side had a mass of about
40 m2. It measured 4 X 6 X 1.7 m and served as
gate house with twin, meter-thick side walls parallel
to the span of the bridge. Three cables were an-
chored lengthwise over each of these walls. To the
left and right of the gateway passage between
them, two small rooms, no more than cells, housed
a guard and a toll keeper. Their walls served as
lateral stiffening for the long, narrow anchorage.
The mass of the walls was hollowed out to a height
of about 300 cm above ground to accomodate
the cells. Nevertheless, enough extra mass re-
mained in both the roof and in the adjoining lateral
walls to compensate for this loss and to justify cal-
culating with the full volume as though they had
been solid prisms. Dufour wrote that he considered
the walls with their flat arches spanning the aper-
tures to provide nearly the same resistance as solid
ones. 61
Interpreting the gatehouse as a monolithic struc-
tural system is a more modern way of regarding a
building than is to be encountered in manuscripts
only a few years older, and it shows how basic the
revolution in engineering was. Earlier master build-
ers had relied entirely on formal analogy, on the
overlay of known structural units and on experi-
ence in judging the stability of a novel structure. 62
The new academically trained builder, however,
was able to judge a structure independently of its
form, as a system, and thus understand the distribu-
tion of forces throughout a building even without
the ability to determine these forces quantitatively.
In calculating the anchoring mass, Dufour used a
specific gravity of 2000 kg/m 3 which gave a total
of SO t for the 40 m3 :
/IAdding the 25 000 kg vertical force resulting
from the weight of the bridge, we get
105 000 kg for the resisting force. The lever is
three meters and the moment is thus 315000.
This is more than double the force. One
could therefore reduce the depth of the
abutment by one meter on the city side and
still retain sufficient solidity./1
Dufour is in error. Adding the whole mass of the
bridge to that of the abutment instead of half,
gives much too large a result. It should have been
92500 kg and a moment of 277.5 mt instead of
315 mt. The safety factor of 2.1 for the anchorages
is thereby reduced to 1.S which would have fur-
ther been cut to 1.6 by taking a meter off the
abutment.
Combined units of measurement which could be
directly envisioned, such as kg/m 3, were then com-
mon usage. Units which were not perceptible, such
as that of a moment, meters x tons, were not used.
59 current usage: 7.8 t/m 3 = steel, 7.55 t/m 3 = pig iron
60 Dufour: Voyages dans 10 Grande-Bretagne ... par
Dupin, BU 1824, pp. 127-141
61 Dufour: Description ... , 1824, p. 28-29. Changes were
requested in the arrangement of the anchorages and in
the gatehouses in the session of the Conseil d'Etat on
6 August 1823. From the final report, however, it
appears that these were only partly carried out.
(Registre du Conseil d'Etat, 1823, 2e. sem., folio 93,
6 Aug. 1823. Geneva State Archives)
62 see chapter 'From overlay to system', pp. [9-11] and
Hauri, p. 153-157 83
 For instance, when Dufour discusses the dynamic
loading of one of his later bridges, he writes:
"The height of the fall which we have just
found gives a velocity of 328.5 centimeters
by using the formula v = V2gh (g being
equal to 9.808 m per second in the hexa-
gesimal system), from which we deduce a
quantity of movement expresse9 by the
number 3285 ... the weights here being
given in kilograms and the velocity being
measured in centimeters."63
Both velocity and 'quantity of movement' are pre-
sented in a way different from that in which they.
would be today. The 'quantity of movement' is 'im-
pulse' (kg/m sec) while velocity is measured in cm/
sec. We shall examine the question of the 'quantity
of movement' in detaiL64 Here we shall merely note
that the concept of 'impulse' was not yet common
usage and that the unit of measurement, a com-
bined, and not easily visualized one, went conven-
iently unnamed.
The differences in the loading of the second span
would be, he presumed, insufficient to influence the
stability of the middle pier. So no attempt was
made to calculate it. Surprisingly though, the ana-
lysis of the country abutment was also incorrect:
L
I = = = C=;=60=mm==1
"In this case, the resisting force acts directly
[along the cable], and one has only to
F:] ~;60mm
'C;60mm
pi
-
pi
-
2
/
calculate the weight which has to correspond
to the 4000 kg [being] the cord tension,
while remembering that the friction acts in
any case to the benefit of the resisting force.
The mass is 5 m long, 4.5 m wide and 4 m
Diagram showing Dufour's high. This gives 50 cubic meters which, at
tests on cantilevers and his the rate of 1600 kg per meter, gives us
errbneous supposition that
bending in a fixed beam is 80000 kg. This is double what is needed.
equivalent to that in two One could therefore also bury the timber
opposing cantilevers, each frame [on which the anchor mass rests] less
resisting half the load. deeply."
The force to be calculated would have been the
vector component of the anchor mass in the direc-
tion of the cable. The mass of the anchor itself acts
vertically. Dufour mistakenly compared this with the
cable force and so obtained an erroneously com-
fortable safety factor of two.
Six square connecting bars of 30 X 30 mm cross-
84 section at each abutment would attach to the six
cables 3 m above ground. The allowable tensile
stress was taken to be 25 kg/mm 2 which is too high:
the danger of yield is imminent. The bars were to
lead down to other, horizontal bars weighted by
the anchorage mass. These anchors were calcu-
lated for bending stresses of 29.6 kg/mm 2 which
were also too high for safety. Dufour based these
values on experiments with wrought iron:
"A bar of 13 mm X 12 broke under a load
of 5600 kg, the lever arm being 60 mm.
I therefore submit as a fact that the bar can
support a load equivalent to 5000 kg without
danger."
He checked his bar dimensions of 40 X 60 mm,
using this allowable stress (32 kg/mm 2), against
Girard's calculation of bending forces in a canti-
lever,65 and he concluded that the bars could be
reduced to 50 X 30 mm which was the dimension
used in the final version.
The horizontal anchor bars under the anchoring
mass must have been so tightly embedded in the
stone under the timber grille that only about
120 mm were left free at their midpoints for the
attachment of the vertical connecting bars. This
would have subjected the anchors to shear rather
than to bending. Dufour mentioned tests on a can-
tilever of 60 mm and his calculations proceeded
from the presumption that a bar rigidly fixed at
both ends, behaves as two opposing cantilevers,
each bearing half the load. His method, therefore,
was first to determine a value for the allowable
stress experimentally and then to apply the result to
the formula for bending moments in a cantilever as
given in Girard. The results are incorrect, but the
method of calculation and the fact that the bars
did not yield, supports the hypothesis that the
anchors were subjected to shear and not to bend-
ing.
The connecting bars were to have been bent to
eyes at their ends and clamped together with rings.
The failure of such a detail had led to the collapse
of the first Dryburgh Abbey Bridge in Scotland five
63 Memoire de la Societe de physique et d'histoire
naturelle de Geneve, vol. 2, part 1, p, 140
64 see chapter 'Dufour's wire experiments' p. [88-90],
and 'Testing the structure' p. [202]
65 Girard, p. 11
years earlier. Stevenson had reported this in his
article with an illustration of the bar, and Dufour
had read the article. 66 It is surprising that he
suggested a technique which had recently been
shown to be faulty.
Dufour's and Seguin's calculations mirror their
training and attitudes. In spite of differences, they
represent two facets of the same development, and
both approaches are distinct from those which pre-
ceeded them. 67
Examination of wire in preparation
for erection
The allowable stress Dufour originally proposed
(63.7 kg/mm 2), was greater than Seguin's 48 kgl
mm 2 which he claimed to have derived from von
Sickingen. Dufour's is closer to von Sickingen's ulti-
mate stress of 79.5 kg/mm 2, the 16 kg difference
representing a safety factor. Both builders later ad-
opted a mean of 60 kg/mm2.68
Seguin had already begun experiments as evi-
denced by the letter to Pictet and the latter's article
in the Bibliotheque Universelle. 69 But it does not
appear that he had yet undertaken whole series of
experiments. So Dufour decided to satisfy his own
needs. The available literature presented an in-
coherent picture and provided no basis for com-
parison. Quality controls in the production of iron
and in the manufacture of wire were unknown and
would not yet have been reliable anyway. The
standards in material technology we now take for
granted, had first to be established. Gauge tole-
rances, tensile strength and the composition of the
raw material varied from one iron mill to the next.
No two production runs could be counted upon to
possess identical properties. As late as 1830, Vicat
listed five typical problems, all dependant solely on
lacking quality controls in the manufacturing
process:
liThe visible faults of iron wire are of three
types: 1. partial fractures which run across
the wire ... being actual cracks similar to
those found in bar iron, 2. shavings or barbs
which start at small points and widen as they
grow larger, 3. fibers which split the wire
longitudinally into two or three filaments.
liThe hidden faults are of two kinds: 1. flaws
which take up a certain portion of the
cross-section, 2. parts which I term tempered
because of their extreme fragility." 70
Aside from product quality, there was also the prob-
lem of testing and measuring. Measuring instru-
ments and testing apparatus were not standard-
ized, and what apparatus there was, was usually
of indifferent quality. Both had to be designed and
constructed by the experimenter from the same un-
reliable raw materials. As indicated in the discus-
sion of material testing, there existed no consensus
on the construction of testing machinery at the
beginning of the nineteenth century?l The type of
problem this could cause is shown by Barlow's com-
parison of Telford's and Brown's testing machines:
in the apparatus employed by the
II • • •
former, [Telford], the force had to overcome
both the [tensile] resistance of the iron and
the friction caused by the machine, whereas
in that used by Mr. Brown, the friction of the
machine augmented the force used to
balance the resistance of the iron." 72
Units of measurement had just begun to be stan-
dardized, however. The metric system was now
common to all those countries which had been part
of the Napoleonic Empire, while the construction of
measuring instruments was most highly developed
in non-metric Britain. Pictet obtained a British slid-
ing calipers for Dufour which could measure ac-
curately up to 1/100" and with which he could
calibrate his instruments. With practise, using the
instrument he had built to order, Dufour could read
66 Stevenson in Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, vol. 5,
1821, plate 8, and BU, vol. 21, 1822 Nov., plate 3
67 compare for instance, the writings of Caspar Walter
1766, Christoph Jezeler 1778 and Josef Jekel 1809
68 current maximum stress: 37 kg/mm 2 for mild steel and
190 kg/mm 2 for cable wire.
69 BU, vol. 21,1822, p. 131
70 Vicat: Description du pont suspendu construit sur la
Dordogne a Argentat 1830, p. 17
71 see chapter 'Strength of materials', pp. [54-55]
72 Dufour: Description ... , 1824, p. 71 and Duleau,
p. 70-71, taken from Barlow, 1817. David Billington
suggested to me that the difference in results this would
cause might easily account for the large number of
failures in Brown's bridges. This is one cause; another
was the high stresses and flat catenaries Brown invar-
iably used. 85
 off differences of up to 1/20 mm 73 which greatly
facilitated his work.
Both Seguin and Dufour could at least orient their
experiments on the basis of several published, if
inaccurate results. Von Sickingen's was the most
accessible, but there had been others before.
Leonardo da Vinci had made notes of tests on the
tensile strength of iron wire,74 but these were rela-
tively unknown. Marin Mersenne, who was interes-
ted in the strength of wires for musical instruments,
made such tests in 1636,75 Thenard, whom Seguin
had consulted, mentioned that Pieter van Mus-
schenbroek of the Netherlands had also done ex-
periments which were published in Leyden in
1729,76 His results were known through the French
translation of Pierre Massuet 1739. Coulomb too
had published his 'Recherches theoriques et experi-
imentales sur la force de torsion et sur I'elasticite
des fils de metal etc.' in 1784, but also this seems to
have been unknown at the time. Coulomb was not
mentioned by Dufour or by Seguin, although the
study had just been reissued in 'Theorie des
machines simples' in the spring of 1822,77
The first technical treatises on material research
dealing with iron were beginning to make their ap-
pearance, and the research of both men lay square-
ly in the mainstream of modern interest. Monge,
Vandermonde and Berthollet had published in
1788. The Bibliotheque Britannique, as it was then
called, had reported on British experiments in
1807. The second volume of Gauthey's 'Traite des
ponts' of 1816 contained work by Poleni and Per-
ronet. In the fourth volume of 'Traite de I'art de
botir' Rondelet mentioned that the quality of the
iron he had tested with Soufflot in 1814 had varied
considerably. Pictet had written on the subject in
1816 and Barlow in 1817. The 'Annales de Phy-
sique et Chemie' of September 1817 brought a
French translation of George Rennie Jr.'s experi-
ments on iron, and the 'Bulletin de la Societe d'en-
couragement' published similar material in 1816
and again in 1818. Then in 1820, Duleau gathered
all the available information and coordinated it in
a single table which shows just how unreliable the
material and the experiments were. Measurements
varied between 3.37 tlcm 2 and 8.08 tlcm 2• Duleau
86 had divided the table into square bars, for which
he gave a mean tensile strength of 4.48 t/cm 2 and
in round bars with a mean of 4.57 tlcm 2•
All this could only serve as general orientation. It
was clear from the scattered values that Dufour
and Seguin would have to carry out their own
tests if they wished to have results they could ap-
ply practically. They could still only rely on exper-
imentation, analogy, observation and tradition. In
this respect, the engineer of the early years of the
nineteenth century did not have more sources to
consult than did the master builders of the eigh-
teenth. However, this was changing, and the wire
experiments of Dufour and the Seguin brothers
helped to implement this change.
The way the results were presented expressed dif-
ferences in the interests of each: Dufour was pri-
marily concerned with the insight his experiments
provided and only secondarily with their import
for the detailing of his bridge. Seguin, on the
other hand, was chiefly interested in the economic
aspect. This is a curious inversion of what one
might expect, as Dufour was a technologist by
training whereas Seguin had started as a scientist.
The differences between them stemmed from the
positions the two occupied: Dufour was a state
employee and was always to act as the represen-
tative of a client, even in the case of his privately
designed bridges. Marc Seguin was an entrepre-
neur who did his own designing, financing, manu-
facturing, erection and promotion. For the most
part the Seguin firm also owned the bridge
franchise and collected toll in return for the main-
tenance of the structure. Therefore, the two engi-
neers had different outlooks on the organization
of their work and the priorities they accorded the
various parts. Following on the success of the
73 Memoire de la Societe de physique et d'histoire
naturelle de Geneve, vol. 2, part 1, pp. 123-124
74 Timoshenko, pp. 3-5 i Parsons, p. 72
75 Gordon, p.64
76 Musschenbroek: Physicae experimentales, et geome-
tricae ... Dissertationes. Musschenbroek had published
more on wires made of various materials in 'Introductio
ad cdhaerentiam corporum firmorum', Vienna 1756
(p.63) and in 'Introductio ad philosophiam naturalem'
(cit. in von Gerstner, vol. 1, pp. 285-286)
77 advertisement by the publishing house of Bachelier,
April 1822
Seguin firm and based on his observations of the
dynamism evident in the development of civil en-
gineering in Great Britain, Navier wrote an almost
heretic article on the advantages of the introduc-
tion of the franchise system as a balance to the
state monopoly on public works in France. It ap-
peared in the first volume of the Annales des
ponts et chaussees in 1831.78
Dufour's wire experiments
Dufour began his wire experiments immediately.
A laboratory was set up in the building of the
'machine hydraulique', the great municipal water
pumping station in the middle of the Rhone, and
preliminary results were presented at a meeting of
the "Societe de physique et d'histoire naturelle de
Geneve" on February 20, 1823. In answer to
questions posed at that meeting, Dufour under-
took a further series of experiments described in
the Bibliotheque Universelle 79 and in greater de-
tail with a plate showing the testing apparatus in
the Society's transactions. 80 This material was in-
corporated into the report on the bridge of 1824
with only minor changes.
The wire Dufour tested came from two different
sources. One series came from a mill at Laferriere
and the other from one in Saint Gingolf. He did
not examine the wire produced at the mill in the
Taubenlochschlucht at Bozingen near Bienne in
the Canton of Berne which had been renowned
since the seventeenth century for the low sulphur
content of its iron and for the consistant high
quality of its product. 81
The inclination of the curve between the values
for 1 mm and 2 mm wire indicated that the tensile
strength of the material decreased with an
increase in diameter. The thinnest wire gave the
best results, up to double the strength of bar iron.
Dufour suggested that the increase in strength was
due to the mode of manufacture, the structure of
the thinner wire having been more completely
transformed in the drawing process than that of
the thicker gauges. And from this he inferred
that the surface was primarily responsible for
strength. 82 The perspicacity of his observations
was exemplary:
"The merest inequality on the surface weak-
ens the wire and modifies the shape of the
constriction [due to yield], whereas longi-
tudinal fissures, even rather large ones, which
penetrate right to the center, have little
influence on the absolute strength."83
"One can explain the influence of the
slightest inequality on the surface which
notably diminished the force [strength] of a
wire and the little effect due to a longitudin-
al fissure by considering the wire as an
assembly of parallel fibers: a longitudinal
fissure does not decrease the number [of
such fibers], it merely separates them into
two strands which give approximately the
same force as the original one. But the
slightest dent or transverse fissure must break
the continuity of a certain number of fibers
and consequently weaken the strand by a
corresponding amount."84
The six tests with Laferriere no. 4 for instance gave
a scattering of 6% in the results. The same manu-
facturer's no. 13 gave 13 % for ten experiments.
Dufour explained this as due to the poorer quality
of the samples which had proven to have occa-
sional transverse cracks. For no. 16 (six tests) and
no. 19 (three tests), he obtained so negligible a
scattering that he disregarded it altogether. Com-
paring such results with those Navier reported the
same year for Sir Marc Brunei's tests on bar iron in
London, where a scattering of 25 % was considered
78 Navier: De I'execution des travaux publics ... APe
1831, pp. 1-31. Navier had probably had no hand in
the epoch making decision of the Directorate of the
Ponts et chaussees to accord the Seguins a private
franchise in 1822. He had only retarded the decision
due to his opposition to wire cables. Dutens had
reported in 1819 on the same subject, but in a book
rather than in an official government journal.
79 BU, vol. 22, 1823, pp.220-222
80 Memoire de la Societe de physique et d'histoire natu-
relle de Geneve, vol. 2, part 1, pp. 123-144 + plate 1
81 Schwab, p. 66. The wire of this mill was to achieve inter-
national renown in 1834 upon the erection of the
record-spanning Fribourg suspension bridge.
82 Mem. de la Soc. de phys. et d'hist. nat. vol. 2, part 1,
p.130
83 ibid, p. 134 and plate 1
84 ibid, p. 126 87
 to be unremarkable, we can understand how un-
usual this precision was under the conditions then
prevalent.
Laferriere wire achieved the better results through-
out. But in spite of this, Dufour decided to use that
of Saint Gingolf, explaining that he could be cer-
tain there that all the iron used came from the same
source. 8S The real reason may have been political
rather than technical, as the factory belonged to
two Genevan industrialists, Duroverey and Carteret,
although it stood in the neighboring Canton of the
Valais.
The ultimate strengths of 60 kg/mm 2 for drawn wire
of 1-5 mm gauge, 40-45 kg/mm 2 for wrought bars
up to 6 mm diameter and 25-30 kg/mm 2 for larger
ones, were confirmed by the Se~uin's experiments
and by those of Vic at in 1836, 6 using wire from
other sources.
"We can see from this", [concluded Dufour,]
lithe immense advantage of using iron drawn
to wires rather than forged into bars: it is
more manageable and the force is double.
One can proportion the resistance precisely
to accomodate the force to be overcome by
providing the necessary number of wires,
and one can rest assured as to the danger of
internal flaws which nothins can show up
beforehand in large bars."
Chain bridge constructors were able to counter this
by rigorously pretesting each and every eyebar,
and Telford introduced the packet chain of up to
sixteen parallel eyebars which minimized the effect
of hidden faults.
French constructors soon opted for wire construc-
tion, in spite of Navier's vigorous opposition, while
their British counterparts remained with the chain.
The reason was that the economic situation prevail-
ing in France (and in Switzerland too), was intrinsic-
ally different from that in Great Britain. In Britain
raw material was cheap while manpower was re-
latively expensive. Therefore wrought iron chains
were cheaper than wire. Telford abandoned wire
testing in 1814, remarking that a wire cable bridge
would have cost about twice as much as a chain
bridge of the same span. 88 The wire available to
Telford would have been 137% stronger than his
88 eyebars. Ten years later, Seguin and Dufour de-
fined their allowable stress as 150 % higher than
that of wrought iron.
The danger of corrosion was greater in wire cables,
though, as the exposed surface was far greater
than in chain links. This led Dufour to undertake a
series of experiments with brass wire which had the
advantage of not rusting. To his surprise he discov-
ered that the brass had about the same tensile
strength as iron wire, but, as brass cost five times as
much, it could not be considered for suspension
bridge construction.
Dufour's scientific interest is evident. He carefully
described the constriction at the point of rupture
which appeared 'simultaneously' with failure and
remarked on its interest for the physicist without
being able to derive any practical knowledge from
it. 89 But he also examined aspects of practical use:
The hypothesis that bends had no influence on the
strength of a strand excited his suspicion,90 and he
discovered that, although this was true for a simple
deflection where the radius measured at least 16
lines (36 mm), it was not so for deflections of more
than 360°. He also realized that every kink caused
a weakening of the wire.
During series of experiments with continuous, grad-
ual and sudden application of loads, he found that
the wire he used tended to elongate plastically,
and, the thinner the wire, the greater the rate of
elongation. As a by-product of this observation he
discovered:
one must take care not to confuse ...
II • • •
the elongation with that which is caused by
the simple straightening of the kinks in the
wire when stretched by a corresponding
weight. Although the exact measure of this
effect is difficult to determine with precision,
I judge that a wire of medium thickness, say
no. 13 or 14, when sufficiently pulled to
make a sound when strummed, and to
8S ibid, p. 126
86 Vic at: Observations diverses ... , p. 207-213
87 Mem. de la Soc. de phys. et d'hist. nat. vol. 2, part 1,
p.128
88 Paxton, p. 90
89 Mem. de la Soc. de phys. et d'hist. nat. vol. 2, part 1,
p.132
90 ibid, p. 136
 kg/mm 7 ultimate stress

90

85

Sickingen 79.50 kg/mm 7

80 +---11---+-
wire of unspecified origin 2 mm

75
Dufour overage: 72.50 kg/mm 7
Laferrie re wire
70 ~--r--+--~--r--1--~~

Seguin overage: 66.50 kg/mm 7

Fleur wire
65

60 +---r__+--~--r--1--~--+--4--_r~ ~~--+--'.d--_r----i!H---------1f------+---m-.=I=-=df-=o--I==-=!- Dufour overage: 59.90 kg/ mm 7

Saint G ingolf wire

55

50 +---r_-+---r--r--1--~--+-~--_r--+------1f------+--+-~

45 +---r--+--~--r--4--~--+__4--_r--+_~1___+--4_--r__+--~--+__4--_r--+___I1___+~

PP 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 W ire gouge number

Q85 190 'l.KI 2.75 3.70 ¢ mm
4/21 10113 7 61' 317
6JJ1 1101 01 01
0.59 0,62 071 0.73 0/34 0~1 1.02 1.09 L12 1.29 t44 1.48 1.69 1.80 2JI1 2.23 2,49 2.70 lOS 3,49 4.14 4.81 5.45 5.94 ¢ mm
5 6 4 4 5 4 5 4 4 5 5 4 5 4 4 6 5 5 4 4 4 2 2 2 Number of tests
6.3 9.9 3.0 12,2 ao 5.2 11.7 3.0 5.8 4.5 Il0 12.1 10.7 5.4 ~9 6.8 413 16.9 2.9 4.0 5.6 8.4 4.0 2.9 Deviation of results in %

appear perfectly straight, will yet give an "For purposes of practical application, one Graph comparing the
increment of 70/10000 of the length it has must presume that a cord made of iron wires results of wire testing for
when simply pulled straight by hand, and the will elongate one and a half meters for one various gauges and origins,
by the Seguins and Dufour.
double when a large numbe'r of wires, such hundred meters when loaded, or in other The discontinuities in the
as fifteen or more, are united." 91 words, 150/10 000 of the original length ... falling curve of the Seguin
The scientific explanation of the phenomenon is One can only obviate this fault of suspen- tests coul~. be due to irreg-
probably very complex, possibly having to do with sion cords by [pre-]tensioning the wires by ularities in the manufac-
turing process, as could the
the incomplete stress hardening of the drawn wire. some powerful means when they are bound large jump between wire
But the recognition of the unexpected effect was to together to form cords."92 numbers 14 and 18 in both
be of use in the development of a successful meth- Early French constructors did not pretension their the Seguins' and Dufour's
od for the manufacture of parallel wire cables: strands. Consequently their cables often had lax tests.
wires, and this overloaded the remaining taut ones.
91 ibid, p. 131 Vicat reported in 1831 that he had observed many
92 ibid cables to contain lax wires with the rest obviously 89

Dufour's test splice and final
solution. From Dufour:
Description du pont
suspendu en fil de fer,
construit a Geneve 1 824
90
stressed in excess of their design load. He claimed
that these poorly made cables were one of the
many reasons for frequent suspension bridge fail-
ures. This was probably not the case,93 but the re-
sult of his argumentation was to recommend Du-
four's method of cable manufacture, which then
became ubiquitous.
The wire splice developed by Dufour was also to
become standard. First he tried several knots with-
out success: all failed under load. Finally he hit
upon the idea of simply twisting the two ends of the
wire together, bending them to hooks, and binding
the whole together with flexible, annealed wire.
This splice held. But, not having satisfied his curios-
ity, further tests determined the limits for a safe
connection. The length of the twist was shortened
to 30 mm and then the hooks abandoned. As it was
difficult to twist such short wires together, they were
laid parallel side by side and bound tightly as be-
fore. To Dufour's surprise this also held, and he was
finally able to reduce the length of the binding to a
mere 25 mm without the splice giving under normal
or sudden loading. Oiled splices also held, a fact
that was important since a coat of laquer was used
to protect finished bridge cables from corrosion.
But as he apparently had observed that several
untested splices slipped at low temperatures, he
decided the practical length should be 50 mm for
safety.
Vicat reproduced Dufour's splicing experiments in
connection with the construction of his own suspen-
sion bridge at Argentat between 1826 and 1829.
He insisted on cobbling the ends of the wires to
form thick knobs in order to give the binding better
purchase. 94
Dufour noted that static loads did not have the
same effect on structures as dynamic ones. This
was, of course in itself, not an original observation,
but it did lead Dufour to undertake another series
of experiments with falling weights during which he
determined his 'quantity of movement' for three
gauges of wire: nos. 4, 13 and 14. The wires were
prestressed to a third of their ultimate strength
which represented their operating load. Then fur-
ther weights were dropped from a height of one
meter until the wire broke. The ultimate mass was
then multiplied by the velocity of impact which
gave the impulse per unit cross-section. In subse-
quent projects, where Dufour used suspender rods
for supporting the bridge deck, the allowable im-
pulse was determined to be 100 kgmlsec mm 2. As
the velocity of a body falling from 1 m height is
4.43 mlsec, each mm 2 withstood 2.26 kg falling
from this height.
Telford had done similar experiments in 1814,95 but
these were, of course, unknown to Dufour. Telford
had called his unit 'momentum' = masslh X 8.021
which corresponded well to Dufour's 'quantite de
mouvement'.
In reality, impulse is not a material constant; the
distribution of forces, and consequently the loading
capacity of a structure, depends on many other
factors, not merely on the mass and velocity of
impact, and certainly not on a simple product of
the two. It depends on the mass of the falling object
and the structure, the height of fall, the deformabil-
ity of the bodies hit and that of the structure as a
whole, and thus their capacity to absorb energy.
However, Dufour's and Telford's impulse is more
intelligent than might appear at first sight, as it
determined pragmatically the capacity of a struc-
ture of a certain type to withstand the impact of full
barrels falling from the back of a wagon, or, in an
extreme case, a cannon falling from its gun carrige,
both being a fall of about one meter, and both
representing about the most severe accident of this
type to be feared at the time. It is not the general
validity of the 'momentum' or the 'quantite de
mouvement' which interests us, but rather the fact
that both engineers tried to quantify dynamic con-
ditions and to understand their nature. As far as is
now known, these were the first such attempts to be
made in building.
93 compare chapter 'The report of 1831 on the state of the
Rhone bridges' pp. [150-152]
94 ibid
95 Drewry, p. 15
 Wire experiments by the Seguin brothers
Dufour's merit in being the first to publish extensive
wire experiments was noted by the 'Allgemeine
Bauzeitung' of Vienna in 1837. 96 But his reports
and experiments had much less success in French
engineering circles than those of the Seguin broth-
ers which were frequently quoted.
Marc and Paul Seguin's wire experiments were
done concurrently with, and also somewhat later
than, Dufour's. T~ey were published in 1824 and
again in the second, abridged version of 'Des ponts
en fil de fer' in 1826.97 They used wire of varied
origins for their nine series of experiments.
The wire for the main series came from a mill be-
longing to Widow Fleur of Besan<;on, but some
tests were carried out using wire from Laigle and
another unspecified location in Burgundy. Some
observations confirmed those of Dufour and
others supplemented them.
The scattering of the Seguin results from 3-17 %
with a mean of 4.9% corresponded closely to
Dufour's 0-13 % and a mean of 4.8 %. Seguin ex-
plained the irregularities in his curve as stemming:
" ... from the successive elongations to
which the wire has been subjected after
passing through the mill two or three times
before being reheated and which may suffer
cracks if it is pulled too much before being
reheated, or approach the strength of
annealed wire if it has only been slightly
drawn after that operation."98
Imperfections of this type in the process of manu-
facture could very well have been responsible for
the parallel displacements in the curve between the
gauges 5-6, 8-9, 12-13, and perhaps also 22-23.
Chemical impurities were also proposed as another
possible source of variation in tensile strength.
Seguin observed that rolled iron manufactured ac-
cording to the British method was stronger than the
wrought iron forged by the French, or Continental
method using triphammers. The lamination discov-
ered upon microscopic examination, due to the
finely distributed, typical slag enclosures flattened
in the rolling process, had led him to compare its
strength with that of wood when stressed parallel
to the fibers. Fractured surfaces of both wrought
iron and wire were subjected to microscopic
scrutiny:
" ... the closer the bars approached the
state of cast iron, the more regular and
polished the crystals and the more brilliant
and symmetrical the blades became. On the
other hand, refined iron, forged by hammer
or drawn, seemed to be composed of a
multitude of porous filaments. The finer the
wire, the finer were the filaments."99
Although they had found a variation of only 4.9%
in the tensile strength of their test wires, the Seguins
calculated with a 10% variation for added safety.
Individual specimens had ruptured at 25 kg/mm 2,
or only 42% of the mean ultimate strength. But this
did not worry them. As long as a cable was not
loaded with more than 50 % of its ultimate strength,
they had observed that a single broken wire would
not work itself loose from the strand and would
tend to be held in place by friction alone, even if
the cable were not wrapped at that point.
Problems of metal fatigue, the phenomenon of
fracture after repeated loading, concerned them
greatly. This was perhaps the first time the question
of fatigue had been raised in connection with
structural materials. The Seguin's cousin, grandson
of Joseph de Montgolfier, managed the family
paper mill in Annonay, and fatigue fractures in
machinery had been a major problem for him. The
Seguins therefore studied overloading in compo-
nents of the testing machinery as well as the elasti-
city of iron in general, reaching the same conclusion
as Dufour, namely that drawn wire had already
undergone a sufficient and not excessive testing in
the process of manufacture itself. Both builders
were therefore able to make a very convincing ar-
gument for wire and against wrought iron eyebar
construction. Marc Seguin also enthusiastically
postulated that fatigue was less apt to occur in wire
than in wrought iron. He made this risky deduction,
on an unscientific basis, from the fact that the
96 Allgemeine Bauzeitung Wien, 2nd year, nr. 6,
Feb. 1837, pp. 46-48
97 Marc Seguin, 1st ed., pp. 57 -82 + plate 4 / 2nd ed.
pp. 75-105 + plate 2, figs. 17 & 18. In the text the
figures are incorrectly numbered.
98 ibid, 1st ed. p.58 I 2nd ed. p.75
99 ibid, 1st ed., p. 58 I 2nd ed. p.75 91
 machine parts of his testing apparatus tended to
fail before the wire he was testing!
The Seguins attempted to find differences in the
chemical composition of wire before and after an-
nealing. They found a 10% elongation under yield
loading to Dufour's 15 %, and even went so far as
to determine the diminuation in cross-sectional
area in order to calculate the difference in strength
with more precision.
They disputed established opinion on the elastic
behavior of iron which claimed a loss of elasticity
for a wire subjected to long-term loading in excess
of a third of its ultimate strength. Marc Seguin
didn't dispute that such a loss occurred, but was of
the opinion that no threshold existed, and felt that
the longer the period of loading, the lower the
allowable load. Again he had formed this opinion
on the basis of uncontrolled observation alone.
In his occasional neglect to confirm hypotheses
experimentally, Seguin differs markedly from the
more cautious Dufour. But, on the other hand, far
more information about the technical difficulties in-
volving the use of iron appears in the Seguin's re-
port than in Dufour's which transmitted only the
scientific facts and little of the manufacturing
background.
Availability of wire
For the construction of the great bridge between
Tain and Tournon, the Seguins were obliged to use
wire from several different sources, as no mill had
sufficient capacity to manufacture the whole order
alone. Marc Seguin was to complain of the difficul-
ties caused by the varying gauge in different lots
which necessitated constant watchfulness. His
brother Camille tried to convince the manufactur-
ers to work to his specifications and tolerances, but
he encountered great resistance to his suggestions,
partly due to the craft form of the industry and
entrenched manufacturing habits, and partly also
due to the fear that additional sales would not
entirely compensate for the necessary investment.
The Seguins had to make do with the wire they
found on the market. 100
Therefore, in their bridges, the Seguins could not
make use of the fact that wire is pretested in the
92 manufacturing process but had to undertake num-
erous tests in order to determine the ultimate
strength of each batch. 101 Paul Seguin was put in
charge of this task and of the cable manufacture
and all other iron parts. A ropewalk was set up in
the Seguin mill at Annonay with a testing press of
50 tons capacity. Five kg lots were drawn from
each spool of wire as they arrived and were tested
to destruction.
The number of wires in each cable had to be ad-
justed to the variation in quality of the different
deliveries. The Seguins tested the wire in parallel
strands and not singly as they knew that the tensile
force of a strand was directly proportional to the
sum of the wires multiplied by their strength,l 02 and
they used this knowledge to rationalize the testing
of the huge amounts needed. Dufour was spared
this additional trouble as his bridge measured less
than half the span of the Rhone Bridge, and the
contracting mill at Saint Gingolf seems to have had
no difficulty in delivering sufficient quantities of
more or less constant gauge.
It was hardly to be expected that the enterprising
Seguins would stand for this state of affairs any
longer than they had to. They were forced to ac-
cept conditions as they found them for the con-
struction of their first bridge, but they soon under-
took to manufacture their own wire and contracted
to deliver to other construction sites as well. Vicat
noted in 1830 that the wire for his bridge at Argen-
tat had been furnished by the Seguin company.103
Relative neglect of Dufour's role
in French publications
In reporting on the failure of splices and knots,
Marc Seguin mentioned the bridge built at Geneva
and Dufour's splice which h·e also showed on plate
2 as being the only one to have withstood the
testing. The first edition of the Seguin book of 1824
mentioned Dufour three times and the reedition of
1826, only twice, the second mention being the
more important:
"This disposition of the stablizing stays under
the bridge ... was adopted at Geneva for
100 Marc Seguin, 2nd ed., p. 18
101 Marc Seguin, 2nd ed., p. 18-19
102 ibid, 2nd ed., p.92
103 Vicat: Description du pont suspendu ... , 1830, p. 13
 the iron wire suspension bridges built across
the moats of the town, the first yet to have
been built on the principles I propose, and
which have met with excellent success ..."104
J. P. Quimot, is another French source to mention
Dufour in 1828 on page 6 of the introduction to his
report on the building of the Jarnac Bridge. Aside
from these two sources and Dufour's own articles in
various journals, there are only two references to
his work in professional publications. One was a
brief mention of a lost project for a suspension
bridge for Saint Petersburg in the 'Revue encyclo-
pedique' in 1824,105 and the other was an editorial
by CLM106 in the 'Annales des ponts et chaussees'
in 1832. This is the more important, as it assigns him
an essential role in the both the original and the
further development of the system:
" ... the structural details of the first Geneva
bridge, which were very valuable when first
published, are not so much today, after all
the progress made since 1824 in the execu-
tion of such works and to which Mr. Dufour
himself has contributed ..."107
This appears to be the last mention of the man or
his seminal contributions to the construction and
detailing of suspension bridges in the French pro-
fessional world.
The system for manufacturing the cables for the
Saint Antoine Bridge was described in detail in Du-
four's book of 1824. It was used again by Vicat for
his bridge in 1829. Vicat used a smaller pretension-
ing force for his thicker wires, but otherwise the
method is identical. 108 However, he gives the in-
ventor no credit, although he mentions Seguin
often. Thus, when Joseph Chaley adopted the
method for the Grand Pont Suspendu in Fribour~
from Vicat, he only mentioned the Vicat report. 10
In contrast, Dufour's works were frequently dis-
cussed in contemporary German, Italian, Aus-
trian,ll 0 British and even United States literature.
The reason for French neglect is unclear and can
hardly be attributed of knowledge of what Dufour
had to a lack done. ll1 Seguin had obviously read
Dufour's book which had appeared simultaneously
in Paris and Geneva in early 1824: he utilized
information from it in his own book published later
that year. Although he neglected to mention Du-
four, and incidentally also Duleau, whose tables of
iron strengths he obviously used,l12 Seguin is
otherwise good at mentioning his sources: Plagniol,
Thenard, von Sickingen, Musschenbroek, Molard
and Girard.
Test model for the Saint Antoine Bridge
The Genevan upper house, the 'Conseil d'Etat', de-
liberated for most of the session of November 27,
1822, on Candolle's petition for permission to erect
a cable bridge over the ramparts. Finally, based on
opinions voiced by the Military Council and the
Chamber of Public Works, it was decided to ask the
Chamber of Public Works for a preliminary feasibil-
ity study, taking the conditions imposed by the Build-
ing Department and the Military Council into ac-
count. 113 Three weeks later, the president of the
Public Works Commission presented a complete bill
of specifications. 1l4 It then passed, and the 'Con-
seil' determined not to concern itself further with
the matter, as it was, after all, a private project. 115
As long as the interests of public safety were served,
the Genevan government, in contrast to the French,
had no interest in the exercise of any authority
whatsoever over the bridge.
Armed with the permit, his calculations and test
results, Dufour proceeded to build a test model of
the structural system. This took the form of a sys-
tematic representation of a suspension bridge. It
was designed specifically for the study of the prin-
104 Marc Seguin, 2nd ed., p. 40
105 Mike Chrimes's bibliography was very useful in checking
this information.
106 the editor louis Charles Mary?
107 ClM: Analyse et extra it des deux ouvrages ... , APC,
1832, p. 86
108 Vicat: Description du pont suspendu ... 1830, p. 14-15
and plate 4
109 Chaley in APC 1835
110 although he is omitted from von Gerstner's account of
the wire cable system which probably is based on
French sources. (vol. 1, pp. 471-472)
111 see Duleau's comment in chapter 'Connections', p. 187
112 Duleau, pp. 70-72
113 Registre du Conseil d'Etat, 1822, 2e.sem., folio 383,
Nov. 27, 1822. State Archives Geneva
114 Travaux A 10, Feb. 3, 1823. State Archives Geneva
115 Registre du Conseil d'Etat, 1822, 2e.sem., folio 461,
Dec. 19, 1822. State Archives Geneva 93
 ciples involved rather than as a scale model which
had formerly been the only type builders made.1l6
He had to justify the expense to the shareholders,
and the chief reason he gave was the need to
present them and the general public with solid
facts. But behind the avowed reason there also lay
the hope of gaining fresh theoretical insight into
the problems through the tests he intended to carry
out. Dufour meant to check the validity of his own
ideas on the subject as well as the suggestions of
others, thus satisfying his need to research the sub-
ject to his satisfaction. He also intended the model
as a mockup for the erection proceedure, training
the workmen for their job at the safe height of
70 cm above the floor of the workshop.
The model spanned 12.6 m and had two main
cables of 12 wires on which weights were hung. The
cables appeared to elongate under the load which
demonstrated to Dufour how im~ortant it was to
pretension the cables properly.1 7 Joists were at-
tached to wire suspenders and planking was nailed
to three longitudinal stringers placed over them.
The deck was designed for a load of 20 persons or
111 kg/m 2, just over 70 % of that of the Saint An-
toine Bridge.
Dufour wanted to study problems of stability, and
in order to do so, he made the deck extremely
flexible. 118 After the deck was erected, the ropes
carrying the extra weights were cut. The bridge
floated free and the mid-section rose while the
ends fell.
"In this state, the lightest blow to the middle
of the bridge caused vibrations at the ends
which were so violent that it was feared that
the beams or suspenders would break. It is
therefore imperitive that both ends of the
deck be fixed rigidly to the abutments." 119
Once the ends were fixed, a point load was placed
at one of the quarter points. The deck sank at that
point and rose at the corresponding quarter point
on the other side. To counteract this, stays were
fixed to the underside of the deck at these points.
Thus each loading condition was examined and
adjusted for in an empirical, incremental process.
Each was treated as a separate problem, isolated
from the rest, without any attempt to approach the
94 problem of stability as a characteristic of the sys-
tem as a whole. 120 The conceptual approach,
Navier's premier technological quality, was not yet
Dufour's way of attacking a problem. Nevertheless,
as a keen observer, he did not fail to remark on
another surprising characteristic. Even after the
ends of the deck had been fixed,
"A blow still caused quite considerable
vibrations which, however, became less
marked as the bridge was progressively
more heavily loaded. This observation led
me [to conclude] not to lighten the projected
bridge too much. The deck must form a
system capable of withstanding flexion to a
high degree and at the same time capable
of imparting substantial tension to the
cords." 121
Ignoring the problem of resonance
Dufour had stumbled onto one of the most intri-
guing characteristics of the suspension system. He
seems to have been the first to connect the mass of
a suspension structure with the inertia, or as he
termed it, with the stability of the system. He did not
consider the implications of his observation immed-
iately, and it was to be Navier who formulated the
consequences, as erroneous as they proved to be,
late in 1823, by coupling the mass of an increasing
span size to a postulated increase in stability.122 A
year later, Dufour was to credit Navier with this
discovery in a book review of his friend Charles
Dupin's report on the economy of Great Britain:
"If the bridge is very light, one anchors it
underneath by means of clamps in order to
protect it from the action of the wind and to
reduce the vibrations caused by pedestrians.
If, on the contrary, it is of considerable
weight, it is in itself sufficient, if I may so
express myself, and resists by reason of its
mass. It is a characteristic peculiar to this
116 cf: Jezeler, Walter, Houri
117 Dufour: Description ... 1824, p. 26
118 Dufour: Description ... 1824, p. 27
119 ibid, p. 26
120 see chapter 'From overlay to system', pp. [9-11]
121 Dufour: Description ... 1824, p. 27
122 Navier: Rapport et Memoire sur les ponts suspendus,
1823

type of construction that, the longer and the
heavier it is, the more stable it becomes, a
happy circumstance which Mr. Navier has
put forth and which makes it all the more
practical to erect a suspension bridge the
less the site seems to indicate building an
ordinary bridge."123
This curious fact was happily long ignored, and
Dufour was therefore led to remark again in 1831:
"It is also useful to give the bridge deck a
certain weight rather than going to pains, as
has been done up till now, to attain the
ultimate degree of lightness."124
Collapse of Sir Samuel
Brown's Brighton Chain Pier
in 1836 due to wind. There
were many such failures of
suspension bridges from the
first Dryburgh Abbey Bridge
in 1817 to the collapse of
the Tacoma Narrows Bridge
in 1940
Only much later did the recognition of this phen-
omenon exert its nefarious influence on the devel-
opment of the art.
Ellet used the same argument in explaining the un-
stiffened system he used in the construction of the
record-breaking span of the Wheeling Bridge in
West Virginia in 1849, but the French type had
no future in the United States. Ellet's bridge soon
failed in a storm and Roebling's much stiffer system
123 Dufour, BU, vol. 26, 1824, p. 140
124 Dufour: Quelques notes sur les ponts suspend us, 1831,
p. 271 95
Brightol'l Chain Pier
dominated thereafter. It was only to be a full cen-
tury after Navier and Dufour that Othmar Her-
mann Ammann and Leon Solomon Moisieff were to
reintroduce this idea in the design of the first
bridge to span more than 1000 m, the George
Washington Bridge over the Hudson River (1923-
1931). This bridge spanned so far, argued the build-
er Ammann and the theoretician Moisieff, that it
was heavy enough of its own accord to do without
a stiffening truss, and the consequent saving in
deadweight permitted the span to almost double
the previous world record.
As rational as these arguments seemed, they were
fatally flawed: they only took static loading models
into account. Both liveload and wind loads were
calculated as though they were static loads, and no
provision was made for oscillation or the problem
of resonance. Being so flexible, suspension bridges
were prone to such problems which, without
being recognized, had caused failures ever since
the collapse of the first Dryburgh Abbey Bridge
in 1817.
The problem is a simple one: dynamic loads need
not be great to cause disaster if they act rhythmi-
96 cally on a structure and coincide with that body's
own resonance frequency. In other words, a small,
weak child can cause a very fat person to swing
high on a swing by pushing gently and rhythmically
again and again in time with the swing's period of
oscillation. The effect of a small force over a long
time is as substantial as that of a great force acting
for a short period. Everyone knew this, of course,
but no one applied it to structures. All engineers
from Dufour and Navier through Ammann and
Moisieff, therefore, thought a very strong wind was
needed to cause a heavy bridge to swing.
The George Washington Bridge came to serve as a
model to others for a decade. Due to the peculiar-
ities of its siting, as well as to the resonance of the
structure itself, the bridge stood unstiffened and
safe for just over thiry years. In 1962, a lower deck
was added and a stiffening truss inserted between
the two levels. But other bridges were not so lucky.
The filming of the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows
Bridge over Puget Sound in Washington State on
November 7, 1940, led to an awareness of the
basic differences between static and dynamic load-
ing, precisely the distinction which had escaped
both Dufour and Navier in 1823. From the dra-
matic collapse of 1940 on, the dynamic behavior
of structures began to be studied. In suspension
bridge construction, work centered chiefly on in-
creasing the torsional resistance of the deck and on
improving the aerodynamic stability of its form.
The Saint Antoine Bridge
After evaluating the tests, the double-span Saint
Antoine Bridge was quickly erected over the Ge-
neva ramparts. The last official notification we
have concerning the grantin~ of the building per-
mit is dated February 4,12 predating Dufour's
presentation of his test results to the 'Societe de
physique et d'histoire naturelle de Geneve'. The
work advanced so quickly that the load testing of
the finished structure was ordered on July 29,126
and carried out the next day.127 Two days later, on
August 1, 1823, the world's first permanent sus-
pension bridge to use cables made of wire, was
officially opened for public use.
The site lay just south of the 'demi-Iune de (ham-
pel', an earthwork separating the two moats, and
of the Promenade Saint Antoine from which the
bridge received its name. Two spans of about
40 m128 stretched from the Bastion des Pins inside
the walls, over the middle rampart called the
'(ontregarde du Pin', to the parade ground on the
'Tranchees' outside.
The three prefabricated cables on each side were
made of 90 no. 14 wires (2.1 mm) and divided into
five lengths. Two long sections carried the spans
while three shorter ones layover the piers to facil-
itate repairs in case the cables should fray on their
saddles. The number of wires in each strand was
limited to 90 for ease in lifting, and the cables
were wrapped with annealed wire in a spiral bind-
ing of 2 cm pitch. These 'festoons' carried asym-
metrically placed decks of 27 and 34 m.
The cables were variously referred to as 'cords' or
'chains'. It seems that the word 'cable' used in
connection with suspension bridge construction
was an invention of Dufour's as he wrote in 1824:
"This word seems to me to be the best one
adapted to the thing. In using it one avoids
the confusion of ideas, the words chain or
cord not having the same advantage. I also
occasionally use the word strand which
indicates the manner in which the cable has
been made."129
The cables ended in vertical connecting bars on the
city side, so as to save space and not encumber
traffic. From there, they were carried out over the
gate house structure, then over the middle pier
placed on the rampart, ending behind the piers on
the country side where they were attached to in-
clined stays. Here there was enough room to ma-
noeuver without having recourse to vertical stays.
The cables were spaced 20 cm apart over the py-
lon saddles, and skewed and cambered inward so
as to be fixed to the railing above one another at
midspan. The outermost pair hung to the level of
the handrail and were cambered 55 cm, while the
innermost hung to the height of the decking and
were only pulled in 15 cm. The middle pair were
cambered 35 cm and halved the distance between
the other two.
Following Marc Seguin's suggestion,130 the mean
sag of the cables was just under 1:12. The North
Americans used 1:7 which stiffened the structure
vertically but not laterally, and they compensated
for this by giving their decks the greatest possible
mass and by using stiff railings. The British, on the
other hand, recommended a sag of 1 :20 which
kept piers lower and made it easier to adapt to any
site configuration, but used more material as it en-
tailed a higher cable tension. The highest cable
tension in a festoon was thus to be expected in the
uppermost cable which had the smallest sag. Seguin
strengthened these in the Tain-Tournon Bridge. But
the difference was not taken into account in the
Saint Antoine Bridge, and Dufour manufactured all
with the same number of wires.
The early wire bridges used a multitude of cables,
as the prefabricated lengths had to be lifted into
place over the saddles manually. For reasons un-
125 Travaux A 11, folio 17, Feb. 4, 1823. State Archives,
Geneva
126 ibid, folio 99, July 29, 1823
127 ibid, folio 100, Aug. 5, 1823
128 Dufour writes variously of spans alternating between 40
and 44 m
129 Dufour: Description ... 1824, p. 33 footnote
130 Marc Seguin, 2nd ed., p. 36 97
Contemporary view of the
Saint Antoine Bridge
(Musee d'art et d'histoire,
Service Vieux-Geneve)

98
 Plan of the b .
c. 1823 (Stat~ldge ~ite,
Geneva) Archives,

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-../
.".,..'

~;:> #
.. .
;-~
.....".~

1.. \
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,. " i
.
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~

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. ...
1.

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....

. 1'1
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1__ ._

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t~.I-;":·'' ' ' ' ~:--- ~- ...
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99

Gatehous,e on the city side,
at the Bastion des Pins,
showing the vertical bars
connecting the cables to the
buried anchors. Albumen
negative photograph
c. 1850-1860 (Mush d'art
et d'histoire, Service Vieux-
Geneve)
100
known, the joining together of several prefabricat-
ed strands to form a single large cable after rais-
ing only seems to have been done shortly before
Joseph Chaley made it standard in the construction
of the Grand Pont Suspendu at Fribourg in 1834.
Thereafter, prefabricated parallel cable strands
were always joined together after raising to form
larger cables. After 1830, however, a method for
spinning cables in place wire by wire appeared.
This gradually put an end to the prefabrication of
parallel wire bridge cables, as cables of any weight
and dimension could be made easily and cheaply
without having to consider lifting problems.
Dufour was disturbed by the plurality of cables,
and especially the skewed arrangement with all its
disadvantages: the difficulty in standardizing con-
nections, the differing cable tensions and the dif-
ferent rates of thermal expansion. Aside from the
technical disadvantages of an unclear system, he
also found the festoon esthetically displeasing.
Dufour often expressed his esthetic opinion: his
criteria were simplicity and clarity, and he was a-
ware of the influence such thoughts had on his de-
sign decisions. He began actively to seek a means
of simplifying and clarifying the suspension system.
Appearance and economy were his main concerns:
in order to hang the main cables side by side,
he thought that he would have to make the deck
wider, while in order to place them above one
another, he would need to cut deep channels into
the pylon saddles and introduce iron or copper
sheathing for each of the cables. In either case,
cost would have increased considerably.
"Perhaps a little more stability would have
resulted, but there would certainly have
been more complication in the arrangement
of the suspenders, and, in a pioneering struc-
ture, I had to attempt above all to use the
most simple means in order to be able to
correct faults as they were recognized, ..
I believe that the best thing for combining
stability and simplicity would have been to
make the sides of the bridge correspond
exactly to [the distance between] the inter-
mediate cables so that the other two cables
would be cambered in opposite directions
to one another, in order to lie directly
above each other in the middle of their
curvature."131
How difficult it must have been to think clearly and
find a solution to the novel problem. With hindsight
it is always easy to see what was wrong or con-
fused in an argument. But Dufour's thoughts
marked a step on the road to the parallel cable
arrangement which was soon to become standard
in suspension bridge construction.
The meaning of the word 'simplicity' as Dufour used
it is interesting. He was interested in esthetic
simplicity of structural concept and form, but that is
not the way he used the term here. What he meant
131 Dufour: Description, '" 1824, p,34
was both esthetic and functional simplicity of
erection and correction of erection method during
the building process.
It is a characteristic of engineering esthetic, in con-
trast to architectural esthetic, that it concerns not
only the finished product, but also the process by View through gate showing
which the product is obtained. 132 Architecture is a the twin span with festoon
field which was formed already in ancient times. As cables and skewed
suspender arrangement.
such, its traditional primary concern is with the The deflection of the railing
finished product and its form. The field of enginee- indicates someone standing
ring, on the other hand, was given its modern form on the near span out of
in the course of the Industrial Revolution. As such, view. Detail of the
gatehouse photograph
its primary focus is on process: process of design, retouched by removing
calculation, manufacture, fabrication, erection, use disturbing background
and maintenance. Thus, if there is an esthetic that grain (Original: Musee d'art
pertains particularly to engineering, it will be an et d'histoire: Service Vieux-
esthetic of process rather than of final form alone. Geneve)
This is of course intimately related to the shift in
understanding structures as 'systems' which also
occurred during the Industrial Revolution. 133
One of the problems avoided by the festoon sys-
tem with its individually attached suspenders, was
the general incertitude about the behavior of stat-
ically indeterminate structures, especially of a high
order. This could have been one of the main rea-
sons for the Seguin's retention of the cumbersome
system for so long, in spite of its obvious disadvant-
ages. The fear of indeterminacy lasted well into the
last quarter of the nineteenth century and explains
the great popularity of such structural systems as
the three-hinged arch or frame and the 'Gerber',
or articulated, continuous beam.
By keeping each of the main cables and their sus- in theoretical aspects of engineering. Continental
penders separate, the suspension system was re- engineers, however, obviously hesitated to follow
duced to an additive series of simple funicular poly- suit.
gons. The theory of these had been treated in The Genevan Dufour lay culturally between the
Pierre Varignon's posthumous work of 1725. 134 In very theoretical French and the predominantly em-
fact, the tendency to regard the festoon system
additively in this manner is analogous to the 'over- 132 compare chapter 'Structural engineering and architec-
ture', pp. [11-12]
lay' method of understanding and designing com- 133 David P. Billington has proposed a separation between
plex structures in the pre-statics period of eigh- engineering and architectural esthetic in his book 'The
teenth century bridge building. 135 Tower and the Bridge'. Although I find his hypothesis
Telford and others were already coupling wrought stimulating and worthy of deeper analysis, I cannot
iron chains together to form unified systems in Bri- subscribe to his interpretation of it as a variant of the
esthetic of finished objects.
tain, perhaps simply because the more empirically 134 Varignon: Nouvelle mecanique ou statique ...
minded British engineers were less aware of the 135 see discussion of the shift in structural understanding in
apparent pitfalls which plagued those more versed the chapter 'From overlay to system', pp. [9-11] 101
 pirical British. Although certainly aware of it, he
evidently did not share the general malaise about
indeterminacy, and he quickly and pragmatically
overcame the hesitation to couple the cables. In-
deed he had originally proposed doing so in the
manuscript of 1822. And he remarked in a hand-
written note in his own copy of the published
report of 1824:
"I coupled the three cables intermittantly
together in order to reduce the vibrations
which were very violent when the bridge was
subjected to the slightest wind or shock. The
remedy was successful, and the cables,
acting so to speak as a single body, had
greater stability." 136
Anchoring the cables
The pier saddles were massive stone ashlars. Three
shallow channels, rounded at the edges, were cut
into each stone cap and lined with copper to serve
as bearings for the cables. On the city side of the
bridge, the channel edges had a radius of only
50 mm and the cable ends were deflected 900 over
them before being attached to the connecting
bars. The experiments had shown that cables re-
tained their full strength when deflected less than
3600 over a radius of not less than 36 mm. As a
result, not considering the relative stresses above
and below when bending a thick cable, he saw no
reason to use a larger radius, remarking:
liThe method of supporting the strands is the
most simple and least expensive. This is why I
adopted it. In time, we shall see whether it
has drawbacks." 137
In fact, no damage was reported to this part of the
suspension system during the two or three decades
the bridge remained in use.
The piers on the country side had a much smaller
mass than those on the city side as they were not
required to act as anchorages. Two lateral wings
were later added to them at the behest of the
police, as the bridge and the city gates were still
locked at night and delinquents had been known
to jump the barrier.
Dufour deplored having puddled the country an-
chorages in hydraulic mortar as they could not be
102 replaced if necessary.138 The rust protective char-
acteristics of hydraulic cement were not yet known.
Vicat's observation of this phenomenon in 1831,139
which would form part of the theoretical founda-
tion for the development of reinforced concrete,
also influenced the development of suspension
bridge anchorages.
The manufacture of the cables compared
to the Seguin method
The prestressing method used by Dufour for the
manufacture of the main cables was one of its most
important features and was to lead to the success
of the wire cable suspension system in spite of its
inherent inconveniences.
The Seguins made no attempt to pretension their
wires as they had erroneously presumed that minor
differences in the length of individual wires meant
only small differences in tension. Although their
decision was thus based on a faulty observation,
their method was safe enough as they were care-
ful constructors, and most of the bridges built by
them suffered no damage. But not all structures
built by their imitators withstood the loads they had
been designed to carry. Many bridges failed so
that the system soon came to be regarded with
suspicion in France. As a result, the directorate of
the Pants et chaussees ordered Vicat, then Chief
Engineer of the Departement Rhone where most of
the trouble had occurred, to submit a report on the
state of the suspension bridges under his care.
Luckily Vicat was a partisan of the new system and
so the report, which uncovered many flaws, did not
recommend abandoning the use of wire cables al-
together.
Dufour's structures never suffered from any of the
weaknesses which beset many of the French
bridges. He had observed in the course of his ex-
periments that pretensioning the wires was to be
recommended in order to equalize the irregulari-
ties caused by manufacture, coiling and storage.
Each wire was pretensioned in a specially built
136 Dufour: Description ... , 1824, facing p. 76 in his own
interleaved, annotated copy. Dufour Library, Geneva
137 ibid, p.31
138 ibid, p.32
139 Vicat: Rapport sur les ponts en fil de fer sur Ie Rhone,
1831, p. 119, footnote 12
 "!f
rack, using a hand crank and a cannonball of
105 kg. This tension corresponded to half its ulti-
mate strength and was in excess of the design stress
it would have to bear. The wires were uncoiled
from the drum, hooked around two horizontal bars
fixed 36 m apart, pretensioned singly with the can-
nonball, and then fixed to the rack. After all 90
wires of a cable had been fixed, they were bound
with a spiral of annealed wire before being re-
leased. As simple as this method may seem, it was
still fraught with complications. The tension of the
90 wires caused the wedges holding the horizontal
bars in position to be pressed into the posts of the
rack in spite of protective bearing plates. This
meant that the first wires had lost much of their
tension by the time the last were in place and had
to be laboriously freed and retensioned. Another
disadvantage lay in the tendency of the finished
cables to coil. Dufour explained this as possibly due
to the storage of the wire on drums and thought to
correct it in future by straightening the wires man-
ually before prestressing.
The Seguin construction was simpler. A calibrating
wire was suspended between two posts corre-
sponding in length and sag to the form of the finish-
ed cable. Wires were then spanned alongside by
hand and slung around two horseshoe-shaped
thimbles affixed to the posts. The calibrating wire
guaranteed that the relative length of all wires
would remain constant independently of the tem-
perature at which they were hung. Seguin accept-
ed differences in sag of up to 20 cm. 140
This may seem at first glance to be inexact, but in
fact, it was not. A variation in sag of 20 cm for a
cable of 30 m length which was about the longest
component prefabricated by the Seguins, entailed
a difference in length of the order of 30 mm or
0.1 % of the total. Supposing a gauge of 3 mm and
tJ·
Rack for pretensioning
cable wires with a 1 05 kg
cannonball. From Dufour:
Description du pont
suspendu en fil de fer,
Young's Modulus to be 2.1 X 10 6 kg/cm 2, about construit a Geneve 1824
140 kg force is needed to stretch the shorter wires
to meet the longer. Dufour and the Seguins took
60 kg/mm 2 as their average ultimate stress and re-
quired a safety factor of three. Therefore, a wire of
3 mm diameter could take a design load of precise-
ly 140 kg and would be expected to fail at triple
the amount, or at 420 kg. It would take a third of
the wires, originally 20 cm shorter than the others,
to reach their ultimate strain at that moment when
the longer two thirds would begin to bear the load.
Seguin took this into account. f41 Small differences
were simply to be equalized by the elasticity of the
wire, and he considered it unnecessary to go to the
trouble and expense of manufacturing cables in
which all wires were of precisely the same length
and tension. It is not clear, however, if Seguin dif-
ferentiated between elastic and plastic deforma-
tion. It is also not clear, from what we have seen of
the wire tests, whether or not some of the wire had
been improperly drawn after the ultimate anneal-
ing and did yield somewhat, which would have
improved the situation for the Seguin cables.
But the method does introduce a degree of incerti-
tude into the construction which no one conversant
with the building trades would care to counten-
ance.
Quality in building is always difficult to achieve
and maintain even with constant vigilance. Any
corners cut will invariably be further cut on site
and thus lower a previously set standard. It is clear
that such a method could be abused either by
design or inadvertantly through ignorance, by
those who sought to emulate the Seguins.
Indeed, Vicat mentioned in 1831 that he had ob-
140 ibid, p.54
141 Marc Seguin, 2nd ed., p. 80 103
 served many cables in which up to two thirds of the
wires were lax. According to above calculations,
this would have been critical under full loading
conditions. However, with respect to the examples
we can document, the situation was not acute. The
Saint Antoine Bridge had 6 X 90 wires of 2.1 mm
gauge which gave a total cross-section of
1870 mm 2. A total load of 18500 kgs per span
gives a tension of slightly under 10 kg/mm 2, or
50 % of the allowable, and 16-17 % of the ultimate
stress.
Seguin gave no data for the dead load of the Tain-
Tournon Bridge, but we can presume the same unit
load as for its small predecessor in Geneva,
133 kg/m 2• This is not an unlikely figure, as the
timber structure of the decks constituted the major
part of the deadload in both bridges, and the de-
scription shows Dufour's deck to have been the stif-
fer and therefore heavier, while the Seguin's heavi-
er trussed railing could not compensate for the
lighter deck. The Tain-Tournon was built for vehicu-
lar traffic and the Saint Antoine for pedestrians on-
ly. Today we automatically presume that wheeled
traffic is necessarily heavier than pedestrian load-
ing, particularly with the inclusion of the dynamic
stresses introduced by acceleration and braking.
But this was not the case before the advent of
motorized vehicles, as wagons and carriges neither
accelerated nor braked suddenly and they weighed
much the same as Navier's standard pedestrian
loading of 200 kg/m 2, which is precisely why he
adopted it.
Taking, therefore, the same unit load for Tain-
Tournon, we obtain a dead load of 47.5 t per span.
Accordin~ to Seguin, the liveload was to be
183 kg/m or 65.3 t, totalling 112.8 t. The bridge
had 12 cables averaging 112 wires of 3.1 mm
diameter each. The wire surface was therefore
10'142 mm 2 and the tension therefore 11 kg/mm 2
or only marginally more than in the Geneva
bridge.
Under these conditions, both bridges would have
been safe, even if two thirds of their wires had
been slack, which they wern't. We can conclude
from this that any bridges which did fail at the time,
had either been built with a much smaller margin of
104 safety or that the collapse was due to other causes
such as corrosion or failure of the abutments, rath-
er than to imprecision in the method of cable man-
ufacture.
Technically speaking, this differentiation would be
of interest, but historically it is irrelevant, as it was
Vicat's argumentation, and not the facts, which in-
fluenced further development. Vicat used the
method of cable manufacture as his chief measure
of the quality of a suspension bridge and Dufours
method, as developed for the Saint Antoine Bridge,
became the standard one adopted from 1831 on.
Seguin did not pretension his cables but he did test
them before putting them up. The test load was
equal to the design load and hung from the same
points as the deck. The method was costly but
served the same purpose as Dufour's pretensioning,
as the Seguins used it to equalize the length of the
wires by allowing them to slip a little before a per-
manent cable binding was applied. The Seguins
were thus able to eliminate much of the effect of
the initial differences in wire length, and it was
possibly this costly and time-consuming test which
the Seguin-imitators omitted, to their ultimate un-
doing.
In fact, it would have been senseless for the Seg-
uins to have attempted to use the Dufour method
at that point, as Dufour was able to obtain wire of
a much more constant gauge and strength than the
Seguins who were obliged to accept wire from
many different sources because of the large
amount they required quickly. Had the Seguins pre-
tensioned their wire using a constant force as Du-
four had done, the thinner wire would have been
more highly tensioned than the thicker and the
cable would have been far more unevenly stressed
than it actually was using the method of equalizing
the lengths after manufacture. It is a pity that Du-
four was not able to build a longer span at that
time, as it would have been interesting to see how
he would have adapted his need for precision to
suit the heterogeneous conditions imposed by a
change in structural scale. However, there is no
indication that such considerations influenced the
Seguins in the development of their method of
cable manufacture. It is possible that the fit of
method and material was coincidental. The real
weakness of the Seguin system lay in the non-
alignment of the wires within the cable, a problem
avoided in the Dufour system.
As a result of the experience gained in building his
first bridge, Dufour suspected that prestressing the
wires was perhaps not necessary after all in order
to align them, free them of kinks and ensure that
they were of equal length. In his next project he
was able to develop a much simpler and less labor-
intensive method.
The odd cable connection
The link used to connect the prefabricated cable
lengths was a strange and dangerous detail com-
posed of spools or bobbins and short cable loops.
Dufour used it only once. Originally he had pro-
posed far simpler connections using tear-drop
shaped, open eyelets, known in rope-making and
nautical terms as 'thimbles'. These were to have
been 60 mm in diameter and Dufour described
them as similar to pulley sheaves.
The solution he used was far more complicated.
The ends of two cable lengths were formed into
loops through which cast-iron bobbins of 45 mm
diameter were passed. The two opposing bobbins
were then connected by means of two short cable
loops or belts slipped over both bobbins so that the
main cable loops lay between them. The bobbins
were provided with flanges to prevent the loops
and belts from slipping off. The length of the belts
could be varied in order to adjust the length and
tension of the cables.
In elevation this detail closely resembles the con-
nection between two eyebar chain links developed
earlier in Britain by Brown, Telford and Sir Marc
BruneI. The chain connection consisted of two bolts
passed through eyes punched in the ends of the
bars and joined together by connector plates or
oblong rings. As Dufour had called the bobbins
'assembly bolts', (boulons d'assemblage) in the or-
iginal design sketch, we may presume that the
eyebar connection did in fact serve as model for
this detail.
The direct application of a 'flat' detail designed to
function differently in plan and elevation, to a con-
nection required to function identically in all direc-
tions perpendicular to the axis of a cable which is
free to twist, is odd to say the least. It introduces
.. 1\
1)
a-:
c J)
0
Connection deta:l between
11 two prefabricated cgbles.
From Dufour: Description du
pont suspendu en fil de fer,
risks which it would be better to avoid entirely, construit ci Geneve 1 824
and it is frankly incomprehensible in the work of
Dufour, who normally demonstrated a clear three-
dimensional grasp of structural problems thanks to
his training in Descriptive Geometry. Indeed, a
sketch of the thimble in the manuscript demon-
strates Dufour's ability to conceive an intricate
three-dimensional solution. Why then did he trans-
pose the flat eyebar detail unchanged to the multi-
directional cable connection? The innate discom-
fort which every constructor must feel when
confronted with such an unsuitable solution seems
then at least, not to have disturbed Dufour.
Notwithstanding the unstable equilibrium of the
detail, no serious accident was recorded during the
erection of the bridge. A single incident was report-
ed as due to the coupling, when one of the con-
nections slipped obliquely. The whole deck plank-
ing had to be removed before the cable could be
readjusted. 142 This had only happened, wrote Du-
four, because the bobbins were a little too long, and
there had been too much play between the loop,
the belts and the flanges. In future, the bobbin
length was to be calculated more precisely and the
bobbins were to be further subdivided by second-
ary flanges between each strand. A year later, in
1824, Dufour did design such subdivided bobbins
for a bridge he proposed over the Drac River near
Grenoble in Savoy. This time the bobbins could not
twist, however, as they were to connect the cables
to the anchor bars.
Marc Seguin criticized the bobbin detail from an-
other standpoint. Since the connection could move,
the varnish put on the cables to protect them from
rust would tend to flake off. He therefore only
recommended it for use in anchorages. 143
142 Dufour: Description, 1824, p. 73-74
143 Marc Seguin, 2nd ed., p.58-59 105
'Assembly bolt' of cable
connection. Sketch by
Dufour (State Archives,
Geneva)
'Thimble' used for con-
necting cables to anchoring
rods. From Dufour:
Description du pont
suspendu en fil de fer,
construit a Geneve 1824
106
.LI
II s•
....
'(u1n-..-
/' .
The whole cable system was really quite inconven-
ient. Cable lengths could not be shortened after
manufacture because of the loops. The wire of the
loops also easily became entangled during the
transport of the cables from the factory to the site
and the cable sections themselves tended to spiral
as a result of the pretensioning. To alleviate the
difficulties, Dufour therefore suggested fixing the
cable ends to rings or directly to bobbins in the
future. 144 The wires were to be cut to size and
threaded through a funnel-shaped aperture drilled
•
radially through the ring or bobbin. The ends of the
wires would then be annealed, bent and cobbled
to wedge them tightly into the funnel. Thus did
Dufour begin to develop the idea which was to
lead to the very simple and logical cable connec-
tion for his second bridge in 1825. The wedged
cable anchor, now ubiquitous in all cable struc-
tures, was Dufour's invention. He simplified the idea
by not annealing the wires which would have en-
tailed the loss of much of their tensile strength, and
fixed them with a conical wedge instead of cob-
bling each wire. This too is presaged in one of the
figures contained in the report of 1824. 145
144 Dufour: Description ... , 1824, p. 70
145 ibid, p. 65 and plate 3, figs. 16 & 17

I"
I
I
- - - - '1- _
41' ..........
I~
(, y.}<U ~;
~ ~---
=-----~~--~--------------------------~----------~---------
Dufour repeatedly returned to the discussion of the
cable connection throughout the report. The pro-
blem evidently had begun to bother him a great
deal while writing up his notes. In fact, the whole
report reads like a working paper written in an
intermediate stage of development rather than a
conventional final report. Dufour intended this to
be so and underscored this in his brief preface:
"One should not consider the bridge at
Geneva other than as a first attempt at a
new type of construction capable of being
much improved upon and which could
become generally useful. This alone motivat-
ed me to undertake this description. I
hesitated to do so for some time; but after
having reflected on the time I lost in all
I ••
>!. ,,16 _-~..._ _ I~
I ...
Detail with perspective
sketch of the thimble by
Dufour which demonstrates
Dufour's ability to think and
design three-dimensionally
(State Archives, Geneva)
_ _
'"
manner of tests and in groping about, it
seemed to me that it would render a service
to engineers to acquaint them with the
difficulties I encountered, the means I used to
surmount them and those which experience
taught me to avoid .... Writing only in the
interest of the art, and having no other goal
than that of being of use, I put my own
personal pride aside in order to indicate with
equal freedom the advantages and disad-
vantages of the methods I followed." 146
Again we note the dispassionate viewpoint of the
experimenter rather than that of the partisan entre-
preneur. This role was facilitated by his position as
146 ibid, p. 4 107
Construction of the deck in
1823. No provision was
made for adjusting the
suspender length after erec-
tion. Joist heights had to be
readjusted several times.
From Dufour: Description du
pont suspendu en fil de fer,
construit a Geneve 1824
consultant and state employee. In the spirit of his
declaration in the preface, one idea for improve-
ment follows the next from page to page of the
work with hardly a pause to evaluate their relative
merit. The work of evaluation was to be reserved
for future projects. The report therefore reads large-
ly as a diary of the design as well as of the con-
struction and erection processes - and therefore, in
the sense discussed before when considering es-
thetics - as an engineering rather than as an arch-
itectural document.
Many years later, in an introduction to a discussion
on the building of another bridge in 1835, Dufour
demonstrated this same attitude towards his work,
and noted with satisfaction that the report of
eleven years before had not been entirely without
influence:
" ... it has served as basis for many
improvements introduced in suspension sys-
tems using iron wire and several of the
108 methods indicated are still used in those
bridges now being built in such great
numbers all over the face of Europe."147
The Seguins were to use a different method for
connecting their cables, and for the test bridge at
Saint Vallier they obviated the problem by manu-
facturing the cables as single units together with
the suspenders and transportin~ them entire from
the Seguin factory to the site. 14
Suspenders and stays
Not only was the load to be evenly shared by the
wires within a cable, but the forces had to be dis-
tributed equally between the six cables as well. This
was probably the chief reason for the alternating
suspension, as each cable, being of different
length, expanded and contracted to a different
degree when the temperature changed. Thus each
147 Dufour: Pont construit a Geneve avec des chaines du
suspension en dessous, APC, 1835, p. 180
148 Marc Seguin, 2nd ed., p. 67

~ '. ~ ::J
~~ ~'----------~--------~~~
,. "
fa. -.. I..
eJ... -S:- I
, .... ""._z..
• c.. . r - " . - ,
.'
-,r
'" ..
cable was loaded only every 390 cm, which to-
gether with the skewed arrangement, resulted in an
odd configuration of varying funicular polygons in
which nothing hung plumb.
Each suspender of 12 wires formed a loop at its
lower extremity and supported the end of one joist.
A rounded groove cut into the joist prevented the
loop from slipping off. The solution was simple
and chosen because it was cheap,149 but Dufour
was not satisfied with it, as there was no way to
make a satisfactory inspection of those parts which
were hidden underneath and no easy way to adjust
the height of the joist.
The suspenders were formed as a skein by looping
the wire back and forth. Then they were slung over
the main cables and attached to them by simply
binding them on with annealed wire. The bulge of
the binding prevented them from slipping as did
the spiral binding of the suspender strand which
closed the loop at the top as tightly as possible. By
choosing a deeper sag for the test bridge than for
the structure itself, Dufour made quite certain that
suspenders fixed in this manner would hold. 150
The diagonal stays under the deck were made of
strands, prefabricated in two sections. They were
looped over T-shaped anchors cemented into the
moat walls and joined by simply pulling them tight-
ly past one another and binding them like a wire
splice. This was much simpler than the main cable
connections and allowed for easy adjustment dur-
ing erection. Dufour did not invent such stays, as
. I
. I
Cross-section showing
suspender stirrup
supporting joist and detail
of deck elevation showing
., the 'Jupiter-joint' (longitu-
dinal connection of the
f . _ , ' ~. stringers). Pencil and ink
sketch by Dufour (State
J".' _ ( . 4 ' " .. : .. Archives, Geneva)
Stevenson's illustration show them to have been
used in the primitive catwalk at Winch in 1741. The
Seguins had used one at Annonay and they were
apparently also 'retrofitted' into Brown's Trinity
Bridge in 1822. 151
The stays, like the main suspension system, offend-
ed Dufour's esthetic sense. They caused a notice-
able dip where they were anchored and forced
the deck to arch between them. This could only be
avoided by strengthening the timber structure or by
increasing the number of stays.152 They would also
be more effective if they could pull the deck verti-
cally downward, as they would be shorter and di-
rectly counteract the forces. 153 Dufour was obvious-
ly already thinking about the system he was to use
in his second bridge where he spanned a counter-
cable with 'counter-suspenders' under the deck. He
was aware that Brunei had already used it for two
chain bridges, as the information came from Na-
vier's account published in November 1823,154 just
when Dufour was finishing the manuscript of his
own report for publication.
149 Dufour: Description ... , 1824, p.37
150 ibid, p. 25
151 de Boulogne, p. 165-166
152 Dufour: Description . .. , 1824, p. 78
153 Dufour: Quelques notes sur les ponts suspend us, 1831,
p.273
154 Navier: Rapport et Memoire ..., 1823, plate 7 109
Chain bridge system with
counter-cables and counter-
suspenders for the lies
Reunion by Sir Marc Brunei,
1823. From Taylor 1829
110
Imported iron?
The railing posts, threaded at their nether ends,
served as bolts to interconnect the upper and lower
edge-beams. These and the rest of the railing were
to be made of 'English iron'.155 There has been
some confusion over the term. Both Dufour and the
Seguins had been able to obtain their wire from
local sources, and the more basic wrought iron was
even more readily available. In fact, the reference
is to the British method of producing iron in rolling
mills, in other words 'travaille au laminoir' (worked
in the 'laminator'), or 'par Ie moyen de cylindres'
(using cylinders), as Seguin puts it, as opposed to
'travaille au martinet', or hammered which was the
method by which wrought iron was generally pro-
duced on the Continent. Seguin mentioned the dif-
ference and wrote that iron produced by the British
method contained far fewer impurities than that
produced by the 'French'.156 This then, was what
Dufour was referring to when he specified 'English
iron', and he mentioned a further type, 'German
iron' in a manuscript of 1826 for a bridge proposed
over the River Po in Turin. 157
It was only much later that iron and steel could be
imported in bulk from foreign countries. Custom
duties were prohibitive and transportation costs ex-
horbitant at the beginning of the century. And until
the middle of the nineteenth century, the transpor-
tation means we now take for granted (good
weatherproof roads and railways) were few. Sir
Marc Brunei's chain bridges, prefabricated in 1822
for the lies Bourbon (now lies Reunion), and the
cast-iron bridges reportedly exported to the United
States and the Caribbean Islands produced after
the building of the first iron bridge in Coalbrook-
dale in 1779, were all small structures and were
exported as finished manufactured products in
much the same way machinery was, and not as raw
material or as simple structural components.
Robert Stephenson's Victoria Tubular Bridge over
the Saint Lawrence River at Montreal, was proba-
bly the first major bridge to use iron imported from
another country in bulk. Begun in 1852 and fin-
ished six years later, the wrought iron structure was
manufactured at the 'Canada Ironworks' in Birken-
head, England by GeorQe Robert Stephenson, the
chief engineer's cousin. 1"38 The Franz Josef Bridge
built in Prague in 1868 by the British engineer
Roland Mason Ordish, was another to use large
amounts of imported ironwork. Ordish had the steel
chains for his suspension bridge manufactured in
Leeds, and only the deck structure was ordered in
Moravia.159 Five years previously, Ordish had im-
ported prefabricated lenticular trusses of cast- and
wrought iron from England for the building of the
roof of the Weesperpoort railway station in Am-
sterdam. 160
155 Dufour: Description ..., 1824, p.40-41
156 Marc Seguin, 2nd ed., p. 76
157 Dufour ms nr. 13: Projet de Pont Suspendu pour Ie
Volentin sur Ie Po, 1826, p. 8. Travaux E 16. State
Archives Geneva
158 Elton, p. 93-94
159 de Boulogne, p. 163-164
160 Information from Mr. Nieumeijer, civil engineer, Delft
At the time Dufour was building the Saint Antoine 200 kg/m 2 for simplicity, and remained so for the
Bridge, however, the export of British construction better part of the century. This was more than
technology was extremely limited. Both Britain and sufficient, even for vehicles, as the biggest caleche,
the countries of continental Europe were recover- which at 750 kg was the largest vehicle then
ing from the Napoleonic Wars and were only used, resulted in a distributed load of only 120-
beginning to reach their mature industrial poten- 170 kg/m 2.162
tial. Marc Seguin reduced his liveload from 530 kg/m 2
in the proposal for Geneva to 183 kg/m 2 for the
Loads Tain-Tournon Bridge, while the Grand Pont Suspen-
The loads on the Saint Antoine Bridge altered du at Fribourg in 1834, which was to hold the world
drastically from the proposal to the finished struc- record span for fifteen years, was only designed
ture: for a liveload of 100 kg/m 2• This bridge, like the
Tain-Tournon, had been designed for vehicular
deadload 1822 1823 traffic. The capacity sufficed until 1881 when Ama-
cables 780 kg 700 kg dee Gremaud, Municipal Engineer of Fribourg,
timber structure 2836 kg 4500 kg wary of unusually heavy traffic in connection with
planking 931 kg 1533 kg the 400-year celebration of the union between the
railing 296 kg 1020 kg Canton of Fribourg and the Swiss Confederation,
nails and bolts 50 kg 147 kg added a supplementary set of cables and increas-
vanous 0 100 kg ed the caracity to the then still valid standard of
200 kg/m . From then on until its demolition in
total dead load 4893 kg 8000 kg 1923 the bridge carried continuingly increasing
loads without serious problems. While the French
liveload: .stayed with Navier's recommendation, early nine-
8 persons/m' = 6/joist * teenth century British engineers seem to have fa-
280 a 70 kg = 19600 kg 165 a 65 k~ = 10500 kg vored a standard of 70lb/sq ft or about 340
(321 kg/m 2) (154 kg/m ) kg/m2.163
total load 24493 kg 18500 kg The correct capacity for bridges has always re-
deadload mained a matter for debate and interpretation. In
: liveload 1:4.0 1: 1.3 1826, Dufour wrote the following in response to a
report by Navier on his proposal for a suspension
The major increase in dead load is due to the im- bridge in Fribourg:
portance Dufour attached to the apparant stabil- liAs to the load, I am well aware that it is
izing effect of the greater mass and to his attempt usual to use a maximum overload of 200 kg
to stiffen the deck by strengthening the timber per square meter. But this manner of
structure. The drastic reduction in liveload, even calculating does not seem to be necessary
lower than what Navier recommended, is nowhere except for small bridges which are liable to
clearly accounted for, and we can only surmise be covered with people and for those large
that Dufour was trying to cut costs by calculating bridges in very populous capital cities, such
with 65 instead of 70 kg/person and by taking in- as Paris, London & c. Everywhere else,
to account that six persons per joist was: probability should govern decisions so as not
a real crowd, even if the bridge can
II • • •

take still more people, as it will surely never

be required to." 161 161 Dufour: Description. 1824, p.43
"1

162 Dufour ms nr. 22: Devis descriptif et estimatif d'un

As early as 1823, Navier calculated the somewhat Pont suspendu a construire sur l'Arve .. '1 Jan. 1844,
higher value of 3 persons a 60 kg = 180 kg/m 2 as p. 7 Travaux E 16. State Archives Geneva
being a realistic load. The standard then became 163 Drewry, p. 113 111
 to succumb to exaggerated expense. And
indeed, it appears to me that on a toll
bridge in one of our Swiss cities, one could
not reasonably suppose that there would be
more than one thousand persons at anyone
time on each half of the bridge, as two
thousand persons congregated on a bridge
form a very large crowd, and one could not
have three per square meter unless they
were to be placed side by side in closed
ranks which would not be possible. Further-
more, police regulations can always prevent
large crowds from gathering on bridges."164
Dufour consciously chose not to make the load de-
pendant on the size of the surface to be loaded,
but rather on the amount of traffic to be expected
at the site. If we regard the problem as he did, we
realize that there is no inherent absolute correct-
ness to our modern way of calculating with a stan-
dard unit of load per surface. It is merely a conven-
ient convention and can, on occasion, even be very
wasteful. In fact, it would be both economical and
logical to design a small bridge and a large one
built on the same stretch of road for the same total
load and therefore for very different capacities per
square meter. In our assessment of the evolution of
modern civil engineering, we are obliged, time and
time again, to rethink the channels into which our
way of considering structural behavior has been
molded. We must admit that there is a forceful
logic about the way Dufour regarded the problem
and that there are clearly alternatives to our
present way of viewing structural problems. Stan-
dard load assumptions were not yet habitual when
Dufour wrote this, and it was Navier's attitude
which wrought the change. This change in the field
of engineering is one of the factors which render
the evolution of the wire cable bridge so fasci-
nating to follow. Our example again demonstrates
the transition between the empirical, traditional
approach where each loading condition and each
solution were treated individually, and the attempt
to coordinate, standardize, and thus systematize
our understanding of the behavior of structures. By
codifying each aspect, Navier was able to create a
system permitting the analysis of structures based
112 on common assumptions which therefore made
them comparable. While, on the one hand, this
opened up myriad possibilities leading to modern
engineering, it simultaneously led to a regimen-
tation and therefore a drastic reduction of other
viewpoints and possibilities.
The recommendations underlying Navier's system
had not yet achieved the status of law in France.
Practising engineers often tried to keep their op-
tions open and used both approaches to their ad-
vantage. Seguin shared Dufour's attitude when he
wrote as late as 1826 in the second edition of 'Des
ponts en fil der fer':
" ... one usually evaluates it [the loadl, by
supposing the bridge covered with as many
persons as it can take, each requiring a
space of three square feet. However, when
working for the needs of a family, a village
or in a place where traffic is small, one can
understand that it is quite possible to lower
the requirement, as the probability of such a
load is so small as to be considered
non-existent."165
And it is a fact that both the Grand Pont Suspendu,
the largest span in the world and the Saint Antoine
Bridge, served well for many years in spite of their
low capacities by today's standards. The Saint An-
toine Bridge stood about 25 years. Since the ulti-
mate capacity of the cables was 18 t and the
maximum allowable load per cable 4628 kg, this
gave a safety factor of 3.9, almost 25% higher
than recommended. 166 Only a single case of struc-
tural damage was reported due to loading. It was
mentioned in a letter from the president of the
bridge corporation, Jean Heyer, to the Mayor of
Geneva and was written on June 11, 1833. The
Geneva Militia had damaged the structure. Heyer
reported that he had asked Dufour to check it and
that Dufour had found it to be safe for pedestrian
traffic. 167 The type of damage is not mentioned,
but it was possibly the rupture of the stays under
164 Dufour ms nr. 11: Observations sur Ie rapport de
M. Navier, pp. 1-2. Travaux E 16. State Archives
Geneva
165 Marc Seguin, 2nd ed., p.51
166 Niigele ms nr. 31
167 Letter from Jean Heyer 11 June 1833. Travaux AA
no. 151. State Archives Geneva

the deck mentioned by Dufour in an article
published in 1834. 168
In preparation for the transfer of the bridge
franchise from the corporation to the city upon ex-
piration of the original twenty-year contract, Du-
four was requested, in his capacity as State Engi-
neer, to examine the long-term behavior of the
structure. Dufour had a scientific interest in the most
objective examination possible and carried out a
number of tests to determine the residual strength
in those parts where he suspected deterioration. His
choice fell on the wire stirrups at the lower ends of
the suspenders of which he had disapproved at the
outset. In the article subsequently published in both
the 'Annales des Ponts et Chaussees' in Paris and
the 'Bibliotheque Universelle' in Geneva, he was
able to state that the stirrups had suffered no de-
Photograph of the Saint
Antoine Bridge during the
demolition of the fortifica-
tions, 1850-1860. Note
person with wheelbarrow
on deck (Musee d'art et
d'histoire, Service Vieux-
Geneve)
crease in strength in the course of the twenty years
they had been in service. The conditions of the
main cables also appears to have been very good,
as they had been well maintained.
When he had satisfied himself as to the general
condition of the members, Dufour undertook a
load test of 100 kg/m 2, or 2/3 of the design
load, whereby the bridge performed admirably.
During this test, the load was increased by several
hundreds of kilograms and twelve men added their
dynamic load to the deck while piling the material
on.169 The total load was therefore well in excess of
168 Dufour: Description d'un pont construit a Geneve
d'apres un nouveau mode de suspension, 1834,
pp. 264-265
169 Dufour, APe, 1844, 2e.sem., p. 96; BU vol. 50, 1844,
p. 365 113
 the design load. The test was to have been moni-
tored for twelve hours, but the results were so en-
couraging, no unusual deflection being detected,
that the decision was made to abandon it after
only five hours had lapsed. The unloading took
place asymmetrically, so Dufour had an opportu-
nity to observe whether or not the main cables
would slip over the middle pier. They remained in
place even though the stays contributed nothing to
the stability of the deck and remained slack
throughout the entire testing period. Finally, at the
end of the unloading operation, five men drew a
heavy cart over the bridge. But even with a total of
1200 kg moving over it, the bridge remained unal-
tered. The structure was as solid as it had been
when built 21 years before. Only the oscillation of
the deck had increased due to the relaxation of the
timber connections in the deck and the shrinkage
of the wood itself.
On July 21, 1843, the 'Conseil d'Etat' commissioned
Dufour to take possession of the bridge and trans-
fer it to the ownership of the city.170 This was ac-
complished without further ado. Then on May 5,
1844, his report was submitted to the Department
of Public Works, and he was ordered to inspect the
bridge again on August 20.
At some date before 1864,171 the Saint Antoine
Bridge was demolished in the course of the removal
of that portion of the city fortifications on which it
stood. The exact date does not appear in the docu-
ments of the 'Chambre des travaux publics', but the
law authorizing the demolition of the fortifications
passed in 1849 and was ratified by the Federal
Council in Berne in 1850. 172
114
Aside from the manuscript documentation, a plan
and two old photographs, a contemporary model
of one of the spans is the only surviving remains of
this pioneering structure. The model, housed in the
collection of the 'Musee d'art et d'histoire' in Ge-
neva, is very detailed and may either have been
built as a study model for Dufour himself, or as a
demonstration model for another proposal he sent
to St. Petersburg that year. Everything concerning
the structure is accurately represented down to the
last detail, whereas the visual aspect of the whole,
which is normally the main interest in exhibition
models, is treated more rudimentarily.
It is fortunate indeed that we possess a continuous
documentation of almost every aspect and of all
phases of the design and execution of this remark-
able bridge. The development from the manuscript
of November 1822 to the report published in spring
1824, later supplemented by copious notes in
Dufour's own copy, trace the evolution of the
methods used by an inventive engineer in that
period so crucial to the growth of modern engi-
neering. Dufour worked against a lively back-
ground, when engineering was changing from
empirical 'art' into that form of thought now known
as 'technology'. Not only do we have all this, but
we also possess parallel work of another type of
engineer, from a different background; Seguin, the
self-made, highly gifted original, provides a coun-
terpoint to the academically trained Dufour.
From these tentative beginnings, the new bridge
type slowly evolved step by step, and a structural
type was established.
170 Dufour, APC, 1844, 2e.sem., p. 95; BU vol. 50, 1844,
p.364
171 see Dulk, column 38. Dulk, writing in 1864, notes that
both the Saint Antoine Bridge and Dufour's second
bridge over the Geneva ramparts, the Paquis Bridge,
had been removed. The Paquis Bridge was demolished
shortly before 1853. (Dufour: Note sur la confection des
cables ... 1853, p. 36)
172 Paul Edmond Martin, p. 92
5 The establishment of a structural type
The novelty intrigued professionals and dilettantes
alike. Those who could afford to indulge in build-
ing as a pastime tried their hand at suspension
bridges. They became the rage and several were
built in the months immediately following the open-
ing of the Saint Antoine Bridge. A few of the
builders published articles on their structures. In
tone they all read very like the fashionable ac-
counts of dilettante experimentation in 'natural
philosophy' in the eighteenth century with the slight
difference that the social benefits of cheap, solid
construction are occasionally stressed. Although
these men were not builders and contributed less
by design than by chance to the advancement of
structural knowledge or technique, their interest
did help gain acceptance in financial and political
circles for professional work in the field.
Bridges at Liancourt, Passy
and elsewhere in the environs of Paris
In September 1923, the Duc de la Rochefoucauld
built a small wire cable bridge of 18 m span at
Liancourt. He published a short account in the Bul-
letin of the French 'Society for the Encouragement
of National Industry' stating that he had been in-
fluenced only by the articles published in the Bi-
, /,;yu /
bliotheque Universelle which would have been
Pictet's of 1822 and the Dufour letter to Pictet of
1823. 1 There followed a fashionable rash of gen-
tlemanly concern with this type of construction,
and further bridges appeared on estates in the
environs of Paris belonging to the Duc d'Orieans,
the Duc de Plaisance 2 and to Baron Delessert.
Delessert's footbridge of 1824 at Passy, now part
of Paris, indicates how quickly the new idea
spread. The builder, Baron Jules Paul Benjamin
Delessert, a banker, industrialist, philanthropist
and patrician of Genevan decent, probably had
no personal contact at all with Dufour. Delessert
had been impressed by Brown's Tweed Bridge and
chain pier at Penhaven while on a visit to Eng-
land 3, and had determined to experiment with the
new type. Not being biased toward either the
chain or the cable system which he must have en-
countered via the many current articles on Annon-
ay, Geneva and Tain-Tournon, Delessert determin-
ed to use both systems at once in a span of 52 m.
He kept much closer to Brown's form than did Du-
1 de la Rochefoucauld, p. 38
2 Tarbe, p.34
3 Tarbe, p.33
Elevation of Benjamin
Delessert's chain and cable
bridge at Passy. From Tarbe
1825
115

Detail of cable and chain
arrangement of Passy
Bridge. From Tarb€! 1825
four or Seguin. A pair of chains hung above two
pairs of cables on each side of the deck. The pairs
were linked by yokes which bore the suspenders in
much the same fashion as they had in the Tweed
Bridge with the suspenders from above passing
between the cable pairs below. Each suspender
was still only attached to a single pair of cables or
chains. Nevertheless, Delessert did arrange all ca-
bles and chains parallel to one another which was
a vast improvement over the festoon system. A
detail of the cables shows them ending in loops
and bound spirally similarly to Dufour's. It is prob-
able that Delessert had seen Dufour's book and
profited from his experience. He did, as had Ro-
116 chefoucauld, provide threaded bolts at the lower
- J
ends of the suspenders for easy adjustment of the
joist alignment, while all other details seem to
have been derived from Brown. The pylons were
straightforward timber trestles, and the backs pan
anchorages simple stakes imbedded in stone with
iron reinforcement.
A lithographed view of mysterious origin, purport-
ing to be Delessert's Passy Bridge, shows a festoon
system identical in almost all respects to that of
the Saint Antoine Bridge. The railing is made of
wood and not iron and it is stiffer, resembling
more that built by the Seguins at Saint Vallier. Al-
though the title of the view calls it a 'suspension
bridge in chain and iron wire', there is no visible
evidence of the use of chains. From the size of the

figures and their relationship to the height and the
sizing of the railing elements, the suspenders seem
to be spaced about 100 cm apart and the span
about 55-60 m long which corresponds well with
the actual length of the Passy Bridge. However,
the pier and abutment breach a city wall, where
none existed on the Delessert estate. The litho-
graph certainly does not show the bridge it pur-
ports to depict. Was it an early version of the
bridge proposal, or was it merely an artist's fan-
tasy based on the Saint Antoine Bridge? We may
never know, but it does demonstrate the influence
the Saint Antoine Bridge was beginning to exert
by 1824.
Test bridge at Vienna
Not all early proposals were the work of gentle-
View purporting to be
Delessert's bridge, but
showing the Saint Antoine
system. Lithograph 1824
man amateurs. Professionals began to show inter-
est too. And some of their bridges show signs of
Dufour's influence. One, also built in 1824, was by
Ferdinand Edler von Mitis, an engineer with the
Imperial Austrian Department of Hydraulic Engi-
neering. Mitis erected a tiny, 9.5 m long, experi-
mental wire bridge in Vienna. He was a brother of
Ignaz Edler von Mitis who was to build a number
of chain bridges in Austria, starting the same year.
Among these were the famed Sophien Bridge of
1825 for which Ferdinand von Mitis designed
some of the details, and the Karl's Bridge of 1828
which was the first to use steel instead of wrought
iron chains.
The four-page description Mitis published, con-
tained an account of the experiment, a table of
wire and loading tests and a plate showing the 117
View of Ferdinand von
Mitis's test bridge at
Vienna. From Mitis 1824
Detail of suspender connec-
tion to main cable using
bobbin. Mitis test bridge.
From Mitis 1824
118
,)
. ~.
bridge with several details. It is a much more pro-
fessional discussion than those of the French dilet-
tantes and betrays his familiarity with practical
problems of construction technique. But, in con-
trast to the French examples, no sources are given
here for either ideas or details, and neither Seguin
nor Dufour are named. The author mentions only
the German theoretician Eytelwein, from whom he
borrowed an erroneous value for the tensile
strength of iron.
We cannot, of course, be certain that Mitis had
read Dufour, but some of his details seem to indi-
cate that he had. One was the attachment of the
suspender to the main cables by means of a bob-
bin and another was the adoption of Dufour's
wire splice and the manner of testing it. 4 The ca-
ble manufacture also more or less followed the
Dufour method,S as did the cable coupling.
There were differences, too. The suspenders car-
ried longitudinal stringers rather than transverse
joists. And, even though Mitis retained the alter-
nating suspension, the pairs of main cables lay
parallel and vertically above one another, an ar-
rangement the Seguins may have adopted for
Saint Vallier the same year and which Dufour was
to use in 1825.
Mitis's test bridge was successful. So it is odd that
it had no influence whatsoever on suspension
bridge building in Austria which thenceforth con-
centrated solely on chain construction. Four chain
bridges were to be built in Vienna in the five years
immediately after this test, and others followed
thereafter in Graz and rural locations throughout
the Austro-Hungarian Empire. We can only surmise
4 von Mitis, p. 3
S ibid, p. 3
that similar economic conditions to those pre-
valent in Great Britain favored the use of eyebar
chains in Austria.
Books begin to appear on the subject
At the same time that the proliferation of proto-
typical bridges and articles about them occured,
professional literature in the form of books also
began to appear. All of these were derivative
from the French. The first in German, published in
1824, was C. F. W. Berg's book 'Der Bau der Hange-
brOcken aus Eisendraht nach Stevenson, Seguin,
Dufour, Navier u.a.' and this may have been Mitis's
source. Berg is occasionally imprecise and displays
a lack of experience with construction technique,
as his misunderstanding of the Dufour splice
shows,6 but in general it provides a good over-
view.
Having found nothing in Germany to resemble the
new wire system, Berg described both the Dufour
and the Seguin methods in detail and reproduced
the results of their wire experiments in extensio.
Thus he contributed to the spread of modern ma-
terial technology and brought the very latest infor-
mation to the attention of German-speaking pro-
fessionals. Central Europe had few suspension
bridges of any type before 1824, and those few
that existed used chains. The best known was the
new Strassnitz Bridge over the March River near
Brno (BrOnn) in Czechoslovakia, one of the first to
be built by Friedrich Schnirch who later achieved
international renown for his many chain bridges,
among them the 1860 railway suspension bridge
in Vienna which was the second successful such
structure in the world.
A similar, but less ambitious pamphlet of 30 pages
appeared in Italian the same year, a reprint of a
lengthy article in the 'Arcadio di scienze, lettere
ed arti' by Luigi Poletti who compared the Dry-
burgh, the Tweed and the Geneva bridges and
favored Dufour's over all others?
Italy had no suspension bridges at all at this time.
Dufour was to propose the first for Turin in 1826,
but it was never built. The first Italian cable struc-
ture actoolly erected was apparantly a 6 m span,
much like the Mitis test bridge, built at Quinto
shortly before 1831. It led to the Villa Paolina
owned by Prince Camillo Filippo Borghese, the
Francophile husband of Paulette Bonaparte. 8 This
bridge still spans the Via di Careggi and may very
well be the oldest wire cable bridge still extant.
Two more, the San Fernando and the San Leopol-
do Bridges of the festoon type and of about 90 m
span each, were built in 1835 and 1837 by Camille
Seguin for the Seguin firm over the Arno In
Florence. 9
Dufour's contribution to the further
development
Dufour drew up many proposals for bridges des-
tined never to be built. In fact, the archives con-
tain many more proposals that remained projects
than were actually carried out. Examining the evo-
lution of their carefully described construction
and detailing from project to project, we can fol-
low the development of the wire cable system as it
progressed along with Dufour's increasing experi-
ence and his awareness of that of his contempor-
aries. Unfortunately Dufour did not record every
project he proposed, particularly in the very early
period. He never mentioned one, for instance, for
a Moika Bridge in Saint Petersburg, which he sub-
mitted in model form in 1824. 10
The Drac Bridge at Grenoble
A proposal for the Drac Bridge is the earliest one
surviving of the many to be found in the archives.
It was clearly influenced by the two most notable
suspension structures of the day: the proposal for
the Tain-Tournon Bridge with its two spans of 85 m
and the longest span in the world, Telford's Menai
chain bridge of 177 m span, then under erection.
The surviving manuscript, dated 1824, is the rough
draft of a proposal sent to Baron Charles Lemer-
cier de Longpre d'Haussez, Prefect of the Depar-
6 Berg, p.76 compared to Dufour: Description ... 1824,
pp.19-20
7 I am indebted to Julia Elton, London, for tracing and
examining the only known copy of this brochure in the
British Museum Library.
8 Orlandi, pp. 167-170 with illustration
9 Orla'ldi, p. 50 and Bardeschi pp. 47 -59, illustrated on
pp.190-196
10 'Saint Petersburg-pont suspendu en chaines' Revue
encyc!opedioue, vol. 23, 1824, p. 746 119
 tement Isere. Judging from the development of the
design as well as from several references to the
Saint Antoine Bridge, it was presumably written
just after the first bridge's completion.
The Drac River is short, just over 100 km long,
and it joins the Isere at Grenoble. The proposed
site is not named, although the components were
to have been manufactured in Grenoble. The most
probable place would have been Pont-de-Claix,
just outside the city, where a span as large as the
proposed 165 m might be expected. The bridge
built in 1827 by Jourdan to Louis Joseph Matthias
Crozet's design was the first French chain bridge
actually completed, had a span of 130 m and was
situated at a spot 7 km above Claix. 11
Encouraged by the success of the Geneva Bridge
and inspired by the possibility of building the sec-
ond largest span in the world, Dufour proposed
an ambitious structure, a single span between 165
and 170 m long and 7.6 m wide with a double
carriageway flanked by two raised sidewalks. Fol-
lowing both Seguin's and Telford's lead, the cables
were to have a very shallow sag, 1 : 15. The span
was to be carried by 24 cables, which number was
reduced to 18 in the final version. Had Dufour
been able to carry this project through, he would
not only have had the distinction of erecting the
first permanent wire bridge and the first perma-
nent suspension bridge on the European continent,
but he would also have developed the type into
an ideal system for the longest spans. But this was
not to be, and the cable system was only to as-
sume that role ten years later.
Dufour did not envisage using his tested system,
but characteristically set about to solve all the
problems he had encountered in the construction
of the first bridge. The cables were to lie parallel
to one another in three superimposed planes of
three cables each. Pyramidal piers carried grooved
saddles fitted with iron sheaves, stacked in three
layers. 12 Once again, Dufour neglected to use the
railing for stiffening, and he even proposed inter-
rupting it at midspan where the main cables hung
low enough to serve in lieu of guardrails.
The cables were to have 500 wires each and he
calculated with an allowable stress 2.5 % higher
120 than he had for the Saint Antoine Bridge. No sug-
gestion was made as to how such cables were to
be raised or joined from individual strands in mid-
air. Combining several strands to form a single
cable was only done in France after 1828. Per-
haps Dufour intended to use a similar technique to
that used for the 180-190 m long chains of the
Menai Bridge which were just then being lifted in-
to place. Although that method was only to be
published in 1828 by Provis, the assistant who
worked on the bridge, it is to be expected that the
interested engineer could have had access to
eyewitness accounts of the most sensational build-
ing process of the age.
The anchor bars of the backspans were fanned
out both in elevation and plan in order to incor-
porate as large an anchor mass as possible. But
here too, he allowed for 30% more tensile
strength in the anchor bars, and the danger of
yield would have been even greater than in the
first project. The design live load was taken to be
equivalent to nine fully loaded horse-drawn wag-
ons, little indeed for such a span, but sizeable for
a rural bridge. This gave a load of 54.2 kg/m 2
which made it easy for Dufour to demonstrate a
safety factor of three.
The question of liveloads was still not standard-
ized, and the Drac proposal was designed for the
same liveload as the Menai Bridge. Had it been
built, it might easily have suffered a fate similar to
Telford's bridge which had to be strengthened a
first time during erection with transverse lattice
bracing spanning between the chains above the
deck, a second time in 1836 when part of the
deck was destroyed by a storm, and finally a third
time in 1839 when the deck was completely rede-
signed and substantially stiffened.
'Cheese-paring' tactics made everything just a lit-
tle too weak. In this respect, the proposal is unique
amongst Dufour's bridge designs which are other-
wise all very solid. The temptation to try and build
one of the largest spans in the world must have
been overpowering. It was terribly important to
11 Vicot: Ponts suspendus en fil de fer sur Ie Rhone, 1831,
p. 133, footnote 24
12 Dufour, ms nr. 9: Projet du pont suspendu en fil de fer
sur Ie Droc 1824, p. 2

-
... .-. ,- -
-
.............
the young engineer to have his project accepted,
and he therefore tried to make it as economical as
possible, counting perhaps on being able to in-
crease dimensions and decrease stresses later. He
misjudged the jury, however, who refused it.
Whether they did so because it was of wire and
Navier's influence made itself felt, or because it
was too weak or too audacious a span, we can no
longer judge.
The safety factor
The adoption of a safety factor of three, however
tenuous it may have been in this case, is yet an-
other instance of the habits which were slowly
being formed on the basis of the new way of
.- Proposal for Drac Bridge
with packet of 3 X 3 cables
per side (only one series of
three shown). Sketch on
tracing paper by Dufour.
(State Archives, Geneva)
_. . . .. .,..... -
YO'
,-
thinking in 'systems'. The value three was derived
from the practise of British engineers who had
been using it for about 25 years. They had based
it on empirical observation of the elastic behavior
and the yield point of wrought iron, and thus on
the relationship between ultimate stress and safe
loading. Subsequently it became general. As Marc
Seguin noted in 1826:
'In their large projects, the English have
been giving their chains three times the
strength required by calculation, experience
having shown them that iron can be subject-
ed to a third of the tension at which it will
fracture without alteration. This result has
been confirmed by the elegant experiments 121
 of Mr. Duleau)13] from which it appears that
iron subjected to this load only elongates
very little and contracts again to its original
dimensions when the force is relaxed. If one
adds to this the authority of Mr. Navierl14]
who, havin~ made a profound study of this
effect ... "1
Dufour also referred to these experiments in 1831
when he wrote:
"This limit, on which a fairly general consen-
sus has been reached, is the result of
numerous experiments made on the strength
of iron and from which it appears that the
bars or wires start to stretch enough to lose
their elasticity when loaded with a third of
the weight which causes them to fracture."16
The dangerously high stress he permitted in the
anchor bars of the Saint Antoine and Drac Bridges
may have been an oversight, since engineers at the
time were obviously aware of the problem of yield.
But raising the allowable stress in the Drac cables
by 2.5 % was an attempt to cheapen the structure.
So was the adoption of a hazardously low liveload.
Had Dufour calculated with the standard French
200 kg/m 2, he would still have had a safety factor
of two. Although he had observed in his tests that
wire did not yield until it failed, he had obviously
not drawn the conclusion that stress hardening in
the manufacture of wire did away with the problem
of yield altogether and caused wire to retain its
elastic behavior until very close to the point of fail-
ure. He would have considered a safety factor of
two, which is, in fact, acceptable for wire, to have
been dangerous.
Further weaknesses in the proposal
Being anxious to have the project accepted at all
costs, Dufour tolerated far more deflection than
was prudent. The increase in cable sag due to ther-
mal expansion would have been 21 cm, and add-
ed to this, the maximum deflection under a load
of two wagons crossing at midspan would have
been 37 cm:
"This deflection is considerable, but it is a
limit which will never be reached, 1stly,
because the bridge is not completely flexible
122 as the formula supposes, 2ndly, because the
weight of two wagons and their horses is
necessarily distributed over a certain length
instead of being concentrated, and 3rdly,
finally, because it would be a coincidence
indeed if two wagons were to meet
precisely in the middle, and if they were to
meet anywhere else, the deflection would be
the less the farther away from the middle
they meet. A single wagon will cause the
bridge to deflect by not more than 15 to
16 cm."17
The argument is, of course, correct. But the impres-
sion it gives is one of self-justification for stinginess.
Dufour even suggested several ways in which the
structure could be further cheapened. One was to
halve the already skimpy liveload. He did, how-
ever, have qualms about his method of presenting
the project, and wrote:
"But all these restrictions seem to me to be
unsuitable with regard to a structure which is
to do honor to one of the principle cities of
the realm, and in any case, the bridge would
be less stable in virtue of the fact that it has
less mass."18
Dufour counted on an increase in inertia due to
the large mass, to stiffen the structure. No other
stiffening was provided for. The problem did worry
him, however, as is testified by a manuscript note
added to his own copy of the 1824 report on the
first bridge. Stays of the type used on the first
bridge were of little use, he noted, as they slacken-
ed when the main cables lengthened due to ther-
mal expansion. Stability should therefore be achiev-
ed primarily through the strength and dead load of
the deck. However, if turnbuckles were to be plac-
ed on the stays and on the midspan suspenders,
adjustments could be made for temperature
changes. 19 As far-fetched and troublesome as this
13 Duleau, p. 54
14 Navier: Rapport et Memoire ... 1823, p. 112
15 Marc Seguin, 2nd ed. 1826, p. 52
16 Dufour: Quelques notes sur les ponts suspendus, 1831,
p.263
17 Dufour ms nr. 9: Proiet du pont suspendu en fil de fer
a construire sur Ie Drac 1824, p. 7
18 ibid, p. 10
19 Dufour: Description ... 1824, ms. note facing p. 66 in
Dufour's copy
idea may seem, similar solutions appeared in later
bridges.
The way in which the proposal was presented may
testify to a lack of maturity, but the detailing of the
bridge clearly showed the experience gained in the
construction of the Saint Antoine Bridge. Bobbins
or pins were only used for connecting the cables to
the anchor bars where they could not rotate. Du-
four was very much aware of the potential danger
to cast-iron pins from shock loading. But he had
observed that such loads were in practise always
sufficiently dampened by the elasticity of the sus-
pension system and he knew they would not suffer.
The arrangement of the nine parallel cables in
three tiers of three each, analogous to Delesserfs,
almost certainly stemmed from Telford's arrange-
ment of the chains in the Menai Bridge. It was de-
finitely a better arrangement than the system the
Seguins persisted in using.
The proposal for the Drac Bridge was to remain a
fragment. We cannot surmise what means would
have been employed to compensate for varying
wire quality when Dufour too would have been
obliged to accept wire from several mills. The near-
ly world-record span would certainly have entailed
major structural innovations during erection. What
the proposal does show, however, is Dufour's con-
tinuing quest for simple and logical solutions, and a
growing independance of the Seguins' develop-
ment which points clearly in the direction of his
second bridge, the Paquis Bridge of 1825.
Two bridges by the Seguins
Because of the unprecedented spans of 85 m and
the decision to use their Rhone bridge for vehicular
,{".J .
traffic, the Seguins considered it necessary to
build their own test structure in 1824. Their Galore
Bridge at Saint Vallier spanned 30 m over a small
tributary of the Rhone, about 17 km upstream from
Tain I'Hermitage. The differences between the Du-
four and the Seguin test structures underscore yet
again the differences between the two engineers:
Dufour built his, not as a bridge at all, but as a
system model to test his structural ideas and princi-
ples while Marc Seguin, although he had the same
objective in mind, was first and foremost an astute
man of business. He therefore made the general
examination of principles of suspension systems his
second priority and sought out a client to pay for
his testing in the form of a full-scale bridge project.
Seguin had made substantial advances in his ability
to calculate such structures over his proposal for
the Geneva bridge. Navier's book had appeared,
and he now used Navier's and Coulomb's methods
to calculate the horizontal thrust, the vertical forces
and the sag. 20
The Galore Bridge was the only one of the Seguins'
structures to have parallel wire cables and not fes-
toons. The suspenders were rods and not cables. 21
An illustration of what may represent this bridge is
to be found in the second edition of Marc Seguin's
book. 22 It shows parallel double cables side by
side, similar to Delessert's, lying as they do in mod-
ern suspension bridges, and corresponds to what
Drewry describes as the system used. The first edi-
tion of Seguin, shows two similar structures,23 in
20 Descrizione, pp. 49-50
21 Drewry
22 Marc Seguin, 2nd ed., 1826, plate 2, figs. 11 & 12
23 Marc Seguin, 1st ed., 1824, plate 1, figs. 2 & 3
Version of the Saint Vallier
Bridge over the Galore by
the Seguins 1824. Twin
parallel cables shown side
by side. From Marc Seguin:
Des ponts en fiI de fer,
2nd ed., 1826
123
 , ;;;;.
Another version of the Saint
Vallier Bridge showing twin
cables one above the other.
From Marc Seguin: Des
ponts en fil de fer, 1st ed.,
1824
which the cables lie one above the other like von
Mitis's. It is therefore unclear which of the two sys-
tems the Seguins finally did prefer for the Galore
Bridge, but the fact remains that, for some obscure
reason, the bridge at Saint Vallier remained the
only example of parallel main cables in the whole
series of Seguin-built bridges. Marc Seguin made
no mention of the reasons for trying this configura-
tion and, above all, none of why it was abandoned
again.
In spite of the pairing of the cables at Saint Vallier,
the suspenders were still hung alternately from a
single cable, thus cancelling any structural advant-
age the new arrangement of parallel cables had
over the old system. The sag was greater than in
any other of the early wire cable bridges, 1 : 7.3,
and the wire must have been thicker too, as there
were only 30 per cable. Tests showed the Saint
Vallier Bridge to be so stable that it would not move
even when a horse crossed it at full gallop or four
of the Seguin brothers marched over it in step. The
reason for this exceptional stiffness was, of course,
the truss which the Seguins had placed on both
sides of the deck to serve as railings. This was a
most significant innovation chosen from a multitude
of different possibilities:
"One of the greatest inconveniences of
suspension bridges being the wobbling
caused by every moving body with a certain
mass, one must use every possible means to
give them rigidity. The best I know is to
install, as a parapet, an assembly of pieces
of wood composed of two layers of beams
... connected and kept at a distance of one
124 meter apart by crosspieces ... in the form of
a St. Andrew's cross joined end to end and
making a right angle. This assembly is kept in
place by means of iron bolts ... which,
piercing the pieces of wood between the
joints of the crosspieces, permit the whole to
be tensioned as much as desired, giving it a
great solidity."24
The Seguins were not the first to use railings to
stiffen a suspension bridge. Finley had suggested it
originally, and the Smith brothers had used the rail-
ings of their second Dryburgh Abbey Bridge of
1818 to enhance the stability of the structure too.
However, the Seguins were the first to rely exclusive-
lyon the efficacity of a truss. The form they adopt-
ed was that later patented in the United States by
Howe in 1840. From 1824 on, the stiffening truss in
the form of a railing became the standard solution
for suspension bridges. The success of the Galore
Bridge, which collapsed under a pedestrian load in
1844,25 led to many modifications in the Tain-
Tournon project which had originally been planned
without stiffening.
The first Tain-Tournon proposal was far simpler
than the final version. As it was only to carry ped-
estrian traffic, it had had only ten cables on either
side. The suspenders carried cast-iron joists similar
to those being cast at that time for Navier's Inva-
lides Bridge in Paris. The railings were originally
wire mesh hung from the suspenders. In an inter-
mediate stage, the bridge was redesigned for a
single lane of vehicular traffic, and in the final ver-
sion, the deck was widened over a distance of 18 m
24 Marc Seguin, 2nd ed., pp. 61-62
25 Marchal, p. 36
on either side of the middle pier to accomodate
two vehicles passing one another, modifying the
single-lane version without incurring much addi-
tional expense. This led to a further complication of
the already skewed festoons and suspenders which
reminded Seguin of a cradle. 26
In its final form the proposal was approved by the
ponts et Chaussees on January 22, 1824. Construc-
tion began on May 28, and the finished bridge was
opened to the public fifteen months later, on Au-
gust 25, 1825.
Dufour preferred continuous double spans while
the Seguins invariably anchored theirs individually.
Festoons with three cable pairs per side passed
over grooved stone caps lined with sheet metal to
prevent fraying and were attached to vertical an-
chor bars let into the masonry base of the central
pier. Seguin's plates do not show the details, but
from the description, they resembled those shown
by Vicat.27 Each cable, averaging 112 wires, was
prefabricated in lengths of 30 m. The outermost
cables lay 120 cm farther apart on the saddles
than the innermost, and they were cambered in -
ward to lie vertically one above the other at mid-
span, spread over a height of 90 cm, just as had
been done in the case of the Saint Antoine Bridge.
Although only half the span of the Drac, the Tain-
Tournon Bridge demonstrated the type of detail
problem Dufour would have had to overcome. On
each abutment saddle, a cast-iron shoe with twelve
adjustable screws, balanced on a pivot, served to
tighten and adjust the cable lengths. 28 In later pro-
jects, the adjustment of the cables was relegated to
a turnbuckle on each cable at midspan while the
pivoting block became the pin-jointed or rocking
cast-iron pylon which first made its appearance in
the Seguins' Bry-sur-Marne Bridge of 1832. The
rocking pylon was destined to cause no end of
trouble in many later bridges, finally leading to a
government ban on its use in France. 29
The cable coupling was far superior to that of
the Saint Antoine Bridge. The horseshoe-shaped
thimble on one of the cables to be joined was re-
placed by two of half the thickness, each taking
half the wires. The end of the second cable was
then passed between these two and all three thim-
26 More Seguin, 2nd ed., p. 23
27 Vicat: pants suspend us en fil de fer sur Ie Rhone, 1831,
pI. 3, fig. 1
28 ibid, p. 24 & fig. 10 pI. 2 (fig. 9 pI. 1 of the 1sl ed.)
29 government regulation of 1870, cited in de Boulogne
Detail of truss of the type
Howe was to patent in the
United States in 1840, used
as stiffening truss by the
Seguins from 1824 on. From
Marc Seguin: Des ponts en
fil de fer, 2nd ed. 1826

Final version of the

Tain-Tournon Bridge over
the Rhone in Lyons by the
Seguins 1825. The widened
deck in the middle provided
a layby for wheeled traffic
moving in opposite
directions on the single-lane
bridge. From Marc Seguin:
I. , Des ponts en fil de fer,
~I 2nd ed. 1826
I.:J
125
 bles were replaced with a single ring. 3D The sus-
penders, manufactured in the same way as the ca-
ble sections, were secured by binding as they had
been in Geneva. Those nearest the piers, being the
steepest, were guyed back to the piers with wires
for added safety.
The foundation of the middle pier was a novelty as
it rested on a concrete foundation in the river made
of an artificial hydraulic cement. Roman engineers
had used natural hydraulic cement for underwater
construction, but the technique had been largely
neglected until the end of the eighteenth century.
John Smeaton's analysis of the chemical properties
---~------ of hydraulic mortar had been done in 1756 in con-
Pivoting cast-iron connector junction with the building of the Eddystone Light-
for fixing cables to pylon house and only published in 1791, a year before
tops in the Tain-Tournon his death)' Based on this, Vicat had published the
Bridge. From Marc Seguin :
Des ponts en fil de fer, results of a five-year research program involving
2nd ed. 1826 hydraulic cement in 1818. 32 This had led to a
rapid development of artifical hydraulic cements in
France paralleling that in Britain. Vicat had used his
cement as mortar for a masonry bridge at Souillac
in 1819, and the Seguins were the first to test it
as concrete in an underwater foundation.
Tain I'Hermitage and Tournon still boast a wire ca-
ble bridge built by the Seguin brothers. Daumas
presumes it to be the bridge described here and
indicates several major deviations from the system
described in 1824. 33 This is, however, another built
by the Seguin firm around 1840. The first was de-
molished in 1965.
Later Seguin bridges continued to develop new de-
tails but they no longer demonstrated the same
high and intense level of innovation shown in the
sketch for the Saint Antoine Bridge, the earliest ver-
sions of the Tain-Tournon proposal and the Saint
Vallier test bridge. The reason for this was the need
for the Seguin firm to produce a great number of
structures in order to remain in business. But this
cannot be the only reason, and it must strike us as
odd that the simpler system of the Saint Vallier
Bridge was so abruptly abandoned after the first
and successful attempt. We have no explanation
for this, only questions. Was Marc Seguin influ-
enced by the opinions of Plagniol or Molard, both
of whom he had evidently consulted? Was Daumas
126 perhaps correct in suggesting that Marc Seguin's
ideas had originated elsewhere?34 Had the paral-
lel arrangement been influenced by Dufour's or by
Delessert's ideas, and the Seguins wished to dis-
tance themselves from them? Dufour was certainly
the one who first developed this idea further. Did
the Seguins encounter some unsuspected structural
difficulty in the parallel arrangement which they
judged to be insolvable? These questions could
perhaps be illuminated by studying the Seguin
papers. Marc Seguin's book, at any rate, provides
no clue to the dilemma.
Dufour's second structure:
the Pcquis Bridge
It was a measure of the success of the first Geneva
Bridge that Dufour was commissioned almost im-
mediately to build another, this time on the right
bank of the Rhone. It resembled the Saint Antoine
Bridge and connected the Cendrier Bastion with
the Paquis with spans of 41 m.
The bridge corporation was founded on May 23,
1825 with a capital of 60000 florins or about
27950 frs divided into 300 shares,35 while the build-
ing permit had already been granted on May 6. 36
The Department of Public Works delegated their
president, Councillor Antoine Guillaume Henri Fa-
tio,37 to supervise the works.
The new bridge lay at an angle to the fortifications
and to its own piers. The decks were this time of
identical span and symmetrically suspended but
with their joists skewed to the bridge axis.
Although so similar in form, the implementation of
the system demonstrates Dufour's continuing pre-
30 Marc Seguin, 2nd ed. pp. 54-55
31 Smeaton: Report on the Eddystone Lighthouse,
pp. 102-123 'Containing experiments to ascertain a
compleat composition for water-cements with their
results'
32 Vicat: Recherches experimentales ... 1818
33 Daumas pp. 398-400
34 ibid, p. 398
35 Memorial des Seances du Conseil Representatif, 1825,
pp. 131-136. State Archives, Geneva. 1 florin was worth
0.69 French francs at the time and in 1834 'Schweize-
rische Landesvermessung', p. 43, states the value of 1 ffr
as 0.66 Swiss Francs. Therefore 1 fI = 0,47 Sfr
36 Travaux AA 21, 1825, nr. 36. State Archives, Geneva
37 Travaux A13, folio 136, June 7, 1825. State Archives,
Geneva

occupation with furthering the development of the
art. The main objection to the festoon system, aside
from the fact that he did not like its unclear geom-
etry, was clearly a technical one:
"By placing them [the cables] next to each
other, the design of the supports [saddles]
becomes very simple. It is easy to seat the
cables on the crown of the supports, merely
by cutting small channels to hold them
without additional devices. But, as the cables
occupy a certain width, and have to end in a
single line at the bottom marked by the ends
of the joists, they would end at different
Contemporary view of
Poquis Bridge of 1826 by
Dufour. (Musee d'art et
d'histoire, Service Vieux-
Geneve)
heights and would therefore not have the
same curve. From this it would result that
temperature variations would not have the
same effect [on the two cables]."38
He calculated that the effect of heating the cables
would seriously disturb the equilibrium of the sys-
tem. The lower, longer cable would sag more than
the upper and would therefore be loaded less:
"Indeed, it is serious, as, if several cables are
used, it is precisely for spreading the load
38 Dufour: Quelques notes sur les ponts suspendus, BU
vol. 48, 1831, p. 288 127
 more equitably. It is therefore necessary that
no one cable be loaded more than the
others in order that failure may be avoided.
This proves that the arrangement called the
'festoon system', which is that we are here
discussing, can only be considered for
bridges of minor span where the cables,
being usually short and having a long curve,
are less susceptible to this inequality in
sag."39
The Seguin brothers successfully compensated for
temperature changes by strengthening the upper
cables, using the additional argument that tension
was in any event higher in the flatter, upper cables
than in the steeper, lower ones. The Tain-Tournon
and other festoon bridges of similar span stood
for many years and even survived into the 20th
century without mishap. The increase in the
strength of the shorter cables taken together with
the elastic behavior of wire, which Dufour did not
take into account at all in his argumentation, would
account for the fact that the effect of temperature
change was in fact not as critical as he had postul-
ated.
The main cables for the Paquis Bridge were there-
fore laid parallel and one above the other. Dufour
preferred two cables over a single larger one for
two reasons. Firstly, as they were to be prefabricat-
ed, there was a practical limit to their weight. This
meant that, in spite of the Drac proposal calling for
cables of 500 wires, he still thought it impractical to
combine two prefabricated stands into a single ca-
ble in mid-air. Then he also pointed out that two
anchor bars were better than one,40 apparently
never considering using two or more anchor bars
for a single cable.
Hindsight based on subsequent developments
makes it difficult to see how Dufour missed the ob-
vious solutions to these problems. But he did, as did
everyone else at the time. There were simply too
many unknown variables ranging from material
behavior and the nature of friction to connection
detailing and geometry. Many possibilities had to
be explored and attempted before simplicity could
be achieved. The disadvantages of the festoon
arrangement were clear to Dufour, but how did
128 they compare with the unknown advantages and
drawbacks of parallel cables above one another or
side by side, or with other non-catenary cable sys-
tems such as stayed bridges, or even with various
combinations of all of these? Even today we are
tentatively reexamining such possibilities and once
again find ourselves faced with the same incerti-
tudes that puzzled designers in the early nineteenth
century.
These incertitudes were difficult to resolve. The log-
ic in the argument depended entirely on the value
assigned to different facts and assumptions. 41 For
instance, the author of the description of the Paquis
Bridge in Weale's 'Theory, Practise and Architec-
ture of Bridges ... ' of 1843 made the same objec-
tion to the arrangement of the main cables as
chosen by Dufour, based on a slightly different
argumentation:
"It is generally understood ... that the French
engineers, who have had more experience
than any others in the construction of wire
bridges, do not approve the practise of
placing the cables over each other. The
principle objection alleged against this
practise is the unequal expansion of the two
cables when the sun is in the plane of the
two, that is, in such a position as to be
shining full upon one while the other is
completely in shade. Under these circum-
stances, it is said that the upper cable is
dilated much more than the other, and that
this occasions a lowering and slackening of
the upper cables, which throws all the weight
of the bridge upon the lower one."42
Dufour had already considered this problem in
his article of 1831,43 and it is conceivable that
the British objection had its origin in a remark of
his.
The argumentation of the British report may have
its own internal logic, but it is at odds with actual
39 ilii~ p.288-289
40 Dufour: Quelques notes sur les ponts suspendus, 1831,
p.287
41 "No one is illogical; everyone merely starts from
different premises". Bernard Peters
42 Weale ed, vol. 2, supplement, p. cxcvii
43 Dufour: Quelques notes sur les ponts suspend us, 1831,
p.290

----------------~--~~~~~
-......-p----- . .
conditions. If we presume that the sun would only
appear from behind clouds at precisely that mo-
ment when shining directly in the axis of the struc-
ture and therefore casting the shadow of the upper
cable fully upon the entire length and cross section
of the lower, causing the greatest possible differ-
ence in temperature, some time would be bound to
elapse before the upper cable could be heated
appreciably. Long before such an increase in tem-
perature could make itself felt, however, the earth
would have rotated slightly and both cables would
once again be heated simultaneously. As bridge
cables were almost invariably painted white, pri-
marily to make rust immediately apparent, they
would heat up very slowly indeed. Had this prob-
lem been a bonafide one, Telford's Menai bridge
with its four compact superimposed quadruple
rows of chains would have been a structural impos-
sibility. The same may be said for modern cable
bridges with their twin cables up to 90 cm in
Elevation and plan of the
Poquis Bridge showing twin
cable arrangement. As the
plan was drawn from
details sketched in the field,
the skewed joists, middle
pier and gatehouse have
been erroneously repre-
sented as orthogonal to the
. . ' :::":!'::W'f 1Ij , bridge axis. From Weale
1843
t:=:::::
~-
diameter. Whenever the sun shines on one side of
such a large mass, it is invariably heated more than
the other. In this case, the resistance of the mass to
heating, the cooling on the surface and the heat
conducting nature of the material, as well as the
small difference in energy absorbed by the adja-
cent masses, account for the fact that no damage
occurs.
This question cannot be laid solely at the door of
early nineteenth century structural inexperience,
as it continued to preoccupy engineers until com-
paratively recently. The supposed problem was
finally laid to rest in an article of 1923 in the
'Engineering News Record'.44 Arguments for and
against many solutions have always been brought
forth on varying levels of structural understanding.
Mere theoretical comprehension lacking practical
44 'Temperature Variation in Eyebar Chains found slight'
ENR vol. 90, April 26, 1923, p. 740 129
Preliminary pencil sketch by
Dufour of the coupling
detail for the main cables of
the Poquis Bridge with
suspender aHachment
(State Archives, Geneva)
Coupling detail for the
main cables and suspender
aHachment as built. From
Weale 1843

experience leads to speculation. Preconceived no-

tions and misunderstood changing parameters of-
ten obscure issues over decades and block tech-
nological advance until untested theories give
way to experience. 45 In the case of the wire cable
bridge, however, the evolution was so virulent and
varied that all such assumptions were swept away
before they had time to gel into dogma.
The real disadvantages of the system Dufour had
selected for the Paquis Bridge were the design of
the saddle bearings and an increased geometrical
difficulty in the suspender attachment. However,
the abandonment of the alternating suspension
was a major simplification, as was the coupling of
the cables at the points from which the suspenders LoweR CABLe

hung.
Dufour had coupled the festoons of the Saint An-
toine Bridge to help stabilize the system after it
had been completed. 46 He had therefore aban-
doned his original scruples against such a cou-
pling so quickly that he no longer even considered
justification of this step necessary, and we find the
detail, which was to cause other suspension bridge
designers no end of trouble for many years more,
fully developed in a very early pencil sketch.
Comparing this sketch with the detail as finally
built, we see how Dufour simplified his solutions in
stages and gradually suited them to his suspension 45 another such example is the understanding of friction
soon to be discussed further in the chapter 'Research on
system. friction', pp. [135-136]
Only three minor articles and one major, but later 46 Dufour: Description .. . 1824, ms. note facing p. 76 in
130 publication informed the profession of this advan- Dufour's own copy
ce in suspension bridge design. Two short accounts
by Dufour appeared in the 'Bibliotheque Univer-
selle' in 1826 and 1831 and one in the 'Annales
des Ponts et Chaussees' in 1832 by L. C. M., prob-
ably the editor Louis Charles Mary. The longer
discussion, and the only one to publish a plate,
appeared in John Weale's 'Theory, Practise and
Architecture of Bridges ... ' in 1843, by which time
technical development had moved on. The plans
of the bridge in the Geneva State Archives con-
cern chiefly the masonry portions and provide lit-
tle information on the design of the cables and
their connections. The best source for these is the
British publication, based on measurements taken
by "James Noble, architect", as stated on the
plate. This would explain why, although the details
tally well with the description of the project, the
plan was wrong and was probably compiled later
from detail sketches taken by Noble at the site. It
shows the skewed arrangement only at the city
abutment and not at the other and at the middle
pier, and the joists run perpendicularly to the axis
of the bridge. The manuscript and the original
plans, on the other hand, show that the whole
masonry portion, consisting of all three piers and
the anchorages, as well as the joists lay at an an-
gie to the axis of the deck. 47 . This arrangement,
entailed much greater expense than had at first
been thought, and the final cost was 30000 frs as
opposed to 16350 for the first bridge.
The combined weight of the cables and suspen-
ders remained the same as in the first bridge while
the slightly longer deck was correspondingly
heavier. The total liveload was more, but the per
unit distributed load decreased by about 25 %
from 154 kg/m 2 to 115.6 kg/m 2 which is in keep-
ing with what we have seen of Dufour's attitude
toward the problem of liveload.
The computation of the forces of the Paquis
Bridge stood under the influence of Navier's pub-
lication of 1823, and therefore resembles modern
statics more than that for the first bridge had
done, employing analytical methods rather than
geometrical ones. An exception was the computa-
tion of the length of the skewed deck in which
Dufour betrayed his delight with triangulation
which was soon to enliven his interest in carto-
graphy in the Dufour Map of Switzerland 1832-
1864. He made three separate triangulations for
the deck and checked his results by spanning a
wire across the double moat, determining the
length with a precision far in excess of the needs
of construction!
The deck was not only skewed but also inclined
3.4%, and Dufour calculated 2% more for the ca-
ble force on the lower side of the central pier. The
Saint Antoine Bridge was similarly sloped, but Du-
four had neglected to calculate the difference and
determined his cable forces using a parabolic ap-
proximation of the curve and presuming the deck
horizontal for simplicity. The difference in pressure
on the pier turned out to be 300 %, and the cast-
iron saddle bearings were dimensioned accord-
ingly. Gradually, as more sophisticated methods
for the determination of forces became available,
the precision of engineering models became more
refined. But, more refined models and techniques
also led to more precise dimensioning with less re-
dundancy. The central pier was later judged to be
too slender, as it allowed the structure to vibrate
more than the more solidly built Saint Antoine
Bridge had done. 48
As he had modeled the bridge as horizontal and
symmetrical for the purposes of further calcula-
tion, Dufour deemed it unnecessary to calculate
the stability of the central pier. 49 The tendency to
shift back and forth between mathematical preci-
sion and practical simplification may be anathema
to the theoretician and mathematician, but it is the
essence of engineering method. Precision is laud-
able, but where it does not influence stability ap-
preciably, it can be a bane and obscure the con-
cept needlessly. A good engineer must learn to
judge a priori where and when it is advantageous
to simplify and where it is dangerous. Every en-
gineer attempting to utilize the new analytical
methods had to go through the experience of
gaining this knowledge at the beginning of the
47 Dufour ms nr. 10: Pont des P6quis excute en 1825. p. 1
48 Dufour: Quelques notes sur les ponts suspend us, 1831,
p.275
49 Dufour ms nr. 10: Pont des Paquis execute en 1825,
p.2 131

Photograph of method
similar to Dufour's for the
manufacture of the Poquis
cables. Engineering journal,
end of 19th cent.
132
decisions greatly, sometimes to the advantage and
occasionally to the detriment of his development.
A simpler method of cable manufacture
The method of manufacturing cables, which should
have caused a revolution in contemporary practise,
was not described in the manuscript at all.
Thoughts on the subject had appeared in the re-
port on the Saint Antoine Bridge in 1824,56 but
were ignored by the profession just as was the de-
tailed description of the new method in the 'Bi-
bliotheque Universelle' in 1831, republished by
Mary in the 'Annales des Ponts et Chaussees' the
following yearY
"A table of the length of the cable was set
up in a sufficiently large space. At the two
ends of this table, a kind of grating or plate
was mounted, pierced by as many holes and
nineteenth century and still has to today. Once in the same order as the cable was to have
more we glimpse the immensity of the step made wires. The wires were fixed in these holes by
by the 'theoretician-practitioners' of early nine- means of little hooks, taking care to pass
teenth century France. them through so that each corresponded
In general, Dufour kept to the safety factor of exactly to its opposite [at the other end of
three, determined in the bill of specifications. 50 the table]. Otherwise the wires lay on the
Exceptions included a factor of 4.5 for the anchor table over their whole length in order to
bars encased in the masonry abutments to protect prevent them from overturning the mounted
against oxydization,51 and six for the suspenders gratings. A third mobile grating was placed
for entirely different technical as well as psycho- between the two others and the wires were
logical reasons: also passed through the corresponding
" ... they may have to withstand dynamic holes. When all wires had been placed in
loads and the eye of the passenger must this manner, each at its number, the mobile
also be reassured."52 grating was moved to one of the fixed ones,
In the case of a one-sided loading of the double so that the wires [stretched] between these
bridge with 180 persons on one side and 40 on the two gratings were exactly parallel. Then the
other, Dufour calculated a safety factor of 2.25. 53 binding began, taking great care to prevent
He therefore added counter-cables under the the wires from crossing and, as the binding
deck,54 which he took from Sir Marc BruneI's design advanced, the mobile grating was pulled
for the lies Reunion Bridges of 1822, published in
Navier, but which were here for asymmetrical live- 50 ibid
loading rather than for wind loads. Later, he was to 51 ibid
52 ibid
consider this less effective, although more elegant, 53 ibid
than the simple stays he had used in the Saint An- 54 ibid, p. 3 and Dufour: Quelques notes sur les ponts
toine Bridge: suspendus, 1831, p. 273
"The first bends the bridge in a disagreeable 55 Dufour: Quelques notes sur les ponts suspendus, 1831,
p. 273
manner toward the point of attachment, the 56 Dufour: Description ... 1824, pp.65-66
other leaves it its rectitude."55 57 L. C. M.: Analyse et extrait des deux ouvrages ... APe
Esthetic considerations influenced Dufour's design 1832, pp. 85-123 + pis
 back so as to keep the wires always as
parallel as possible. When the binding was
complete from one end to the other in the
form of a rather tight spiral, the cable lay
stretched out on the table perfectly stra~ht
as an ordinary cable would have lain."s
Of course this necessitated cutting each wire to
length which wasted more than the older method.
But splices which formed voids in the finished cable
and which could permit water to penetrate were
obviated by this method, and the finished cable did
not spiral up as had those for the Saint Antoine
Bridge. Dufour therefore considered them far
superior, even if they did cost more: S9
"I have seen nothing in France in the
suspension bridges which I have visited, to
compare to the cables of the bridges built at ·
Geneva. The wires are poorly arranged,
they undergo very unequal tensions and let
water penetrate into the interior of the cable
in several places. All these inconveniences
are avoided by the means I have used and
which I recommend to engineers." 60
In context this remark is quite clear. But it was ab-
breviated and quoted out of context and made to
mean the opposite. Perhaps this confusion may
have been in part responsible for the neglect
of Dufour's improvement in cable manufacture?
Mehrtens, for example writes in 1908:
"The unnamed author saw in France, as he
says, no wire cable bridges whose cables
were as poorly manufactured as those of the
Saint Antoine Bridge in Geneva."61
Connecting the cables
The connection developed for the cables of the
second bridge was remarkable for the technical
ability of the period, anticipating modern anchors
for posttensioning cables. It completely avoided
the drawbacks of the bobbin connection while
guaranteeing the freedom to adjust the length of
the prefabricated sections after manufacture.
After a cable section had been finished in the
manner described, the wires were cut to the
desired length. Then the ends were threaded
through a conical funnel which had two flanges
on the outside with which it could be attached to
Detail of main cable
connection showing anchor
heads linked by iron hoops.
From original plan by
Dufour. Ink and watercolor
wash. (State Archives,
Geneva)
Cross-section of cable
m
If anchor. From Dufour:
Quelques notes sur les
B
" pants suspendus, Biblio-
theque Universelle 1831
M
an anchor bar, to a saddle or joined to another
anchor head by means of wrought iron bands.
The wire ends were fanned out around the
perimeter of the funnel interior. A double cone
was then driven firmly into the funnel and:
lilt is only by friction that the cable is fixed
in the funnel."62
Habitually cautious, Dufour undertook several ex-
periments to ascertain the strength of the connec-
tion. The cable invariably tore before the wedge
could be pressed out. In order to be doubly
sure, however, he bent the wires down along the
outer surface of the double-ended conical wedge,
pressed a ring down over the outer end, and
cobbled the ends of the protuding wires:
"I stated that this was an excessive precau-
tion as it can be shown that, if the angle of
the funnel wedge is only double the angle of
friction of iron on iron, an infinite traction
58 Dufour: Quelques notes sur les ponts suspend us, 1831,
pp.282-283
59 ibid, p. 282
60 ibid, p. 283 footnote
61 Mehrtens, part 2, vol. 1, p. 446
62 Dufour: Quelques notes sur les ponts suspendus, 1831,
p.283-284 133

Deck suspension with cable
connec~on,suspenderrod,
and joist connection. From
Weale 1843
--~~~~~---------'~
_ U f'i., " In II
"
, , l 'llill " f. It/,.
force in the direction of the cable axis would
be needed to force the wedge out. And,
according to what is known of the friction of
iron on iron, even when greased, it is enough
to make AB equal to five times Be to render
it impossible for the wedge to be expelled.
Our core, being more elongated than this,
gave no cause for fear. But in a novel
structure, it is better to err in excess than in
lack of caution."63
There is no record of the method being used again
before the latter part of the century. Boulogne
mentioned a coupling detail of this type common in
France in 1886. 64 The system had been slightly
modified by Ferdinand Arnodin, Marc Seguin's
pupil and the heir to his bridge firm. Instead of
a wedge driven into the cone, Arnodin used a plug
composed of an alloy of tin, lead and antimony
-'=. .:-
I I " . , rI· , ,"I" ',(11,,' ,',:, ,/Ill • t,lrd.,,., ,
W, 1711,,1 , d , 11,,11 ,r,~. "" ./
which he poured into the funnel. The same method
was used by Washington Roebling in the United
states to secure the suspenders to the cable clamps
in the Brooklyn Bridge, finished in 1883.
Coupling the suspenders
Suspension rods rather than cables supported the
deck. Following Rochefoucault and Delessert, they
were threaded at the bottom so that they could be
bolted through the joists. This satisfactorily solved
the problem of the hidden wire 'stirrups' which had
so disturbed Dufour in the first bridge, and it also
provided a simple means for adjusting the length of
each suspender independantly during the erection
process making the adjustment of the deck camber
much simpler than the labrious process used for the
Saint Antoine Bridge.
As had been the case in the use of counter-cables
rather than stays, esthetic and psychological rea-
sons influenced his decision:
"As to the suspender rods, it seems to me
better to make them of bars rather than of
iron wires, as the latter, being always
somewhat slack and not having more that a
light weight to carry, line up poorly and form
a more or less sinuous strand. Moreover, if
only the necessary number of wires is used
for each strand, it is so thin that it makes a
very poor impression on the eye ... These
rods are much more than of sufficient
thickness to carry [both] the bridge and the
users, this is done so that they are in
proportion to the rest of the structure and
leave no doubt in the user's mind as to their
solidity."65
The suspenders were attached to the bottom of the
cable coupling by a collar tightened with a bolt.
Dufour was convinced, and experience bore him
out in this, that the simple collar fastening was suffi-
cient to prevent the suspenders from slipping even
when attached to the steepest parts of the cable.
Nevertheless, as additional security, the wire straps
of the cable coupling were wound around these
63 ibid, p. 284
64 de Boulogne, p. 172
65 Dufour: Quelques notes sur les ponts suspendus, 1831,
, p.285
collars. The coupling of the cables influenced the
appearance of the whole system:
liThe lower cable is coupled to the upper by
as many collars of iron as there are
suspenders ... As a result of this arrange-
ment, the curve is very regular, and as the
rods are close together, the polygonal form,
so disagreeable to the eye, disappears
entirely."66
Dufour's structural detailing gradually began to as-
sume forms resembling those still common today,
and manual manufacture at the site also began to
give way to prefabrication elsewhere.
Research on friction
Many connection techniques developed at the
beginning of the nineteenth century were based on
the assumption that special measures were called
for to increase the friction of iron on iron. Both the
Seguin guy wires for the steepest suspenders of the
Tain-Tournon Bridge and Dufour's double cone
wedge for the cable anchor resulted from this in-
certitude - though this last was a more complex
phenomenon, depending in part on constriction as
well as on the friction between the cone, the wire
and the wedge. In spite of several successful ex-
periments, such as Dufour's testing of the cable an-
chor, theoretical knowledge applicable to the de-
tails of practical construction was skimpy, and the
general incertitude persisted.
Not only did this malaise worry suspension bridge
builders, it hindered the early railway builders to
an even greater degree. Railway construction be-
fore 1845 was characterized by vast cuttings, em-
bankments and tunnels, constructed so that railway
lines could avoid all but the slightest gradients. And
before that, the earliest attempts to build loco-
motives had all employed bizarre methods to
counteract the presumed lack of traction between
iron wheels and iron rails. Robert Brunton used
mechanical feet stamping along between the rails
behind his locomotive, and John Blenkinsop de-
signed a cog-wheel railway, both for completely
horizontal tracks. Speculation preceeded practical
tests. Only experience hesitatingly gained in the
course of the first quarter of the century gradually
demonstrated that simpler solutions were possible
than had been presumed. The progress Dufour
made in the detailing of his second bridge must be
seen in context in order to appreciate its innovative
value.
Once again we encounter the difficulty of incor-
porating the results of theoretical laboratory re-
search into practical engineering. First experiments
on friction were undertaken by Leonardo da Vinci
in 1518, a year before his death. According to Ar-
thur Jules Morin, writing in 1831,67 controlled,
quantitative experiments were first attempted by
Guillaume Amontons in 1669 and presented to the
'Academie des Sciences'.68 Gottfried Wilhelm von
Leibnitz continued in 1710 as did Coulomb who
reponded in 1781 to a competition set in 1779 by
the 'Academie'. His prize winning 'Theorie des
machines simples ... ' was published in 1785 and
reprinted as a book in 1821. It is possible that Du-
four was referring to Coulomb's work in the discus-
sion of his cable anchor. In spite of the wide scat-
tering of his experimental results, Coulomb was
able to formulate several simple relationships on
which further research was based. The Coulomb
law, R= ~. P is still used today.
Samuel Vince of Cambridge was the next to publish
'On the motion of bodies affected by friction', also
in 1785, in the Philosophical Transactions of the
Royal Society. Vince's results differed somewhat
from those obtained by Coulomb, and Morin
claimed that they were inconclusive. 69 This, then,
was all that was available to the suspension bridge
builders of 1825, and it represented a rather
meager body of research.
Thereafter, research snowballed. George Rennie
published 'Experiments on the friction and abrai-
sion of the surfaces of solids' in the Royal Society's
Philosophical Transactions in 1829 in which he es-
sentially confirmed Coulomb's findings. Morin's
own work appeared in two papers, one in the
'Annales des Ponts et Chaussees' in 1832 and the
66 Dufour: Lettre de Mr. Ie Lieut. -Col. Dufour, BU 1826,
p.76
67 Morin, APC 1832 2e sem., pp. 77 -84
68 however, no mention of these experiments was found in
the two publications called 'Histoire de I'Academie .. .'
cited in the bibliography
69 Morin APC 1832 2e Sem., p. 79 135
 other in the 'Memoires' of the Academie in 1835,
but chiefly concerned the friction of wood on wood
and wood on metal.
The real breakthrough occured in 1834 when Fran-
c;:ois Marie Guyonneau, Comte de Pambour made
his tests on the locomotive used on the Liverpool-
Manchester railway line. 'De la resistance des
machines locomotives en usage sur les chemins de
fer' appeared in 1837 describing the first experi-
ments undertaken in the field as opposed to labo-
ratory tests. Pambour, a graduate of the Ecole
polytechnique in the class of 1815, six years after
Dufour, published further material in 1839 and
1843.
Loading the Poquis Bridge
The delegate of the Department of Public Works,
Fatio, announced the completion of the bridge at
the meeting of December 13, 1825. Although some
minor settling of the piers had occured, this had
proven to be harmless.?o The 'Conseil d'Etat' delib-
erated on December 26 on tests Fatio had carried
out on his own initiative, probably in order to save
time so that the bridge might be opened that year,
and authorized the company to open the bridge to
the public on December 31. 71 Reporting back to
the Department of Public Works the following day,
Fatio explained that the bridge had been tested by
the simultaneous passa~e of forty men crossing the
bridge quickly in step? The Department had, how-
ever, no wish to bear the responsibility of the deci-
sion to dispense with the official tests, and instruct-
ed Fatio to inform the 'Conseil' of the details,
specifying clearly that the tests originally demand-
ed had not been deemed necessary. The Senate
thereupon had second thoughts, and Fatio and
Dufour were obliged to go through with the full
load tests which were carried out on December 29.
The success of these tests was reported at the next
meeting of the Department on January 3, 182613
which is why the official bridge opening was de-
layed until 1826. The Paquis Bridge served for
about 25 years and was demolished with that part
of the fortifications in the early 1850s.74
In his continual search for structural excellence and
scientific truth, Dufour supplemented the manu-
136 script with two pages of comment and self-criticism,
discussing all the difficulties incurred by the skew-
ing of the deck. In spite of prestretching the wire
and the new method of cable manufacture, the
cables were still exceptionally stiff and especially
difficult to bend over the saddles where the wires
still tended to twist in spite of all his efforts to re-
strain them. He therefore suggested using bars over
the saddles rather than letting the cables continue
through.75 The bridge was safe enough. It had a
relatively small span and the load-bearing struc-
ture was extremely flexible. It even withstood se-
vere punishment when, during a fire on the Paquis
in 1829, innumerable and unchecked loads were
carried over it at a run. On the day after the fire,
February 17, 1829, the department of Public Works
ordered the structure examined: no damage at all
was found?6
The novel problem of expansion
The erection of the cables and the railings caused
some trouble in the cold, short winter days of 1825.
When, after the opening of the bridge, the weather
warmed up again, the structure became 'soft' as he
termed it, and the railings flared. The problem of
thermal expansion in iron structures and the intro-
duction of expansion joints was only to be studied
and general solutions adopted relatively late in the
nineteenth century. Traditional masonry structures
had never required special detailing for thermal
expansion as masonry expands very little and each
joint is a potential expansion joint. Connections in
timber structures were sufficiently loose and im-
precise to function as expansion joints as well, and
70 Travaux A 13, folios 304-306, Dec. 13, 1825. State
Archives, Geneva
71 Registre du Conseil d'Etat, 1825, 2· sem., folio 599,
Dec. 26, 1825. State Archives, Geneva
72 Travaux A 13, folio 327, Dec. 27, 1825. State Archives,
Geneva
73 Travaux A 14, folios 4-5, Jan. 3, 1826. State Archives,
Geneva
74 Dufour: Note sur la confection des cables en fil de fer.
1853, p. 36
75 Dufour ms nr. 10: Pont des Paquis execute en 1825,
'Observations' appended to the manuscript, p. 1
Travaux E 16. State Archives, Geneva
76 Travaux A 17, folio 27, Feb. 17, 1829. State Archives,
Geneva
here the problem was more warping than expan-
sion. Prefabricated metal structures, and particular-
ly wrought iron ones, had much greater coefficients
of thermal expansion than timber, masonry or even
cast-iron, and they could be manufactured to far
more precise tolerances as well. This created an
entirely novel structural problem: allowance for
movement through expansion without compromis-
ing the transference of structural forces. Even the
celebrated Crystal Palace of 1851, built in London
for the 'Great Exhibition of the Works of All Na-
tions', the most renowned and largest of all early
metal buildings, had no expansion joints planned
into the structure, in spite of its extreme length of
550 m. And indeed, it was more due to chance than
design that that famous building stood in 1851 J7
The many quasi-frame structures which grew out of
the Crystal Palace, such as the Paris Exhibition
Building of 1855, the 'Brompton Boilers' in London
of 1856 and the Boat Store at Shearness in 1858,
all fought with the problem of expansion. Bridge
building was the field in which the problem of de-
tailing expansion joints was first solved. The first
conscious effort to deal with it that I have found
was in Dufour's cast-iron arch version for the
Bergues Bridge of 1830-1834.78
More proposals than structures:
Dufour continues to design
As far as is known, the Paquis Bridge was the last
wire bridge of traditional suspension type that Du-
four was to build. He did design many more ,but
none of them was ever carried out. With the years,
his many other professional preoccupations took
precedence, but he continued to follow develop-
ments closely. Dufour served as expert on at least
two competition committees: in Basel in 1844 and
in Geneva in 1853. He was occasionally consulted
for the evaluation of structures built by others, such
as in Aarburg in 1839. But inventire as always, he
did develop an alternative structural system, the
underspanned suspension bridge which he was
able to build once as a chain bridge and once in
wire. In connection with the former he also erected
a small, asymmetrical chain bridge. All of these
bridges, the built and the unbuilt, document an in-
tense and inventive preoccupation with the subject.
Coulouvreniere Bridge over the Rhone
A vehicular bridge postdating the project for the
Paquis Bridge, was to have spanned the Rhone in
Geneva at the Coulouvreniere. The proposal went
through three versions in 1825 before being aban-
doned. The twin spans, just 12 % less than those of
the Tain-Tournon, were to have had only two cables
of 400 wires each. That meant that the prefabricat-
ed strands would have had to be joined to form
larger cables in situ, as he had already proposed
for the Drac Bridge the year before.
The Coulouvreniere Bridge was characterized by
rod suspenders, countercables under the deck and
stays as well, possibly in reaction to the only par-
tially satisfactory behavior of the Paquis Bridge.
The liveload was to be the same as that for the
Paquis Bridge, about 1 person/m 2•
Valentin Bridge over the Po River
at Turin
It was only to be in his next proposal that Dufour
was to use Navier's standard loading for the first
time. The reason for this was that Turin, the capital
of the Savoyard Kingdom of Sardinia, had adopt-
ed the engineering standards of the French 'Ponts
et Chaussees' during the Napoleonic occupation,
whereas the Swiss Confederation, of which Geneva
was now a part, had not.
In the spring of 1826, Marquis Michele Antonio
Benso di Cavour, whose second son, Count Camillo
de Cavour was later to play such an important role
in the political unification of Italy, asked Dufour to
send a proposal for a cable bridge over the Po to
the Minister of the Interior of the Kingdom of Sar-
dinia. The reason for asking Dufour rather than the
Savoyard Seguin, who was to build several bridges
in Italy in the course of the following decade, was
probably due to personal contacts between the
Cavour family and Geneva.79
Crossing the Po in twin spans of 70 m in line with
what is now the Corso Vittorio Emmanuele II, the
bridge was to have been Italy's first permanent
77 Mallet, 1862, p. 59ft., cit. in Peters: "The apparent
setback to the iron skeleton system of construction .. :
78 see chapter 'Third proposal in cast-iron' pp. [192-193]
79 Cavour's wife, Adele de Sellon, was a Genevan
aristocrat. see Tripet, pp. 437-452 137
Pencil sketch of details by
Dufour for the Valentin
Bridge over the Po at Turin.
Note iron brackets for
aHa ching main cables to
pylon saddle. (State
Archives, Geneva)
,- .
-r
.
- I.~ •• .
J>
-:s
<..~
..I •• •~
'

.~ .
...... •..
. -'

,.
~
..r
.
(
t·

,.
• ~ ..... • Ir I
.'

"
.-- .. -

138
suspension bridge. As in the Coulouvreniere pro-
ject, the piers were designed as Egyptian columns,
probably in emulation of Navier's celebrated In-
valides chain bridge, begun in 1824 and demol-
ished without having been completed in 1826. 80
Many of the details including the cross-section of
the abutments closely resembled Navier's. Al-
though the Paris project was only to be published in
1830, Dufour certainly had access to descriptions
and sketches. Nevertheless, uncharacteristically,
Dufour neglected to mention this influence which
he perhaps considered self-evident, but he did give
another plausible reason for his choice: the inter-
nationally celebrated collection of Egyptian anti-
quities in Turin. 81 The calculations too were simpler
than before and more firmly based on Navier's
system.
More care was lavished on the esthetic concerns of
the Valentin Bridge than had been on any of Du-
four's previous structures. Both the structural form
and the stylistically correct decoration of the
bridge concerned him, and he described the cable
anchorages on both banks in great detail, both as
structures and as form, carrying the design logic
and the decorative theme right through the whole
project down to the guard lodge which he envisag-
ed as an Egyptian temple gate. 82 On the whole,
the Valentin proposal presents a much more inte-
grated picture of structural and formal concerns
than was apparent in the earlier projects. Even the
edging of the deck was to be covered in sheet-
metal and formed to a cornice.
Each pair of columns was connected at the top with
an oaken architrave sheathed in painted sheet-
metal. An iron rod, threaded at both ends, tra-
versed the beam longitudinally and was bolted
through both saddles, serving to keep the columns
correctly spaced and to carry a winged sphere,
symbol of the Egyptian sun disk, which was ap-
propriately designed as a lamp.
The cables were to be heavy, prefabricated units of
250 wires each, four to a side in superposed pairs
and about 71 m long. Counter-cables were also to
be provided. Dufour's judgement was gradually
becoming surer and at the same time more com-
plex. It is only in very recent twentieth century
work that counter-cable braced tensile structures
have once again appeared as economically inter-
esting alternatives to heavily stiffened systems both
for bridges and for membrane structures. Their ex-
treme slenderness and light weight coupled with
their elasticity, quite apart from their formal aspect,
has made them very attractive to designers. It is all
the more pity that Dufour was not able to persue
this real alternative to the truss-stiffened suspen-
sion bridge.
Dufour used the iron brackets for carrying the ca-
bles over the intermediate piers which he had sug-
gested in his discussion of the Paquis bridge the
year previously. They were to be fixed to the sad-
dles by means of barbs. The saddles were of wood
impregnated in an oil bath and sheathed in sheet-
metal. By using wood for the saddle, Dufour intend-
ed to simplify the construction of the complex
seating for the superposed cable pairs. Another
improvement was the connection between the sus-
penders and the main cables, designed as a deli-
cate, cast-iron double yoke hanging from all four
cables at once. Dufour described the form of these
yokes in loving detail and sent a model of one
along with his proposal. 83
Comparing this project to that for the Drac Bridge
two years before, it appears much more mature.
The drive to present the cheapest solution at all
costs had been tempered in building the Paquis
Bridge, where he had learned that an increase in
the cost of a structure or costs in excess of the
estimate, did not necessarily lead to censure or
even provide important arguments for or against a
project. He had had to acknowledge the refusal of
the Drac proposal even though he had pared costs
to the utmost. On the other hand, he had also
found that an increase of 83% in the costs of the
Paquis Bridge from 16350 frs to 30000 84 occasion-
ed by the skewed plan, had given no trouble.
On the basis of this experience, Dufour appears
more relaxed about the importance of this point in
80 see Nagele, ms nr. 31
81 Dufour ms nr. 13: Projet du Pont-Suspendu pour Ie
Valentin sur Ie Po, an 1826, p. 2
82 ibid, p. 3
83 ibid, p.7-8
84 Dufour: Lettre ... 1826, p. 76 139
lie aux Barques Chain
Bridge, Geneva 1832-
1834, plan by Dufour. Ink
and watercolor wash.
Probably the first asymmet-
rical suspension bridge.
(State Archives, Geneva)
140
the judgement of a project. This is underscored by
the fact that he inverted the tactics of his argument
in Turin by first describing the cheapest version
compatible with safety and then proposing a more
complex variant which he considered more ap-
propriate. He counseled against unnecessary com-
plications such as a skewed axis and advocated
carrying the bridge at right angles across the river
in spite of the oblique road leading to it.
This was the cheaper solution. Nowadays, the in-
verse is true. Tailoring a bridge structure to the
geometry of the road leads to a more economical
solution. The course of a river to be crossed or a
valley to be traversed are now commonly ignored.
Modern methods of calculation combined with new
structural techniques and materials such as rein-
forced or prestressed concrete, have wrought this
change. This renders the relationship between site
and structure more complex than before, and es-
thetically it opens up interesting possibilities. It also
demonstrates that a detailed analysis of the rea-
sons for what is often unthinkingly termed a tradi-
tional sense for a fitting and 'organic' relationship
between a bridge and its site, is based on nothing
more than sound structural and financial logic.
Dufour's experience with the oblique trajectory of
the Paquis Bridge and his subsequent return to an
orthogonal geometry, illustrate this.
It was a great pity that this bridge was never built,
and equally unfortunate that no plans or models
survive. The only surviving sketch shows the pier
saddle and the barbed wrought iron brackets for
attaching the main cables. All the rest presumably
perished in a fire in the State Archives in Turin in the
nineteenth century.85 Cavour reported to Dufour in
a letter dated April 30, 1826 that the Minister of
the Interior had ordered him to express "his ad-
miration of the learned memorandum presented by
Colonel Dufour and of the plans accompanying
it."86
Dufour visited Cavour in Turin in June 1826 to
discuss the project. On the way he stopped over in
Locarno where he had been asked by Cavour to
study and report on the state of steamship traffic
on the Lago Maggiore, a request first mentioned in
the letter of April 30. Dufour was presented to the
Minister of the Interior,87 but what resulted from the
meeting remains a mystery and we will probably
never know why the project was abandoned, as all
documents concerning the project perished with
the dossier.
lie aux Barques Bridge
In 1832, in connection with the construction of the
underspanned Ber~ues Chain Bridge over the
Rhone in Geneva,8 Dufour built an asymmetrical
bridge supported by a single pier on the island
then known as the lie aux Barques.89 From this is-
land it spanned 33.5 m downstream to an artificial
platform built to connect the two sections of the
underspanned bridge.
Originally the bridge was to have cables modelled
on those of the Paquis Bridge finished seven years
before with suspender yokes similar to those de-
signed for the Valentin Bridge. The structure had to
be very strong, as the island was a bastion of the
city fortifications and cannon might have to be
transported over the bridge. Whether for this rea-
son, or because it was more rational to use the
same material as for the underspanned sections,
the bridge was carried by chains rather than by
cables. As far as is known, the lie aux Barques
bridge was the first asymmetrical suspension bridge
ever to be built.
At this time, Dufour was occupied with the orga-
nization of the military academy at Thun and with
work on the map of Switzerland. With these, his
active political career in both state and national
affairs and his increasing diplomatic work as his
main interests, it is remarkable that Dufour was
ever able to return to bridge design. His last
bridge, the underspanned wire Coulouvreniere
(fosse) Bridge of 1837 was finished right in the
middle of this most active period. 9o Surprisingly
enough, there are three more manuscripts to be
found in his papers, but none of them is particularly
innovative, and although they are signed by him,
they may have well been the work of a capable
assistant.
Coulouvreniere Bridge near Saint Jean's
church
Another asymmetrical design for a structure of
65 m span, dated 1842, was to bridge the great
moat in front of the church of Saint Jean. It was
abandoned for lack of funds. By then, asymmetri-
cal suspension bridges were no longer unknown,
even if they continued to be rare. Joseph Chaley
had built his asymmetrical second bridge at Fri-
bourg over the Gotteron gorge with a span of
202 m two years before.
Bridge over the Arve River
Two years later, in 1844, Dufour found time to de-
sign a suspension bridge over the Arve between
the towns of Sierne and Vilette in the Canton of
Geneva. In contrast to the last which had remained
a fragment, this was a finished project. The great
number of wire cable bridges built in the preced-
ing decades had given rise to a body of standard
solutions, and Dufour now designed his bridge in
accordance with this. He had not lost interest in
suspension bridge construction, but it no longer oc-
cupied that priority in his field of interest which had
previously kept him in the avantgarde of structural
innovation.
85 Information from Dr. Luciano Re, Turin
86 Dufour ms nr. 13: Projet du Pont-Suspendu pour Ie
Valentin sur Ie Po, an 1826. Letter from Marquis Benso
di Cavour to Dufour contained in the dossier. Travaux
E 16. State Archives, Geneva
87 Chapuisat, p. 71
88 discussed in chapter 'The underspanned Bergues
Bridge', pp. [196-197)
89 now the 'lie Rousseau'
90 discussed together with the Bergues Bridge on
pp. [205-208) 141
Peney Bridge proposal,
plan by Dufour 1849 (State
Archives, Geneva)
Four parallel cables, side by side, lay on cast-iron
cylinders over the saddles. The deck was stiffened
by trussed parapets. The building of Joseph Cha-
ley's Grand Pont Suspendu in Fribourg in 1834, the
longest span in the world, had had an influence on
the design of this proposal as on all suspension
bridges which followed it. Nevertheless, Chaley's
bridge 91 had used both Dufour's first cable manu-
facturing method and his wire splice.
Peney Bridge
The last known suspension bridge designe by Du-
four, was for a 100 m span over the Rhone at Peney,
just downstream from Geneva. The two surviving
plans are dated 1849 and show no advance over
the proposal for the Arve Bridge. Dufour had been
chosen Commander-in-Chief of the Federal troups
in 1847 and had been fully occupied with the
short-lived Swiss civil war and its aftermath ever
since. It is indeed surprising that he was able to
carry out any of his duties as State Engineer of
Geneva at all in this turbulent period. The plans
bear his signature, but it is not known whether they
were in fact designed by him.
According to his contemporary, Jean Daniel Col-
ladon, Dufour was excluded from building this
bridge for political reasons:
"The Conseil d'Etat of the Canton of Geneva
whose president was Mr. James Fazy, desir-
ous of gaining friends, again took up the
142 project of joining the two sides of the Rhone
at Peney, and commissioned Mr. Hug, a
young German engineer without experience
and recently graduated from the school at
Karlsruhe, to design a project for a wire
cable suspension bridge. Mr. Hug took his
school copy book and produced a project
which he did not show to anyone capable of
advising him or of criticising it. His project
was approved by the Conseil d'Etat and the
bridge erected in 1851 and 1852. Mr. James
Fazy who agreed with Mr. Hug's political
opinions, and who did not want General
Guillaume Dufour to build the bridge,
influenced a decision to commission Mr. Hug,
and Mr. Fran<;ois Janin, Conseiller d'Etat and
president of the Chambre des travaux
publics, was ordered to grant him the
commission."92
Documents of the Department of Public Works
show that the Conseil d'Etat made its decision on
February 7, 1851 and raised the formerly approv-
ed budget from 125000 to 145000 frs on Febru-
ary 19.9'3 Hug was empowered to begin work on
April 3. 94 Colladon's report is obviously politically
antagonistic and therefore very critical of Hug's
qualifications. But the plans (still to be seen in the
91 see pp. [157-160]
92 Colladon, p. 290
93 Travaux A 68, folio 36 State Archives, Geneva
94 Travaux A 68, folio 110, April 3, 1851. State Archives,
Geneva
State Archives) most of which show masonry detail-
ing rather than iron structure, speak for themselves:
it is clear that Hug was indeed a novice. The struc-
ture was built, but it collapsed under test loading
on May 24, 1853. Dufour, who had narrowly es-
caped death on that occasion, subsequently
played only a minor role as a member of the exam-
ining commission in the ensuing enquiry.

143
 6 French developments and their influence
up to the catastrophe of 1850
In order to place Dufour's contribution in perspec-
tive, we must briefly examine the history of further
developments in France, the leading country in
this field. No complete list of the wire cable
bridges built at this period in France has yet been
compiled. Amouroux and Lemoine presume 500
bridges to have been built and they catalogue
about 150 of them. 1 Ostenfeld guesses at about
300 2, 86 of which were built by the Seguins. But
all sources indicate clearly that the number of wire
cable bridges built in France was substantially
larger than that built in Britain or in any other
country.
Engineering in Britain had evolved along more
empirical lines than in France. The war years
1789-1815 saw a proliferation of construction
and manufacture in a much wider variety of fields
and much more solidly based on industrial pro-
duction than had been possible in France. This is
why the leading engineers in France were so anx-
ious to fill the gaps in their practical engineering
knowledge, and their government supported this
desire as a matter of policy. The engineers who
were sent to Britain by their departments learned
and read English. They were able to discuss pro-
fessional matters with their colleagues in Britain,
read all published works in the original, and
translate them for the benefit of their compatriots.
The result was, as we have seen, a flood of infor-
mation and an awakening of professional com-
petence as had never been seen before.
British engineers, on the other hand, received no
official support from the government at all. Few of
them had anything more than a passing acquain-
tance with French, and far fewer French works
were translated into English than the other way
round. The attitude of the British practitioner to-
ward theory, in which the French excelled, could
be summed up in Tredgold's laconic remark: "The
stability of a building is inversely proportional to
the science of its builder." This attitude was, of
144 course, not shared by material technologists such
as Barlow, Pasley, Reid and Hodgkinson, but they
were few in number, and the sentiment did express
the common contempt of British empiricists for
the inexactitudes of the fledgling field of mathe-
matical statics.
The French were a conquered nation and had a
healthy respect for the technological ability of the
British. Because of their analytical and inquisitive
educational bias, they were by training also very
interested in what others had discovered and de-
veloped. The firm belief in scientific theory as de-
veloped by the 'encyclopedistes' and their follow-
ers did imply a distrust of the academically
untrained practitioner, and yet the French were
able to surmount their prejudice and profit from
their open-mindedness. British engineers, on the
other hand, were far more parochial in their out-
look and not at all concerned with what academ-
icians were doing, even British ones. Such attitudes
fostered a decline in British technical impetus and
a corresponding rise in that of France around mid
nineteenth century.
In suspension bridge construction this meant that
British engineers, being more self-reliant and less
inclined to learn from others, tended to build few-
er bridges of any single type. In fact, almost every
bridge used a different system. The entire devel-
opment of the suspension bridge in Britain resem-
bled the first two years of the evolution in France
with every bridge representing a statement of
some builder's ideas on the matter. No body of
common experience and no consensus as to what
were the most appropriate systems or details
evolved, and no British builder ever came close to
the production of the Seguin firm.
1 Amouroux, p.63
2 Ostenfeld, p. 55. Jakkula lists 215 up to 1850 and
Maurice Levy in APC, 500 until 1886.
 Controversy between adherents of cable
and of chain construction
Whereas the British development was committed
to chain construction, the French, after the demoli-
tion of Navier's Invalides Bridge, were firmly dedi-
cated to the use of wire cables. In spite of Na-
vier's championship of the chain in France, it was
never to become popular. Navier was not primar-
ily a practitioner, although he had successfully
built four large bridges and several canals in Italy.
His gifts lay more strongly in the area of theory
and teaching where he was preeminent. And al-
though he had designed several chain bridges in
defense, so to speak, of his preference, only the
ill-fated Invalides Bridge over the Seine in Paris
with a span of 155 m was actually begun.
But after the discovery of movement in one of the
abutments, a problem compounded by the burst-
ing of a water main while the site was closed on
the sabbath, the almost completed structure was
demolished in 1826, even though Navier claimed
it possible t9 repair the damage. 3 The decision to
remove the half-finished bridge was certainly in
part a political one; there were many who thought
the novel structure, built in the axis of the Invalides
Dome, an eyesore.
France finally did get her first chain bridge a year
later, in 1827, when Crozet and Jourdan's Drac
Bridge was opened. 4 Another chain bridge
come to be built at the Invalides site in 1829 5 by
Fortune de Verges, who had been sent to study
the recently finished Hammersmith Bridge in Lon-
don. 6
Because it was really a political affair, the debacle
of the Invalides Bridge received much more atten-
tion than it seems to merit when viewed over the
intervening space of a century and a half. At the
time, detracted from Navier's reputation and credi-
bility as an engineer7, whereas in our modern
opinion, the episode hardly carries any weight at
all. It was used as a weapon against Navier and
welcomed as an argument against chain construc-
tion generally. As long as Navier's reputation had
remained untarnished, he was a powerful leader
of the opposition to wire construction in France.
But resistance to wire cables collapsed with the
fate of the Invalides Bridge.
While Navier had little success, the Seguin broth-
ers were capable businessmen and manufacturers,
and they soon had the manufacture of wire and
the erection of wire bridges rationalized to such a
degree that, for this reason too, chain bridge con-
struction made very little headway in the early
years. Seguin granted Navier's chief argument
that the real disadvantage of wire over wrought
iron lay in the relatively greater surface of wire
for a given cross-section exposed to oxidization.
He thought (and as was soon to be proven) that
this defect could be overcome by a suitable la-
quering of the cables. 8 And, as Seguin stated, and
Vicat confirmed in his report of 1831, wire was in
fact far less corrosible than generally assumed.
The Seguins and Dufour were then still inexperi-
enced, but Vicat who was already counted among
the most renowned French material technologists,
also supported wire construction. The debate was
conducted both scientifically and emotionally. By
1831, Dufour was able to summarize the argu-
ments of the wire cable supporters thus:
"The advantages of cables over chains are
as follows: They are easier to manufacture,
requiring no connections and therefore mak-
ing the employ of expert smiths and highly
trained workmen unnecessary. Everywhere
where iron wire is in use, men will be found
who are quite capable of carrying out this
type of work as long as they are guided.
Cables need not be tested as chains do,
where the least fault in one of the links
suffices to compromise the strength of the
entire chain. Less than half the metal [used in
a chain] is required, as iron wire has double
the strength of forged iron. Finally, suspen-
der bars may be affixed to the cable at any
point, without one being obliged to place
them only at predetermined points, as is the
case with chains, where they can only be
3 von Gerstner states, however, that the damage was
irreparable (vol. 1, p.468)
4 Vicat: Sur I'oxidation des fers ... 1853, p. 338
5 removed in 1854
6 von Gerstner, vol. 1, p. 468
7 Prony: Notice biographique, 1837, p. 11
8 Marc Seguin, 2nd ed., p. 82 145
 ''1 •
Marie Bridge over the
Dordogne at Argentat by
Vicat 1829. From Vicat
1830
positioned at the articulations of the links.
This freedom facilitates erection."9
But British engineers remained adamantly against
cables. Brown was against them,lO and Drewry
took up Navier's argument in 1832, citing the dif-
ficulties Vicat had encountered in the building of
the Argentat Bridge as counter arguments. He con-
sidered wire impractical for anything larger than a
footbridge. ll Drewry's ideas seem to have mirrored
general British opinion, but by that time in France,
all opposition had long been overridden and
engineers had long since espoused the wire
cable, chiefly for the economic advantages it
presented.
By 1830, it became abundantly clear in France that
not all was well in the domain of wire cable con-
struction either. The Seguins were careful construc-
tors and stayed for the most part conservatively
well within the limiting criteria of the festoon sys-
tem. But numerous unscrupulous and irresponsible
contractors, as well as others who were merely ig-
norant of the pitfalls inherent in this type of struc-
146 ture, had brought the wire cable bridge into disre-
pute. Failures and damage were so common that
Louis Becquey, Director of the Ponts et Chaussees,
ordered Vicat to examine the Rhone bridges under
his jurisdiction. The fact that Vicat and not Navier
was requested to undertake this examination can
be attributed to several reasons. The chief one was
that Vicat was the officer of the Ponts et Chaussees
responsible for the Rhone district at the time.
Whereas Navier was discredited, Vicat had just
successfully finished building a cable bridge him-
self and therefore had the experience to judge
where others had gone wrong. Vicat's Marie
Bridge over the Dordogne River at Argentat had
been opened to traffic the year previously, in 1829.
Vicat was also interested in the further develop-
ment of the type as his report on that bridge pub-
lished in 1830 testifies, but he was not as involved
emotionally as Navier or as financially as the Seg-
uins. In choosing an eminent engineer who had
9 Dufour: Quelques notes sur les ponts suspendus, 1831,
p.280
10 Kemp: Brown, pp. 11-12
11 Drewry, p. 133
done successful work in the field, and who was
known to be both objective and critical, the re-
sourceful Becquey could expect to have the ex-
amination conducted as seriously and as contien-
tiously as possible. The result far surpassed the
usual import of such reports and was to exert a
major, and as shall be seen, nefarious influence on
the further development of suspension bridge con-
struction.
Vicatand the building of the Marie
Bridge at Argentat
We must learn what Vicat had accomplished in this
field before we are able to judge his report. It was
immaterial that his wire cable Marie Bridge of 1829
was only the second structure he had ever built.
Vicat was known as a theoretician, and the fact
that he had just successfully completed a bridge of
the type then in doubt, weighed heavily in his fa-
vor.
Vicat had a trained analytical mind and a scientific
bent. The way in which he pursued each aspect of
a problem, whether academic or not, in relation to
the whole makes the report of 1830 on the Marie
Bridge a mine of precise information on the diffi-
culties of design as well as of practical construction
and manufacture which had to be mastered.
notwithstanding the exactitude of the
II • • •
calculation and the care taken over the
execution, one can be certain never to attain
that degree of perfection necessary to
ensure that everything will be exactly in
place at the raising. Those who are accus-
tomed to building will readily appreciate the
reason ... and often enough will a part,
which will appear very simple when consid-
ered on its own, render the raising process
incredibly difficult and considerably increase
the cost." 12
Vicat recorded his indebtedness to Seguin, from
whom he had received documents,13 and he also
acknowledged the theoretical work done by Na-
vier.14 Although Dufour is not mentioned, we may
be quite certain from the construction method
adopted for the manufacture of the cables, and
from the splice used 15 , that he was familiar with
Dufour's work as well.
.,j{icat showed himself to be an excellent practical
engineer. His system derived from that of the Tain-
Tournon Bridge which had opened while the Marie
Bridge was in the planning stages. All wire, includ-
ing that for the suspenders, was furnished by the
Seguins who were quick to establish their own wire
manufactory as a result of their dissatisfaction with
what they had been able to obtain on the market.
Vicat liked the appearance of the festoons and
considered the alternating suspension to be an
advantage, as it made replacement of a suspender
easy. He improved upon the detailing, particularly
of the suspender attachment, and he coupled the
cable sections at mid-span where the cable force
was lowest. He did use Dufour's unsatisfactory
bobbin detail, but replaced the cable bands with
iron hoops, such as those used in the Paquis Bridge,
to give the connection more lateral stability. The
cable sections ended in thimbles of the Seguin type
and Vicat provided splints at the mid-span cou-
pling and at the anchorages to permit shortening
them by driving a wedge into a split bolt, acknowl-
edging to have taken the detail from both the Tain
and the Drac Bridges. 16
Movable cable bearings and their
problems
The quality of Vicat's detailing was superior to both
--
Seguin's and Dufour's first attempts and it was ob-
Pier saddle with series of
"I ~ II
small, solid, cast-iron
cylinders intended to permit
compensatory movement of
main cables on the
Argentat Bridge. From Vicat
1830
12 Vic at: Description ... 1830, p. 22
13 ibid, p.2
14 ibid, p.2
15 ibid, p. 15
16 ibid, p. 22 147

Perspective sketch of the
pier saddle detail. From
Vicat 1830
vious that he had drawn intelligently on the expe-
rience of both. In fact, his detailing was better than
much of what was to follow as well, as evinced in
the design of the pier saddle.
Hollow, cast-iron cylinders for deflecting the cables
over the pier saddles appeared in French projects
immediately following the building of the Tain-
Tournon Bridge. Vicat was the first to describe the
detail, but his cylinders were of much better con-
struction than all earlier and most later versions.
Vicat used series of solid cylinders, 5 cm thick,
lying one behind another over a convex cast-iron

Standard hollow cast-iron

cylinders used as saddle
bearings and deflectors for
suspension bridge cables.
Casting flaws caused
frequent bridge failures.
Detail from Peney Bridge
1853, original plan by Hug
(State Archives, Geneva)
.,"

148
plate affixed to the top of the pier. Each series was
held in place by two lateral flanges cast integrally
with the base plate. Not only did the cylinders rest
in a channel, but they had axles which ran in
grooves in the lateral flanges. A second convex
plate layover the cylinders and this upper plate
had grooves in which the cables lay. This was the
only way of guaranteeing free movement of the
cylinders and a constant spread of pressure on
them.
Later versions of this detail had either a single,
much larger, and therefore, hollow cast cylinder or
a series of small ones, but without the lateral guides
or the upper plate. Chaley was to use the simplified
version for both the pier and the anchorage sad-
dles in his first bridge in Fribourg of 1834, and this
led to its general adoption as a standard detail. In
theory the rollers allowed the cable to slip freely,
permitting the equalization of stress between the
cables to either side, both during construction and
for unequalliveloads thereafter. In fact, without the
lateral guides and the top plate, the cylinders nev-
er worked. In larger bridges, such as the Grand
Pont Suspendu or later in the Brooklyn Bridge in
New York built by John and Washington Roebling
1873-1883, a series of cylinders lay loose on a
bearing plate and invariably filled up with pigeon
droppings and aerosol filth. When they moved at
all, they canted on the plate and jammed, thus
functioning only as immovable bearings over which
the cables could not slip to equalize differences
in tension. The elasticity of the wire had then to
accomodate unequal tension.
A danger of using the more popular hollow cast-
iron cylinders, was the inability to control the
quality of the casting. Hidden flaws often led to
suspension bridge collapses in the early period,
most frequently under test loading. Dufour wit-
nessed collapses of this type twice, once in 1839
when he served as expert during the test loading of
a cable bridge over the Aar River in Aarburg, built
by Fran~ois Jeanrenaud of Neuchatel, and again
during the test loading of Hug's Peney Bridge in
1853. Nevertheless, in spite of this constant danger,
the advantages of the simple roller bearing seem-
ed so great that it replaced all other saddle types
until mid-century.
Vicat's wire tests and complaints about
the quality of bar iron
Dufour had been unable to distinguish between the
points of yield and rupture in his wire, although he
did note a constriction where the wire failed. Vic-
at's wire had been differently manufactured, and
there was a clear distinction between the two. Vic-
at's no. 18 wire (3.1 mm) yielded at 53.3 kg/mm 2
and failed at 66.6-80.0 kg/mm 2, which was slightly
lower than the ultimate value the Seguins had ob-
tained. His no. 17 wire (2.7 mm), however, gave
results 10% higher than the Seguins'.
Vicat obtained far more consistant values than the
Seguins had done, and he concluded that the ear-
lier non-linear results had been erroneous. This
may not have been the case, however, as the Seg-
uins had dealt with wire of far more erratic quality,
and manufacturing standards had rapidly improved
in the intervening half decade.
Even though the process of wire manufacture sup-
posedly pretested the material, Vicat discovered
many types of fault in his wire. Most of them were
superficially recognizable as opposed to the hid-
den faults to be found in bar iron. Statistically too,
the large number of wires in a cable more than
made up for any hidden flaws in individual wires.
This argument was an important one, as the quality
of wrought iron left much to be desired. Methods of
manufacture were still primitive and quality control
or standards as yet practically non-existent. Vicat
complained of a lack of quality in the bar iron he
was forced to use for his anchor bars:
II • • •it is difficult to imagine the number of
faults in the iron. Of approximately 200 units
of 3 m length each, and 30 times 30 millimet-
ers in section, which were the pieces special-
ly ordered for the great chain links from the
most renowned forges in the Limousin, only
30 displayed neither fissures nor transverse
cracks starting at the edges and extending
more or less into the interior of each bar ...
These bars were, by the way, made with so
little precision that a tolerance of almost five
millimeters over each measurement in cross-
section was needed in order not to obtain
149
 Pretensioning rack of the Dufour type used by Vicat less than the desired section. We had to pay
for the cables of the Argentat Bridge. From Vicat 1830 for a great deal of useless iron."17
How difficult it must have been to erect anything
without being able to rely on consistant material
f/,,-,/r..k- / r --- ...#-
O quality. This lack effected detailing, and Vicat took
pains to design the simplest possible form of an-
. "-,, I-- 41'--
chor bar containing only straight and short welds.

Detail problems of cable manufacture

For some reason, not knowing about Dufour's sec-
ond method of cable manufacture, Vicat accepted
the necessity to pretension the wires in his cables,
and, as an improvement over Dufour's pretension-
ing rack, he made a saddle-shaped bench around
which he stretched his wires using half the force
Dufour had originally found necessary. Vic at made
no mention of Dufour, but he did iterate the latter's
explanation for this precaution. 1B
He used the Seguin cable banding rather than the
Dufour continuous spiral. But he considered it per-
manent and did not rebind and then varnish the
cables after they had been hung in place as the
Seguins had done. This led to difficulties as the
wires slipped when the finished cable sections were
transported from the rack to their storage, obvious-
ly due to the freshness of the varnish:
"This ... explains perfectly the disorder ob-
served in the binding and in the wires of our
great cables after the brief transport they
have to undergo from the workbench to the
grating of beams on which they are stored.
This disorder manifested itself in the overlap-
ping of the turns of the binding wire, by the
various angles which these turns then
formed, whereas they had formerly been
. -.::... .• "'1- perpendicular to the axis of the strand, etc.
On the other hand, the wires separated
[from the cable] and formed arcs between
the points of binding, and all this clearly
demonstrates the relative desplacement of
the wires due to the festoon form the cables
assumed when moved, aided by the still
liquid varnishing oil.

17 ibid, p. 25
150 18 ibid, pp. 20- 21
 "I first regarded this small occurance as of
no consequence, persuaded that, when the
cables were finally placed in position, every-
thing would be rectified by the tension. But
my argumentation was faulty: after six
months, the varnish had thickened, and any
slippage of the wires in the strands became
manifestly impossible. The rupture of a great
number of wires and the unequal tension of
most of the others was the unavoidable
consequence of having decided to leave
things as they were."19
By changing only a slight detail in the chronology
of executing the Seguin method, Vicat had obviat-
ed all its advantages. This is what makes experi-
ence irreplacable in engineering, even today, and
makes purely 'theoretical' and 'scientific' engineer-
ing an impossibility. Vicat concluded that the cables
should only be temporarily bound before the
bridge was complete.
A temporary binding would also avoid other both-
ersome problems. When cables, manufactured as
straight strands, are hung in place, the wires at the
bottom of the strand lengthen in relation to those
on top, causing differences in tension. And where
the cables pass over the piers, the relatively small
radii of curvature aggravate the condition. Vicat
noted that this effect had been obviated at Tain
where the cables spontaneously splayed over the
saddles, the longer spreading to either side of the
shorter at the point of deflection. 2o
The Dordogne flows SWiftly, and Vicat had to do
without centering placed in the river. The cables
had to be pulled up over one saddle, floated
across the span and pulled up over the other, much
as the Menai chains had been. The small saddle
radii endangered the strands during this process. In
his bridge, Vicat noted that the effect of the cur-
vature at the saddles approximately balanced that
of the span. He considered this a lucky fluke,21 and
did not recommend relying on chance.
Some of Vicat's experiments, or at least his deduc-
tions from them, must have been done after the
erection of his bridge, as they were published in the
report of 1831 on the Rhone bridges rather than in
his book on the Marie Bridge. In fact he noted in
1831 that the elastic elongation of the wires had
compensated quite well for the slight differences in
length in the curve cables. Thus the only real dan-
ger lay in the tightness of the radii at the abutment
deflection where the wires lacked space to spread
out over their cylindrical rollers.
A first approach to cable spinning
Although the problem of differences in length due
to cable curvature was proven to be academic, his
examination of the problem led Vicat to consider
means for manufacturing cables in situ. Experience
had made him aware of the pitfalls of cable pre-
fabrication, and he proposed:
"In order to avoid this source of inequality in
the tension, the strands would evidently have
to be made up with the precise curvature
which they would assume when placed in
position. This would not present great diffi-
culties."22
The innocuous comment indicates the point of de-
parture for the invention of aerial cable spinning,
an idea which Vic at was to present in the report of
1831 and which others were subsequently to devel-
op into a practical method.
Concrete curing and load limitation
As the hydraulic cements in use at that time, includ-
ing the one Vicat had himself developed in 1818,
required two years to cure fully, he proposed a
temporary load limitation of 70 kg/m 2 on the Mar-
ie Bridge for that period. This was to permit the
dimensioning of the piers and abutments for their
final load of 200 kg/m 2 and not for their initial
strength, while still permitting the use of the bridge
in the interim. His thoughts on matters of detail and
procedure prove him to have been an experienced
and gifted practitioner as well as a first-rate theo-
retician, in spite of the fact that this bridge, his sec-
ond independant project, was destined to be his
last.
19 ibid, 18-19
20 ibid, p. 20
21 ibid, p. 20
22 ibid, p. 20 151
 The report of 1831 on the state
of the Rhone bridges
On the basis of this experience and his knowledge
of the structural and material problems involved,
Vicat then examined the state of the suspension
bridges built over the Rhone and found them want-
ing. His report, printed in the first volume of the
'Annales des Ponts et Chaussees' had an immedi-
ate and far-reaching influence on subsequent de-
velopments. Vicat examined eight bridges, only
two of which displayed no damage.
The cables made by the Seguin method were per-
fectly done in the Seguins' Tain-Tournon and in
Plagniol's Saint Andeol Bridges. Five of the others,
in contrast, were in desperate condition. 23 Vicat
estimated the design stress reduced by a full 30 %
in their cables. Those of the Beaucaire-Tarascon
Bridge, on which Joseph Chaley had worked for
Jules Seguin, were the worst of all eight. Its wrongly
manufactured cable lengths had been altered by
makeshift and insufficient means.
Taking all possible sources of error into account,
including differences in temperature and tension
while pulling the wires into position, but excluding
the possibility of movement in the temporary thim-
ble fixture on the posts of the manufacturing rig,
Vicat calculated a maximum possible difference in
wire tension of 20 kg which gave a statistical loss
of 1.66 % in force for the whole cable. The ex-
tremely small radii at the points of deflection from
the backs pans to the anchorages in all the bridges
with the exception of Saint Andeol, gave addi-
tional differences in wire tension of up to 270 kg.
In the Saint Andeol Bridge, the cables were so
tightly bound that they retained the form of their
cross section right over the points of deflection.
However, as the main and anchor cables of this
bridge were continuous over 110m, the differen-
ces in wire length due to the narrow deflection
radii were dissipated over a longer distance than
in the other bridges, and Vicat found a loss of
only 6 %. In other bridges, where the cables were
prevented from splaying over the bearings, as in
Andance and Vienne, the effect of the narrow
radii was more pronounced.
"As a result of this state of affairs ... it can
152 be seen that we will be far from a maximum
load on the deck before exceeding the
elastic limit of the cables. The force of a
harsh wind, a regiment in closed ranks, a
long line of carriges or a herd of cattle
would cause this to happen."24
Aerial cable spinning
Vicat was not only dissatisfied with the details of
cable manufacture, but with the whole system:
"The method used at present becomes more
and more complicated as the span to be
bridged increases: it requires a formidable
apparatus of ropeways, capstans, scaffold-
ing poles and so forth."25
and, on the basis of this dissatisfaction, he pro-
ceeded to outline a new method of cable manufac-
ture: aerial spinning of the wires in situ.
"The piers of a suspension bridge, being
finished, and the points of attachment
having been prepared to receive the an-
chorages, let us suppose that a series of
double wires forming loops and all of the
same length, had been prepared in advance
in divers packets all rolled up one after the
other on drums. These wires would be
passed from one pier to the other with the
help of a light, endless rope in the form of a
ropeway functioning like a paternoster or
continuous hoist. The work would be done
more quickly than a man could cover the
distance on flat ground.
"The combinations for making each strand
are too numerous to be all discussed; we
shall keep to that which seems the simplest
and which is a series of consecutive and
independent revolutions (these revolutions or
circuits can consist of a single wire, of four
wires or of six, and so on), lodged in circular
sleeves in rows one above the other at the
points of attachment, each row consisting of
an equal number of equal circuits.
23 Andance, Vienne (l828) and Serrieres (1829), both by
the Seguins, Fourques and Jules Seguin's Beaucaire-
Tarascon of 1829
24 Vicat: Ponts suspend us en fil de fer sur Ie Rhone ... 1831,
p.107
25 ibid, p. 111
 "According to this hypothetical method, the
problem is clearly reduced to the formation
of circuits of predetermined length and
perfectly equal in extent out of iron wire.
This can be accomplished without the use of
expensive apparatus and independant of
any temperature variation by hanging a
calibrating wire in a catenary loaded with 40
to 50 kilograms and rigidly fixed at the ends.
All the equal circuits will be measured
against this curvature. It is evident that the
temperature of the calibrating wire and the
one compared to it, being the same at any
given moment, it will suffice to make the sag
of the two curves the same in order to obtain
the desired result."26
By using this system, a more precise cable could be
had along with a reduction of 18 % in labor costs.
But the main advantages were to be the reduction
of the number of cables to two for even the largest
spans with the consequent reduction of surface ex-
posed to rust, the need for only very simple equip-
ment which could be obtained or built anywhere,
and the flexible size of the labor force needed to
manufacture the cables, a practical point which
Vicat well appreciated. 27
Vicat was destined never to try the system himself,
but Joseph Chaley was soon to develop a method
out of this idea which became successful. And just
over a decade later, John Augustus Roebling took
up the same idea in the United States and devel-
oped it into the automated cable spinning method
still in use for the erection of all long-span sus-
pension bridges.
Cement as protection against rust
The problem of rusting was crucial in the battle
between chain and wire construction, and, in order
to study it, Vicat carried out a series of weathering
tests between January and June 1830, using both
coated and untreated samples. It was generally
agreed as an established fact that wire rusted
quickly, and that was an end to the question as far
as most engineers, and among them Navier, were
concerned. Vicat discovered that the rusting pro-
cess was slower than had been presumed and that
shielding cables from rain gave almost total pro-
tection. He therefore recommended sheathing ca-
bles in metal tubes rather than painting them with
Seguin's coating of lampblack boiled in linseed oil
which required expensive maintenance.
Being curious as to the properties of his hydraulic
cement, Vicat also imbedded wires in concrete and
discovered that that too gave total protection
against rust. Up to that time, all suspension cables
had been attached to iron bars imbedded in the
anchorages so that the rust-prone wires were not
carried down into the moist earth:
"This fear should no longer exist, now that
we are certain that common or building lime,
when used in a state of laitance or as a
slurry, has the property of indefinitely pre-
serving the iron it covers from all oxidization
by keeping it well away from any contact
with the air."28
In fact cement even reduces rust. Vicat described
the experiments he had conducted to prove this in
a footnote. 29 The recognition of this property of
cement, the earliest such discussion yet discovered,
was of great import for the subsequent develop-
ment of reinforced concrete. But while this obser-
vation furthered the invention of concrete, it was
devastating for the French system of cable con-
struction. The design of anchorages with cable
wires imbedded directly in concrete, without inter-
mediary anchor links, calls for the greatest circum-
spection in detailing and execution. Chaley used
them for his Grand Pont Suspendu at Fribourg. But
it was precisely these parts which had to be re-
newed only a few years later. And the greatest
bridge failure of the age, that of the Basse-Chaine
Bridge at Angers in 1850, was due to the failure
of anchorage cables grouted directly into their
channels with cement.
Vicat had not made any mistake in his observa-
tions, but he had failed to realize the importance of
stressing the difficulties of correct detailing and ex-
ecution. His urgent concern in 1831 had only been
to avoid using any bar iron of uncontrollable qual-
ity in the structure at all. In order to allow for re-
26 ibid, pp. 111-112
27 ibid, pp. 112-113
28 ibid, p. 119
29 ibid, p. 119, footnote 12 153
Grand Pont Suspendu over
the Sarine in Fribourg by
Joseph Chaley, 1834. World
record span. Photograph
from the beginning of the
20th cent.
placement in spite of the grouting of the anchor
cables he suggested using:
mortar made of common lime or better
II • • •
yet, common lime alone slaked to a thick
paste and poured into a channel or tube of
non-porous masonry through which the
anchors run. This lime, kept constantly moist
underground, will remain fresh for several
centuries and effectively protect the iron
wire without emprisoning it."30
Indeed, had this advice been followed by con-
structors, and water carefully prevented from
dripping down the backspan cables into the mouth
of the anchorages, far less damage would have
resulted.
Vicat concluded with a call for improvement in site
control exercised over private projects by the ad-
154 ministration of the Ponts et Chaussees. 31 His report
was both critical of work done and self-critical, as
he was the responsible administrator in the Depar-
tement Rhone. As a result, Vicat immediately found
himself recognised as the foremost French expert in
the field of suspension bridge construction without
having built more than a single structure. Several
further examinations of aspects of the problems he
had discussed in the report appeared over the
years under Vicat's name in the 'Annales des Ponts
et Chaussees', but none achieved the notoriety of
the original.
The effect on the structural quality, detailing and
maintenance of French suspension bridges was im-
mediate and marked. The Seguins, for instance, im-
mediately incorporated many of Vicat's sugges-
30 ibid, p. 120
31 ibid, p. 130
tions into the design of their Bry-sur-Marne Bridge
of 1832 choosing a rocking cast-iron pier, hinged
top and bottom, to avoid problems of thrust in un-
reinforced masonry. Vicat's work clearly influenced
the standardization of systems and details, a devel-
opment that was to remain un accomplished in Bri-
tain. Chaley too, altered his proposal for the Grand
Pont Suspendu to conform to Vicat's critique.
The wire cable bridge comes of age:
The Grand Pont Suspendu in Fribourg
Vic at's work thus led directly to the capture of the
world record in span size in 1834. Now, for the first
time, the cable bridge was to attain its place as the
system par excellence ·for very long spans. Since
then, in the course of the past 160 years, thirteen
bridges have succeeded one another as the largest
spans in the worldi all but two of them were wire
cable bridges. 32
Chaley's Grand Pont Suspendu held the world re-
cord for sixteen years until French-trained Charles
Ellet Jr.'s Wheeling Bridge over the Ohio was
opened to traffic in 1849. These two were the
largest spans ever to be built using prefabricated
.. .··. 1,,;
cables,33 and the Fripour:g Bridge was to retain its
title as the longest span in Europe for a full 67
years until Ferdinan~ Arnodin, heir to the Seguin
firm, built the Araryion Bridge over the Rhone in
1901.34 And in Swit~erland, Chaley's masterful span
has never been equ1alled. Since the replacement of
32 1834 Fribourg over the Sarine, Switzerland, 273 m
1850 Wheeling over the Ohio, USA, 308 m
1851 Lewiston-Queenston over the Niagara,
USA-Canada, 318 m
1867 Cincinnati-Covington over the Ohio, USA, 322 m
1869 Clifton over the Niagara, USA-Canada, 378 m
1883 Brooklyn Bridge over the East River, USA, 486 m
1890 Firth of Forth, Scotland, a hinged, cantilevered,
continuous beam structure, 521 m
1917 Quebec over the St. Lawrence, Canada, another
beam of the same type, 549 m
1929 Detroit, USA 564 m
1931 George Washington Bridge over the Hudson,
USA, 1067 m
1937 Golden Gate, USA, 1280 m
1964 Verrazano Narrows, USA, 1298 m
1982 Hull over the Humber, GB, 1410 m
33 Elton, nr. 66
34 Messina et al: Ponti a sospensioni de funi ... 1980,
p.204
(i- ~,,' . . . ........ ... .
7" ..... . ............... .
155
 the bridge with a multi-span concrete structure in
1923, the largest is Christian Menn's Ganter Bridge,
a novel suspended concrete construction, which
opened in 1982 with a main span of 174m or just
99 m less than Chaley's masterpiece.
Joseph Chaley
Technical advance in wire cable bridge building
was dominated by the work of the innovative Cha-
ley. It is almost impossible to find material on his
career. His only publication of 1835 contains no
information at all on his development and the
scanty biographical material, published around
1900 by his daughters, is spotty and apparently
based on flawed information. 35
We only know that he was a self-made engineer,
having been a military medical officer before he
turned to bridge building. He was connected with
the building of two of Jules Seguin's works: the
Tarascon-Beaucaire Bridge of 1828 which had
drawn Vicat's sharp criticism for its bumbling cor-
rection of wrongly manufactured cable lengths,
and the Chasey Bridge in the Departement Ain,
before being called to Fribourg in 1930 and com-
missioned to build what was to become the world's
greatest span.
Chaley was therefore trained by the highly gifted,
renegade Seguin brother Jules. Jules may very well
have been responsible for the design and construc-
tion of the inventive Bry-sur-Marne Bridge of 1832,
because, although it had been built under the col-
lective Seguin family firm, Jules rather than the
member engineer Charles Seguin had reported it in
the 'Annales des Ponts et Chaussees'. Aside from
that, the only knowledge we have of his work is
from the manuscript record of the bridges built in
the Charente Inferieure and the Vienne Departe-
ments of 1815-18391 36 The documents concerning
the Chauvigny Bridge over the Vienne, built be-
tween 1832 and 1833, show that Jules had not pro-
gressed beyond the traditional Seguin festoon
system at a time when his erstwhile pupil Chaley
had already embraced the parallel cable arrange-
ment. Although the parallel cable system had been
pioneered by Mitis, the Seguins, Delessert, Dufour,
the Villa Paolina ~ridge of 1831 in Florence,
156 Bayard de la Vinteri~ and Bernard Phillorme in the
Lussac Bridge over the Vienne of 1832-1833Y
and possibly also ~y J. P. Quenot in 1828 in the
Jarnac Bridge,38 it was the Grand Pont Suspendu
which was to populorize the parallel cable system
in the form we use it today, to the exclusion of all
other types. Unfortunately all original documents
concerning this bridge and all other Chaley pro-
jects, too, with the exception of two profosals of
1843 for a 100 mAar Bridge at Aarau 3 and for
one of 220 m over the Rhine at Basel 40 , have
disappeared without a trace.
Building the world's largest span
Until Chaley's bridge was built, the only road from
Berne to Fribourg led down the steep sides of the
Sarine Valley, over three ancient, narrow masonry
bridges and back up the precipitous incline into the
city precincts on the other side. It was this last slope
which made the rOdd so difficult and practically
impassible in winter. In the early years of the nine-
teenth century, Berne-Lausanne traffic was rerouted
through the Broye Valley to the west of the city, and
Fribourg was threatened with the loss of its import-
ant position on the hJcrative trade route. 41
In 1824, therefore" a bridge commission was
formed by the city government for the purpose of
examining a way to redress the situation before it
was too late by erecting a high-level bridge over
the Sarine Valley to connect the Berne road on the
one side of the ravine with the city at the same
height on the other. The committee was favorably
impressed with the inherent possibilities of Dufour's
new Saint Antoine Bridge, with Navier's report and
with the Seguins' proposal which was then under
.consideration. The committee contacted Dufour,
the only one of the three to have built a full scale
35 Hofer, ms nr. 25
36 ms nr. 3 is now in the possession of the Centre
Canadien d'Architecture, Montreal
37 ms nr. 3 Charente Inferieure & Vienne
38 Quenot, p. 12 & p. 33. The first mention is of 12 cables,
and the second of two made of six strands each.
39 ms nr. 4 Bauamt Aarau
40 Dufour ms nr. 23 1844 Lettre de Mr. Ie Colonel Dufour
41 The history of the genesis of the bridge is chronicled in
detail in Hofer's manuscript which is based on Chaley,
Gremaud and documents in the Departement des
Ponts et Chaussees in Fribourg.
structure at the time, who presented a proposal for
an underspanned suspension bridge of novel de-
sign in the summer of 1825. The genesis and fate of
this interesting proposal is discussed in a later
chapter.
Public opinion in Fribourg was against the erection
of a suspension bridge, however, and the commit-
tee therefore solicited three other proposals which
were presented in 1827 and 1829. The first was by
Giulio Poccobelli, an engineer and politician from
Melide in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino,
south of the Gotthard Pass, which was and still is
noted as a breeding ground for eminent architects
and master masons. Poccobelli had built the Monte
Ceneri road in 1805 connecting the city of Lugano
in the south with the Gotthard Route via the Mag-
adino Plain and had just finished the Saint Bernar-
dino Pass road (1818-1827), to the east, which links
the Ticino Valley with the city of Chur in the Gri-
sons and the Rhine Valley to the north. Pocobelli
proposed a massive masonry structure for Fribourg
with five arches estimated to cost 800000 frs. This
was clearly too expensive for both the city
exchequer and for the commission as a private cor-
poration.
The second alternative proposal, a timber bridge
costing 500000 frs, came from an otherwise un-
known architect named Widtmer from the German-
speaking city of Schaffhausen on the Rhine. Schaff-
hausen and the surrounding states had been
known ever since the mid-eighteenth century for
the quality of their innovative timber spans. The
bridge commission inclined toward Widtmer's pro-
posal, but had to abandon it as memories of the
retreating French armies and their destruction of
virtually all timber bridges in the Swiss lowlands in
1798 and 1799 were still indelibly imprinted on the
public mind. Therefore the project of a local Fri-
bourgeois master mason named Kaeser for a stone
structure to cost 640000 frs and Dufour's wire ca-
ble bridge costing only 320000 frs were the two
retained for further consideration.
Dufour and August Stadler, a well-known Zurich
architect, were asked to examine Kaeser's plans
and to report on their feasibility. Both experts
found the proposal sQund but Dufour estimated a
much higher price forthe structure than Kaeser had
claimed. It would be intriguing to discover why
Dufour was called upon to judge one of the entries
while his own was stili under consideration.
The commission was still undecided. The 640000 frs
or more, if Dufour's critique were considered, were
still to high a price for Fribourg. Further alternatives
were sought, as Dufour's innovative design, while
the cheapest, was untested. Matters had now
dragged on so long that the commission was able
to mention in the final report dated January 20,
1829, that French engineers were building perfect-
ly sound bridges over the Rhone comparable in
length and far cheaper than the proposals they
had so far received. The bridges they cited were
those that Vicat was so severely to condemn two
years later.
On the basis of this remark, Joseph Chaley was
invited to Fribourg by the commission in February
1830. Why their choice fell on the unknown Chaley
rather than on the Seguins or Vicat is not known.
Three months later, in May, Chaley presented two
versions for a wire cable bridge, one with the un-
heard of span of over 250 m and another for twin
spans of 120 m.
After deliberating for a month, the government is-
sued provisional construction permits for both ver-
sions at the beginning of June 1830. A contract was
prepared and signed by the privately funded
bridge corporation and Chaley on June 10th. The
undue haste and the unusual measure of issuing
provisional permits for both variants seems strange
after the waste of almost five years in preliminary
deliberations, but matters had apparently come to
a head quickly. Chaley was allowed to choose be-
tween the two variants himself as he had agreed to
erect the structure at his own risk and to bear the
burden of any additional cost over and above the
stipulated 300000 florins, or 207000 frs. It was
possibly this unconditional guarantee coupled with
the low price which had finally moved the commis-
sion to prefer Chaley's proposal to Dufour's, al-
though we shall see when we come to discuss Du-
four's project, that other considerations may also
have played a role.
As masonry piers were always the most expensive
part of a suspension bridge, Chaley dispensed
with the middle pier and prefered the single span 157

Photograph of the
cross-section of one of the
main cables of the Grand
Pont Suspendu showing
1056 wires of 3.08 mm
gauge (Technorama Winter-
thur, Switzerland)
Detail of cable cross-section
showing splice (Technorama
Winterthur)
158
against the wishes of the bridge company, the
views of the populace and the opinions of the ex-
perts. Chaley was perhaps not foolhardy, as the
result bore him out, but he certainly was brave.
Construction began the same year, but it was
brought to an abrupt halt by political dissension
between liberals and conservatives which led to
open strife in the town and government.
Looking back, this sudden stoppage of the work
proved to be fortunate for the success of the pro-
ject, as Vicat's report appeared while the works lay
still. Chaley thus gained time to redesign the struc-
ture in the light of Vicat's criticism. Chaley's report
of 1835 credits many of Vic at's suggestions, espe-
cially concerning the cable manufacture and the
anchorage detailing.
The four main cables had 1056 3.08 mm wires each
(no. 18) and were far too heavy to be prefabricated
and raised as units. Each was therefore built up of
20 strands prefabricated on the flat banks of the
Sarine at the bottom of th~ ravine under the city
walls. As these strands were too long to be made in
straight lengths, they were b~nt double around an
iron saddle of large diameter. Vicat's requirement
of equal length for all wires could not be main-
tained, but the minor differences were spread out
over the whole length of 274.24 m. Although this
supposed shortcoming was sub~equently much criti-
cized, it was, as we have seen;, not critical. Chaley
was able to equalize much of the difference by
loosening the binding after placing the strands in
position over the piers as Vicat had suggested in
1830.
Chaley used Dufour's tensioning rack but attributed
it to Vicat as the latter had neglected to mention
the author. After being bound and freed, the
strands were spooled on to drums starting at the
middle and ending at the two extremities. When
required, the drums were rolled to a spot on the
river bank approximately under the middle of the
projected span and the ends attached to ropes
which were then pulled up and over the piers. The
drum gradually unrolled as the ends slowly rose
toward the saddles until the middle of the strand
lifted clear of the valley floor and slowly rose into
position. A mark on each pier served to calibrate
the depth of the sag when viewed across the valley.
One end was temporarily fixed above the saddle
while the other was pulled farther over the pier and
attached to the anchor cables forming the back-
span behind. Then the other end was released and
fixed in the same way. The anchor connection
could be adjusted by means of wedges. Finally,
when all was in place, the whole strand was low-
ered into position on the saddle rollers where it was
allowed to spread out as Vicat had recommended.
In spite of the care taken over these operations
they were rather primitive, and one of the main
cables came to lie somewhat higher than its twin.
This was 'remedied' by forcing the two cables with
 Chaley's pretensioning rack
for manufacture of the main
cables. The cables are bent
double because of lack of
space on the valley floor.
The system is Dufour's but
Chaley took it from Vicat.
From Chaley in Annales des
Ponts et Chaussees 1835

The prefabricated cable

strands were rolled on
/J. (;;,,/,/,/ '//~'''''/,//''''.~IIh' I'IIII,/' /.r ~II//'; drums starting in the middle
/ ' N~ /, ;".", .//., ,"//'.1 • of the cable. When needed,
the drums were placed
under the span and the
cable ends pulled up while
the drums unrolled. From
Chaley in Annales des Ponts
et Chaussees 1835

159
Standard pier saddle
bearing of hollow cast-iron
cylinders. From Chaley in
Annales des Ponts et
Chaussees 1835
Detail of cable anchorages
showing deflection from
backspan over hollow cast-
iron cylinder and stone
wedges transfering cable
tension to rock. From
Chaley in Annales des Ponts
et Chaussees 1835
wedges and binding them together, a measure rem-
iniscent of that used in the Beaucaire-Tarascon
Bridge and which excited much censure later.
The backspan cables were deflected over rollers
into anchor shafts cut into the living rock. Once in
these shafts, each split into twenty strands looped
over thimbles. These were hooked in groups of five
over an anchor bar at the bottom of the shaft.
Much of the cable force was transferred to the rock
by friction through a series of stone wedges pres-
sing in funnel-shaped, sawtooth formation against
the sides of the channel. After all was firmly in
place, the anchor shafts were grouted with mortar.
In order to check the truth of Vicat's observations,
Chaley ordered loose wires to be cast into the
grouting mix, planning for one to be pulled out
every year to prove that the desired result was in
fact achieved.
The suspenders had thimbles above and below
which did not allow the height of the joists to be as
easily adjusted as was by then common. As the
cables lay a little farther apart than the deck was
wide, the suspenders drew the cables in toward the
bridge axis. This camber was intended to help
stabilize the piers and stiffen the structure against
wind. The railing was designed as a Seguin-truss.
Since Chaley was building in Switzerland and not in
France, he deviated from the standard loading and
designed for a liveload of 100 kg/m 2• The structure
was tested for only 68 kg/m 2, perhaps considering
that the mortar of the piers had yet to cure fully, but
on opening day 2000 people crowded on to the
deck which made 82 kg/m 2 and nothing untoward
occurred.
When the Basse-Chaine Bridge, the cables of
which had also been built by Chaley, collapsed
sixteen years later, the anchor shafts of the Grand
Pont were opened and checked as were all others
at the time. The grouted anchor cables were found
to be in perilous condition and had greatly suffered
from corrosion. So, in 1852, extra cables were run
parallel to them in open shafts which could be
checked on a regular basis, and in 1881, the al-
lowable load was increased to 200 kg/m 2 by add-
ing new main cables over the original pairs. The
main criticism leveled at this bridge was the forcing
of the unequal cable pair, the grouting of the an-
chor cables and the smaliliveload. The vertical os-
cillation of the deck, which was quite noticable,
never caused more than passing mention.
In 1923, the bridge was replaced by a reinforced
concrete structure with several arches, similar to
Poccobelli's expensive proposal. This time, howev-
er, it was the cheapest, while a new suspension
bridge would have been the most expensive.
Chaley later built many other suspension bridges,
including the Corbieres Bridge in the canton of
Fribourg, 121 m in span, built in 1836-1837, which
is the only Chaley bridge still standing. The Gotter-
on Bridge of 1838-1840, an assymmetrical span of
200 m and a small bridge at Collomby in the can-
ton of Valais with a span of 64 m, built in
1839-1840 were the others he built in Switzerland.
Alternatives, aerial cable spinning
and the endless cable system
Builders experimented with many alternative sys-
tems in the early years of wire cable construction.
Vicat designed a parallel wire cable of rectangular
section as well as one of twisted wires which had
the advantage of being more flexible and there-
fore easier to transport, store and erect than the
stiff parallel wire cables. These were single twist
ropes which meant that all wires, with the exception
of a few straight ones at the center, were twisted in
the same direction. Later cables, particularly those
manufactured by Arnodin, alternated the direction
of the twist in each succeeding layer. The advant-
ages of the double cast was that they were even
more flexible and that the wires, again excepting
the straight few forming the core, were all of equal
length. They therefore expanded equally with an
increase in temperature, but they did have more
voids within the cable structure which made rust
protection more difficult. Arnodin avoided this
problem by forming the wires so that their surfaces
locked into a closed and unbroken surface when
twisted together.
The railway pioneers Eugene Flachat and Jules Pe-
tiet invented another system which used iron bands
instead of wire. Three bridges were built by this
system, one in Abainville over the Meuse in 1834,
one in the Paris suburb of Surenes over the Seine in
1841,42 and the third with the bands welded to-
gether lengthwise to form monolithic units in Lang-
lais in 1849. 43 However, as the bands presented no
advantage over parallel wire cables, and were, in
fact, more cumbersome, they could not survive.
The oddly designed Saint Andre de Cubzac Bridge
over the Dordogne was also built in this experimen-
tal period, 1827-1830. Five large spans of 109 m
were supported by fantastic cast-iron towers, 29 m
high. Twelve cables and various systems of diago-
nal stays crisscrossed the spans above the deck im-
parting a spider-web appearance to the whole.
• 04
Detail of deck elevation
with suspender stirrup, a
detail other builders had
abandoned for threaded
rods which made post- Suspender showing
erection adjustment of joist thimbles top and bottom
height easier. From Chaley and stirrup detail. From
in Annales des Ponts et Chaley in Annales des Ponts
Chaussees 1835 et Chaussees 1835
The engineers of the Cubzac Bridge which attract-
ed much attention due to its form, were Fortune de
Verges and J. P. Quenot while Franc;:ois Marie Emile
Martin, owner of the Sireuillronworks and father of
Pierre Emile Martin, the inventor of the Siemens-
Martin or open hearth steel manufacturing process,
cast the towers with the help of Leconte. Rocker
bearings for the main cables topped the towers
and caused problems. One even tipped over in
1869 and pushed the tower out of plumb. Finally,
the towers were cut off at deck height and topped
with a truss beam by Gustave Eiffel in 1883.44
There are still a number of monstrosities of the
Cubzac type to be seen in France, and similarly
complex chain systems appeared at the time in Bri-
tain. One such system by James Dredge combined
42 Flachat & Petiet, pp. 336-399
43 de Baulagne, pp. 157-158
44 Messina et al: Ponti da sospensioni de funi ... 1980,
p. 210. According to Elton (nr. 46), Eiffel replaced the
original towers with similar piers in 1882.

Abainville Bridge over the
Meuse by Flachat and Petiet
1834. Variant cable type
using laminated iron bands.
From Weale 1843
162
JJ , Dt'taih, or UlIpr>O lOll ,
r,
• 8(·AL.~
diagonal stays with a diminishing cross-section to
diminishing chain tension. Another, simpler system
was patented by Roland Mason Ordish.
By far the most intriguing variants of the period
were those developed by Chaley as they con -
cerned building methods rather than built forms.
Ernest Endres was the site engineer reponsible for
the erection of the Beaumont-sur-Sarthe Bridge
over the Sarthe in 1847 for which Chaley had con-
tracted to manufacture the main cables. In an 1848
article concerning general problems of suspension
bridge construction, containing among other sub-
jects the earliest known discussion of limit spans,
Endres described Chaley's aerial cable spinning
method. Chaley himself never published anything
on his work after the description of his first Fribourg
bridge. As he was not a member of the Ponts et
Chaussees, no one else did either, and so Endres is
our only source of information on the actual use of
EI(Ova.tlon ,
(', U tail of He d of "Rod '
Shp"';nO; ,'on U'Uctton of i:lull. TJ ,
(" .
D I' ...... : ••• 11.
the aerial cable spinning method as developed
and used by Chaley.
Chaley took up the idea where Vicat left off and
simplified it by abandoning the 'clothesline' princi-
ple for transporting the wire to and fro. Instead, he
substituted a workman pushing a wheelbarrow
containing the unravelling spool back and forth
over an unstiffened catwalk made of thin wire
rope.
"The only difficult part of erection in building
long-span suspension bridges, is the manner
in which the cables are manufactured and
raised. This difficulty, which we regard as
insurmountable if they were to be made of
forged iron chains, disappears entirely when
we are dealing with iron wire cables. This is
due to the recent development used with
success under our very eyes by Mr. Chaley in
the method of making the suspension system
 . . .P .. 1 . . . . . . . ''1Il0l
of the Beaumont-sur-Sarthe bridge ....
liThe manufacture of the cables in situ
generally necessitates the establishment of a
catwalk providing passage for a workman
whose job it is to carry the wire from one
shore to the other and to make splices
wherever necessary. This catwalk consists
simply of two cables of small diameter,
spanned with only a small sag and serving
as railings from which a narrow deck is hung
on iron wires at intervals of about one meter.
Thus hung at a level with the upper part of
the abutments, this cheap scaffolding makes
the job easy and quick. Under ordinary
circumstances this would otherwise be very
difficult and would quickly limit the possible
size of suspension bridge spans .. ."45
At least six of (haley's bridges used this method. 46
Mehrtens claims that the Roche Bernard Bridge
over the Villaine, built in 1836 by Leblanc, and at
198.27 m the longest span of its time in France, was
the first to use aerial cable spinning.47
Not being satisfied with the standard construction
of anchorage systems for suspension bridges, prob-
ably because of the bother of attaching the ca-
bles to anchor bars, Chaley combined the aerial
spinning method with an endless cable system
• nit ell I 4" • •0.. . M,.."U IU_'
Surenes Bridge over the
Seine by Flachat and Petiet.
Variant cable type using
laminated iron bands. From
Weale 1843.
I
which, besides being far simpler to make than all
preceeding systems, had the added advantage of
exposing the entire length of all cables to inspec-
tion at all times:
"This method ... consists in linking the lower
ends of the two anchor shafts by means of a
tunnel through the abutments. This permits
the connection of the ends of the cables at
each bridgehead, two by two, attaching
them one to the other rather than anchoring
them separately ... This allows one or more
endless cables to be built up, wire by wire.
They pass from one bridgehead to the other
by way of the tunnel which has a rounded
roof and is constructed in the shape of an
inverted vault with the masonry of the
abutments forming the two ends." 48
45 Endres, pp. 224-225
46 The Gotteron Bridge of 1840 in Fribourg spanning
227 m, the Charite-sur-Loire Bridge, the lie de la Cite
Bridge over the Seine in Paris with a span of 63 m, the
Parcy Bridge in the French Jura, the Comery Bridge over
the Indre and the Beaumont-sur-Sarthe Bridge.
47 Mehrtens, vall, p. 471. Mehrtens does not connect
Chaley with this bridge, but it is more than likely that this
too had cables by Chaley, particularly since it also had
endless cables.
48 Endres, pp. 224-225 163
James Dredge's system
using chains of diminishing
cross-section, correspond-
ing to cable tension which
diminishes toward mid-
span. From Weale 1843
164
---
Of all the bridges said to have been built using the
endless cable, not a single one seems to have sur-
vived. 49 Two further projects by Chaley are docu-
mented. One is a proposal for an unbuilt bridge
over the Aar at Aarau in Switzerland. The poly-
chrome plan signed 'Joseph Chaley' and dated
1843, clearly shows the horseshoe anchorage. 5o
This plan may be the only Chaley original still in
existence. Chaley also submitted a proposal for
another bridge of the same type to be built over
the Rhine at Basel the same year. 51
There is an isolated instance of a suspension bridge
built in 1869, eight years after Chaley's death,
on the endless cable system. The bridge over the
Donau at the confluence of the Donau and the Inn
at Passau, Bavaria, was erected by the municipal
engineer Seidl who read about the system in a
German description of the Saint Christophe Bridge
at Lorient published in Max Becker's 'BrOckenbau'
in 1858.52 One of the anchorages was tunneled
into granite while the other was buried in a
building.
French methods cross the Atlantic
Cable suspension bridge construction was intro-
duced into the United States by Charles Ellet Jr. who
had followed four months' worth of courses at the
Ecole des Ponts de Chaussees in Paris in 1830-
1831,53 and then taken a trip through France dur-
ing which he witnessed several cable bridges being
built. 54 He was also familiar with Marc Seguin's
book. 55
After several proposals which were not carried out,
Ellet built the first permanent wire cable bridge in
the United States over the Schuylkill in Philadelphia
(1841-1842). It was a moderate structure by
contemporary standards, only 357 feet in span
(c. 109 m), but it influenced what came after it.
John Roebling, who lost out to Ellet in the bid-
ding,56 followed its erection closely and learned
from it. Ellet lost the chance of building the great
bridge over the Niagara to Roebling, who com-
pleted it in 1855, but his Ohio Bridge at Wheeling,
West Virginia, which opened in 1849, surpassed at
308 m, the world record established by Chaley six-
teen years before. The cables for Wheeling were
the longest ever to be prefabricated on the French
method and were not spun. This corresponded to
the state of the art at the time Ellet had witnessed it
in France and as published at the time when the
bridge was built (1847-1848).
Ellet's bridge building career, in contrast to that of
Roebling, contributed nothing to the development
of the art other than transporting it to the United
States. As all other suspension bridge builders,
49 According to Bender (p. 40), and Tyrrell (p. 218), both
the Roche-Bernard Bridge and Leclerc's Saint Chris-
tophe Bridge over the Scorff at Lorient of 1847 with a
span of 183.6 m had continuous anchorage tunnels.
(Plans of the tunnel and anchorage of the latter are
given by Mehrtens, vol. 1, p. 467.) It is therefore more
than likely that their cables were by Chaley. According
to plans and the description published by Mehrtens, the
Gotteron Bridge of 1840 in Fribourg also had endless
cables (Mehrtens, vol. 1, pp. 462-466). The anchorage
tunnel still exists, but it was plugged up when the struc-
ture was demolished in 1962.
50 ms nr. 4 plan
51 ms nr. 23 Lettre de Mr. Ie Colonel Dufour, 1844
52 Seidl, p. 10
53 Lewis, p. 20
54 ibid, pp. 23-24
55 ibid, p. 65
56 ibid, pp. 76-77
 Elevation and plan of
Chaley's proposal for Aar
Bridge at Aarau 1843 with
endless cable arrangement
(Bauamt Aarau)

.. .-
=

.. 4 .. .. .... .. ....... OJ> _. ~ ,

Plan detail of endless cable

shaft (Bauamt Aarau)

Longitudinal section of
endless cable shaft (Bauamt
Aarau)

165
 even those in France, he seems to have been un-
aware of the advances made by Chaley. The lack
of knowledge of Chaley's contribution in France
underscores the schism which began to plague
French engineering as soon as the pioneering gen-
erations had succeeded in their goal of basing
engineering education on science. Theory and
practise split asunder and class distinctions be-
tween academic and empirical engineers made
professional contact and transference of informa-
tion from the 'lower caste' empiricist to the aca-
demically trained virtually impossible. The divorce
of theory from the building site ultimately worked
to the disadvantage of both.
The great bridge at Wheeling, built along the lines
laid down in the Fribourg publication years before,
collapsed in a storm in 1854. It was subsequently
rebuilt by Ellet and then strengthened by Roebling
in 1867. From then on it was to be the Roeblings,
father and son, who were to develop suspension
bridge construction methods, and with them cable
spinning from its modest beginnings under Vicat
and Chaley, into the presently used, fully develop-
ed, mechanized process.
John Roebling first used cable spinning in the erec-
tion of the Allegheny Aqueduct at Pittsburgh in
1844-1845.57 This was his first bridge, and he was
to use the same method from then on for all his
suspension bridges with the exception of the sec-
ond, the Smithfield Street Bridge over the Monon-
gahela also in Pittsburgh, 1845-1846.58 Whether
or not Roebling had learned of the idea that Vicat
had published, or of the system developed by
Chaley, is not known. The Roebling method was
patented in 1847 which effectively prevented Ellet
from using it in Wheeling, even had he wished to.
Roebling had finished his studies at the Berlin Tech-
nical Academy in 1826, and therefore before the
'Annales des Ponts et Chaussees' came into exis-
tence in 1831. 1831 was also the year he emigrat-
ed to the United States, so it is unlikely that he
would have heard of Vicat's idea when it ap-
peared. The catalogue of the Roebling Library at
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and at Rutgers
University contains no listing of the 'Annales'. It
does list a copy of Navier's report of 1823 and
166 Dufour's book of 1824 as the only two works on
bridge building in French, and indeed, there are
only five other French books in the whole volumin-
ous collection.59 The plates to the Dufour volume
are thumbed as are those to Navier. 60 However the
text pages are pristine in both with the exception of
the flyleaf in Navier which sports a manuscript
comparison chiefly of Prussian and French mea-
surements. Roebling signed and dated the title
page 1827, indicating that he had bought it while a
student. He did the same with a copy of Dietlein's
excerpts from Navier's book, published in Berlin in
1825, and the German translation has clearly been
read. It is therefore extremely unlikely that Roebling
read French, and so if he did hear of the idea, it
must have been through an intermediary, although
probably not from Ellet with whom he had had
correspondence on suspension bridge construction
in 1840-1841. 61 Vicat's idea, but not Endres
account of Chaley's use of it, was known for instan-
ce to another German immigrant engineer, Charles
Balthasar Bender, writing in 1872.62 But the use to
.which Roebling put the idea certainly represents an
undisputable technical advance.
Tensile structures in building
construction
Chains and cables also began to be used for other
construction. The inventive Czech engineer, Fried-
rich Schnirch, builder of the March chain bridge in
Czechoslovakia in 1824, published an article on a
cheap method of chain roof construction including
a proposal for a theater roof the same year. 63
Schnirch built at least five such roofs,64 one of
which, dating from 1826, still stands in Banska Bys-
trica (formerly Neusohl) in Slovakia. 65 Schnirch let
his patent lapse in 1831 and it was renewed in
57 Vogel, p. 10
58 ibid, p. 15
59 Stewart: Guide to the Roebling Collections
60 I checked these myself
61 Lewis, pp.74-76
62 Bender in Transactions of the ASCE, vol 1, 1872
63 Schnirch: 'Ober Dachstiihle von Schmiedeeisen nach
dem Prinzip der hCingenden Kettenbrucken'
64 Graefe, p.71
65 Hruban
66 Graefe, p. 73
much the same form by Georg Brock in 1899. 66 The
year following Schnirch's publication (apparently
independently of Schnirch), Heinrich HObsch
proposed a theater roof using cables.67 While
Schnirch's had catenary ridges, hips and rafters,
with wire 'purlins' and cast-iron tiles, HObsch pro-
posed complicatedly trussed wire purlins laid in an
arched configuration over iron rafters, the whole
tied together with a wire mesh. 68
As was to be expected, the first long-span roof to
be built using wire cables as a major structural
component stood in France. It was a workshop
built in 1835 to house mast construction and
storage at the naval arsenal at Lorient, and the
builder was Felix Jean Baptiste Reibell, director of
the underwater harbor works there from
1818-1838. 69
The workshop roof had two parallel cables span-
ning 44 m between the gable ends of two large
masonry halls. Triangular timber trusses were fixed
over these cables and spanned 20 m. It was unu-
sual to span such a space longitudinally instead of
over its shorter dimension, but this was done here
to allow the full extent of the building to be open
so that fully assembled masts could be rolled out
to the water's edge. Reibell, who edited Sganzin's
works and was later in charge of Cherbourg har-
bor, had carried out a series of wind tests on mod-
els of the shop which are, as far as is known, the
very first such tests ever recorded as having been
performed on any form of structural model?O Al-
though Reibell, of course, calculated wind load as
a static force, as was to remain standard practise
for another century, he nonetheless did examine
the oscillation and resonance of his structure?'
The most complex early use of wire cables in build-
ings was for the roof of the panorama building
erected on the Champs Elysees in Paris in 1838-
1839. The designer was the well-known architect
Jean Ignace Hittorff who acknowledged the role
played in the design of this roof by his master
carpenter Duprez and the Parisian building
authorities. Originally the roof of the cylindrical
building had been planned as an iron truss struc-
ture allowing a continuous glazed light source all
around the perimeter. This would also have been
a novelty at the time. But this idea proved too
expensive and the suspended construction gra-
dually developed as an alternative.
The masonry cylinder of 39 m diameter supported
twelve radial timber struts inclined to form a cone
of slender rafters. A cast-iron rocking post, hinged
top and bottom was balanced on the ring wall at
the base of each rafter and topped with a saddle
similar to that Dufour had proposed for the Valen-
tin Bridge in 1826. Twelve cables ending in thim-
bles, spanned from the outer edge of the crown of
the ring wall up to the saddles. Twelve other ca-
bles ran down from these to a central iron tension
ring of 120 em diameter hanging under the tim-
ber cone. A trussed support for the rafters which
also carried a central lantern placed on the apex
was blanced on these cables. The details de-
monstrate the influence of Vicat's report of 1831
and of Chaley's description of the Fribourg
Bridge, and indeed:
lilt has been built ... exactly like the ropes
for suspension bridges with bindings and
connecting loops at both ends provided with
sleeves which permit the ropes to be tight-
ened as much as necessary by means of
wedges." 72
Two years after the panorama building, N. Nabo-
kov built a roof in the form of a barrel vault of 25 m
span of thin ceramic slabs in 1841 in Saint Peters-
burg. The structure was suspended below catenary
bars with counter-cables placed in the plane of the
ceramic layer?3 This strange structure had no issue,
and neither had the design of the New York archi-
tect James Bogardus, who proposed a circular cast-
iron hall in 1852 for the New York exhibition of
1853, covered with sheet iron hung from a central
67 ms nr. 36 Schodlich, p. 107
68 Hubsch mentioned that Wiebeking hod had a similar
idea (Hubsch footnote on p. 25, cit. in Graefe, p. 74),
also ms nr. 36 Schaedlich, p. 107. Hubsch's book on
the proposal was published in 1825
69 Lecointe, and Annales maritimes et coloniales, Feb. &
Nov. 1837, also cited in ms nr. 36 Schodlich, p. 107
70 Annales maritimes et coloniales, Feb. & Nov. 1837. This
become known through the 4th edition of Sganzin in
1840, edited by Reibell.
71 Lecointe, pp. 393-394
72 ibid, p. 398
73 ms nr. 36 Schodlich, p. 108 167
 cast-iron tower on chains. The same year, W. Brid-
ges Adam and E. L. Garbett proposed two sys-
tems 74 using wire mesh/5
All these designs were clearly suspension structures
rather than proto-trusses or underspanned beams,
and yet, each of them must be seen against the
background of slowly evolving truss theory in which
the truss is understood as composed of pin-jointed
members which theoretically do not accomodate
bending and only transmit their stresses in the form
of tension or compression. The tension members of
such structures were frequently made of chain links
or rods, and the transition from one of these proto-
trusses to a tensile structure like Hittorff's panorama
building was very slight: an independent anchorage
made it a tensile structure, while self-anchoring,
that is, anchoring the tension members to the
construction itself, made it a truss. In practise the
difference is minor, conceptually it represents a
different structural type.
With increasing codification of structural behavior,
truss construction became more standardized.
Rolled channel and I-shaped members of wrought
iron replaced tension chains and cast-iron posts or
struts in the Grandfey Viaduct over the Sarine in
Fribourg in 1862. From then on the members of a
truss were no longer separated into tension and
compression members made of different materials.
All members could thenceforth accomodate both
compression and tension. Composite structures of
timber, cast- and wrought iron were soon replaced
by trusses made only of wrought iron and later
steel. This simplification led to the abandonment of
complex tensile roof construction. Interest waned,
and a promising development was truncated be-
fore it could be explored in depth.
There were a few exceptions, most of them intend-
ed as temporary structures. One of these was the
hall for the first Scngerfest in Dresden by E. Moller
and E. Giese in 1865 in which a suspension system,
anchored in the ground outside the buildin~, bore
a traditional trussed timber roof structure. 6 Like
Nabokov's building, the Dresden hall used counter-
cables to dampen movement. This was followed in
1866 by three proposals by Lehaitre and Mon-
desirP The first of these was for a circus building
168 designed on Bogardus's principle, and the design-
ers suggested that it could be used for spans up to
200 m, even without a central mast. The second
and third were for modular, incremental halls up to
30 X 40 m span with cables running orthagonally
and diagonally from column to column on a rec-
tangular grid. A pyramidally stepped timber roof
construction containing skylights was to be bal-
anced on this grid, half hung and half supported
from beneath, in order to minimize construction
height. .
A hiatus of twenty years followed, partly due to the
increasing popularity of truss construction and part-
ly due to the frightening consequences of the re-
port on the collapse of the Basse-Chaine Bridge in
1850. It was only in 1855 that the architect Henry
Hobson Richardson, who had worked under Hit-
torff in Paris in 1867, built a suspended roof over
the loading dock in the courtyard of the Marshall
Field Wholesale Store in Chicago/ 8
Then another architect, Leroy S. Buffington, re-
adapted Bogardus's design in an unbuilt proposal
for the 1893 Chicago Colombian Exposition, and in
1894 V. G. Shuchov built a factory hall for the
Moscow Boiler Works using a net system made of
interlocking bars, rather like an inverted lamella
dome and reminiscent of the Adams and Garbett
systems. Shuchov patented his invention in 1895
and then went on to build several tensile roofs
using cables for the Pan-Russian Exhibition in
Nizni-Novgorod in 1896.19
There were several cable-stayed designs for towers
by Russian suprematist architects in the 1920s
74 Graefe, p. 79
75 It would be fascinating to know whether this is the same
Garbett who wrote the 'Treatise on Design' published
by Weale in 1850 which inspired John Ruskin to his
diatribe against the Crystal Palace in Appendix 17, vol. 1
Stones of Venice, pp. 386-394.
76 ms nr. 36 Schadlich, p. 108
77 ibid, p. 109. It is possible that Lehaitre was P.l. Le Haitre
who had been site engineer on the Charles Albert
suspension bridge built at La Caille, Savoy in 1839. After
the Villa Paolina Bridge, the La Caille Bridge, some
40 km south of Geneva, is probably the oldest cable
suspension bridge still standing. The deck was replaced
by Arnodin at the beginning of this century, but the
cables and suspenders are original.
78 James F. O'Gorman, p. 186ff., cit. in Graefe, p. 77
79 ms nr. 36 Schadlich, pp. 110-112
which may have been influenced by Shuchov's
work, or perhaps by the 1874 design for a cable
post-tensioned 1000' tall cylindrical cast-iron tower
for the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition by
the bridge firm of Clarke, Reeves and Co.80
Cableways and cable cranes were another field in
which suspension structures were extensively used.
A cable crane of rope may have been used in the
erection of the first successful iron bridge at Coal-
brookdale in Shropshire in 1779,81 and there may
have been earlier ones too.
In 1841, Beaudemoulin, an 'IngEmieur en chef' of
the Ponts et Chaussees in Tours, described an in-
genious cableway he erected in 1839 to speed
up and cheapen a particularly troublesome con-
struction site for a masonry bridge. 82 Beaude-
moulin had so many problems with his hemp ropes,
ranging from elastic deformation and heating, to
wear, that he suggested using a combination of
chains and parallel wire cable. 83 Later, thanks to
his aquaintance with Leblanc, he was able to
obtain some of the wire left over from the building
of the Roche Bernard Bridge in 1836, and used
only cable. 84
Although the first twisted, and therefore flexible,
wire ropes were manufactured in France in 1780 by
a mechanic named Regnier, they were handmade
and exclusively used for grounding lightening rods.
Mechanical production of such ropes was initiated
in 1834 by Wilhelm August Julius Albert in Claus-
thai, Germany, for driving mine macchinery and
hoists. Improvements made in the original manu-
facturing process and configuration by Newail in
1837 in Dundee, Scotland, and by Wurm in Vien-
na,85 led to many novel uses bein~ found for them,
such as in ships' rigging in 1838 8 and for the first
successful transmission of energy over long dis-
tances in 1850. In comparison, parallel wire cables
as used in suspension bridges were stiff. But
Beaudemoulin seems not to have had access to
these new twisted wire ropes which were probably
not yet known outside the mining shafts of the
Harz-area in Germany, Chemnitz, (Karl-Marx-
Stadt), in East Germany, and Scotland.
Wire cables of all types began to find their way
into machinery and structures other than suspen-
sion bridges, although their use in construction was
to remain limited until the latter quarter of the
twentieth century.
The collapse of the Basse-Chaine Bridge
This is how far cable construction had progressed
in Europe when the whole field was thrown into
disarray by the collapse of Chaley's and Bordillon's
Basse-Chaine Bridge over the Maine in Angers in
1850. Marching soldiers, 478 in number, were
precipitated into the river when one of the anchor
cables tore while the bridge was oscillating vio-
lently during a storm; 226 of them died. The bridge
had been built in 1836-1839 by two of the most
experienced contractors in France who had con-
scientiously adhered to all the rules of the art as
then known. Chaley had just finished both the
Grand Pont and the Corbieres Bridge in Fribourg,
and his Gotteron Bridge was under construction.
Bordillon had been general contractor on the
recently finished Haute-Chaine Bridge in Angers,
and the clients were satisfied that both contractors
were skilled and experienced.
Suspension bridge failures had, of course, occurred
before, chiefly due to problems with the saddle
cylinder castings, or, especially in Britain, due to
dynamic wind load. The collapse of the first Dry-
burgh Abbey Bridge in 1817, Samuel Brown's
Broughton Bridge in 1831 and his Brighton Chain
Pier in 1836, and the partial destruction of the
Menai Bridge under construction in 1825, and
again in 1836 and 1839,87 during which a third of
the suspenders broke and the bridge closed to
traffic, interrupting the main road between London
and the Dublin ferry at Holyhead, had all been
published widely and discussed. All of these had
followed similar patterns of oscillation of great
amplitude before collapse. However, there had
never before been such a great loss of life.
80 Scientific American 1874, pp. 48-50
81 John Smith, p. 7
82 Beaudemoulin, pp. 210-251 + pis. 5-7
83 ibid, p. 232
84 ibid, p. 241
85 Hoppe/Darmstaedter/Peters: Time is Money
86 introduced by the Royal Navy in Britain and then
gradually into merchant shipping as well (Gordon,
p.151)
87 Provis: Observations 169
 The Basse-Chaine Bridge had been built like many
others of its kind. It spanned 102 m over the river,
supported by two cables and had a deck 720 em
wide. The only difference between this bridge and
most others in France was the cast-iron, pin-jointed
columns of 50 em diameter and 547 em height,
built on the pattern of those designed for the Se-
guins' Bry-sur-Marne Bridge of 1832.
In the subterranean anchorages, each cable was
split into 16 strands which ended 8 m farther down
in four anchor cables. These then penetrated the
anchoring mass and were fixed against a cast-iron
plate by the usual arrangement of anchor bars.
The anchorage shafts had been grouted with hy-
draulic lime mortar following Vicat's recommenda-
tion. The Basse-Chaine Bridge had been checked
several times in the years following its inaugura-
tion, and nothing had ever been noted to be amiss.
liThe commission ... believes that the exter-
nal cables were in perfect condition prior to
the accident,"
wrote the examiners in 1850,88 and as to the condi-
tion of the hidden anchorages:
the commission noted that the mortar
II • • •
mass did not generally adhere to the walls
of the tube. A sort of shrinkage had taken
place which had not only produced longi-
tudinal fissures along the walls, but transverse
ones as well which penetrated right through
to the cables. The mortar mix had retained
its white color everwhere where it had
remained compact, but on the inside of the
fissures, it had taken on a yellow color
produced by the water which had filtered in.
The commission noted furthermore that the
mortar mix did not adhere to the cables in
several places, notably at the thicker anchor-
age cables. A sort of sleeve had formed
around them probably due to their vibration.
These cable sections were therefore com-
pletely separated from the mortar. Finally,
the commission noted that the mortar mix
had never penetrated into the interior of the
cables themselves which were therefore
exposed to all causes of oxidization resulting
from their position underground in a soil
170 where the masonry is periodically submerged
as a result of variations in the level of
the river. This effect was not less noticable in
the sixteen thin strands of the backspan than
it was in the four great anchor cables; this in
spite of the fact that the contact of the
former with the mortar mix was much better
than that of the latter."89
Such findings were of course catastrophic for the
several hundred wire cable bridges built in France
and Switzerland, as they had virtually all been built
since 1831 based on Vicat's recommendations. Al-
though Chaley had developed the endless cable
system by then, in which all cables were always
visible and open to the air over their entire length,
this tragic occurrence effectively ended his career,
as it did that of the whole first generation of sus-
pension bridge builders in France. Roebling always
used the same method of grouting anchorages in
the United States,90 although his were not endan-
gered as it was anchor chains and not cables that
were imbedded. The commission of enquiry did not
call the results of Vicat's experiments into doubt,
but:
" ... cannot but remark that iron wire cables
in an anchorage tube, when grouted with
lime mortar, present a totally different pro-
blem than individual iron wires imbedded in
the same lime. An isolated wire is subject to
no vibrations. It therefore forms a totally
impenetrable solid for both air and water. A
cable, on the other hand, may be considered
to be like a bundle of small capillary tubes
which can take up water and air from the
outside at their ends. Immersion in lime has a
completely different effect in each case. The
commission, therefore, does not at all ques-
tion the chemical fact on which the method is
based ..."91
Examination had indeed shown rust up to one cen-
timeter thick on all anchorages grouted in the man-
ner described. This was so unexpected and dis-
quieting that the commission concluded:
88 Dupuit: Rapport de la commission d'enquete ... 1850,
p.408
89 ibid, pp. 406-407
90 Vogel, p. 20
91 Dupuit: Rapport de la commission d'enquete ... 1850,
p.407
 that this oxidization did not originate in
II • • •
a structural error particular only to the
Basse-Chaine Bridge, but rather to a struc-
tural fault in the system itself, so that it is to
be feared that the same result will occur
wherever it has been applied." 92
It is easy to imagine the effect that these last lines
of the report had on suspension bridge builders,
clients and public authorities. It struck them like a
bombshell. Vicat had to react, which he did in a
report in 1853. 93 All bridges built in the previous
quarter century, that is, all those with inaccessible
anchorage shafts, had to be immediately inspected
and altered. This resulted in a virtual abandonment
of cable bridge construction for twenty years. And
it was only on May 8, 1870, that a French govern-
ment decree put an end to the official moratorium
on suspension bridge construction. This decree
which carried the authority of a legislative act, and
was therefore legally binding, stressed that
anchorages were thenceforth only to be made of
bars and under no circumstances of wire. The fifth
article of the standard bill of quantities which
accompanied this ministerial edict, provided that:
liThe backspan or anchorage system will in
every case be made of iron bars ... The
suspension system, including the anchorages,
is to be arranged so that all its parts may be
inspected at any time without any demolition
work being required for this purpose."94
De Boulogne, commenting on this decree in 1886,
remarks that it was then no longer mandatory to
make the anchorages of bars if they were open to
inspection at any time. And indeed, the administra-
tion of the Ponts et Chaussees had by then dropped
several of the most stringent requirements. The
same decree also banned the future use of wire-
guyed, hinged columns as pylons, as they were
considered too unstable. This ban was probably
the result of an accident to the Cubzac Bridge the
year before, in 1869, when the rocking bearing of
one of the cast-iron tower tops had been toppled
by a storm and the whole tower pushed out of
plumb.
A few suspension bridges had been built between
1850 and 1870, but the first to be built after the
decree of 1870 was Jollois's Saint IIpize Bridge over
the Allier in the Departement Haute Loire. The
rocking bearings were still there, but were some-
what more solidly designed than in the Cubzac
structure, and the design attempted to profit from
advances made by John Roebling in the interim.
Prefabricated diagonal guy-cables, made of twist-
ed wire rope, were used in the same way that
Roebling had made his trademark.
The structures Roebling was by then building in the
United States may not have possessed a high de-
gree of structural clarity, but neither had most of
those by the French engineers before him. His cable
spinning method, on the other hand, was rational-
ized to such a degree that all alternatives, perhaps
with the sole exception of Ferdinand Arnodin's pre-
fabrication systems in France, eventually succumb-
ed to its domination. The many systems with which
French engineers had experimented, the highly
complex chain-stayed systems of Dredge and Or-
dish in Britain, all fell obsolete by the wayside. The
chain bridge, too, slowly disappeared from view,
although many attempts were made to keep it alive.
The last major proposals were Gustav Linden-
thaI's 1923 design for the Hudson River Bridge in
New York which incorporated a fantastic 20 lanes
of traffic and 12 railway tracks on two decks, or
about twice the traffic load of any existing bridge,
and David Barnard Steinman's Florianopolis Bridge
of 340 m span finished in 1926 in Brazil. There were
a few more minor chain bridges built in the United
States until 1929. Ever since then, however, the ca-
ble has reigned supreme for both long and shorter
spans.
In recent years, after almost a century of stagna-
tion, cable-stayed bridges and novel prefabrica-
tion systems are beginning to reappear for bridges
of moderate span. The impetus for the former de-
velopment comes chiefly from Germany and for
the latter from France, which never entirely aban-
doned the Arnodin system. Such bridges are ever
increasing in number and span, and the way is
once again open for the examination of variant
systems.
92 ibid
93 Vicat: Sur I'oxidation des fers dans les constructions, sur
I'inefficacite des enduits ou vernis et sur la puissance
preservatrice de la chaux et des mortiers, 1853 171
94 de Boulogne, p. 179

Diagram of the difference
between an underspanned
beam and an under-
spanned suspension bridge.
In the beam, the lower,
arched tension member is
anchored to the upper, flat
compression member. Thus
the bearing has to resist
only the vertically acting
weight of the structure. In
the suspension bridge, the
lower, tension member is
separately anchored. This
means that the anchorages
have to resist the oblique
tension of the cables.
Longitudinal section of the
underspanned Crammond
Bridge over the Almond,
proposed by Robert
Stevenson in 1821, showing
the chain anchorages. From
Weale 1843
172
7 A truncated development:
the underspanned suspension bridge
One of the experimental variants abandoned in
the course of the early development, was the
underspanned suspension bridge. Similar in ap-
pearance to the underspanned beam, the lower
tension member is anchored in a separate abut-
ment rather than self-anchored to the deck string-
er. The suspension bridge supported by cables or
chains under the deck was abandoned around
mid-nineteenth century because the closely relat-
• ..
l .......
III
_
»
.L
.t.;, ..~
ed underspanned beam did not need expensive
anchorages. However, it would still be viable for
long span bridges over deep gorges. The type in-
trigued Dufour, and he designed four such
bridges, two of which were built. The Bergues
Bridge of 1834 over the Rhone in Geneva and the
Coulouvreniere Bridge over the city ramparts of
1837 were the two that were built, while daring
proposals for the La Caille bridge in 1823 and the
Fribourg Bridge in 1825 remained projects.
Robert Stevenson was the first to publish a pro-
posal for an underspanned suspension bridge in
his article of 1821. The Crammond Bridge was to
span over the Almond on the road from Edin-
burgh to Queensferry. The reasons he gave for
placing the chains under the deck were to save
the cost of masonry piers and to distribute the
main chains equally under the roadway. The flat
catenary and the necessarily heavy superstructure
-
,.~
-,..-
_-L-._ ....' - . J

7
I T
..... rz. ".... (
would limit spans, in his view, to about 200'
(c. 60 m).l The main problem was lateral stiffness,
so Stevenson proposed widening the structure at
mid-span both to increase stiffness and to prevent
'that vibration which is so injurous to light chain
bridges.'2 Stevenson's description and plans were
republished by Drewry in 1832,3 but detail draw-
ings were only made public in 1843 by Weale. 4
Dufour, whose first design of this type dates from
1823, did not have much information at his dis-
posal. Pietet's translation of Stevenson appeared
in the same issue of the 'Bibliotheque Universelle'
as his report on the Seguins' test bridge at Anno-
nay,5 but the description and illustration of the
Crammond Bridge are missing from the French
version which retained only a very brief outline of
the idea. 6 The German translation of the article
which also appeared in 1822,7 had all the original
information. Dufour did not read German, and it is
not known how well he understood English. He
could, however, have obtained the details directly
from Pictet, but not from Navier's book 8 which
appeared after his design, in November 1823. 9
.... . ,. .... ,. ... ; :
. ..
1. t-
Detail plan and cross-
section of structure widened
at mid-span for lateral
stiffening. From Weale 1843
I
n
4"~ IitKd Nr 'lWo 1,;,&..
• • • • •
-.
Navier also stated that a French engineer named
Belu had designed a similar system in 1807. Belu's
bridge, 10 which even predated knowledge of Fin-
ley's invention in France, was to have been a ut-
opian 250 m span over the Rhine between Wessel
1 Stevenson, p. 252 + pI. 8 fig. 5
2 Weale ed., vol. 2, p. clxxv
3 Drewry, p. 30
4 Weale ed., vol. 2, pp. clxxiv-clxxvi + vol. 4,
pis. 104-107. Stevenson did build an underspanned
beam at Abbey St. Balthans which Weale described,
showing how closely the two types were linked. (Weale:
Description of the plates, pp. civ-cvi + plate 25)
5 BU vol. 21,1822, pp.192-214 + pI. 3
6 ibid, p. 209
7 Verhandlungen des Vereins zur Beforderung des Gewer-
befleisses in Preussen, vol. 1, 1822, p. 124
8 Navier: Rapport et Memoire ... 1823, p. vi
9 Dufour: Description du pont suspendu en fil de fer,
construit 6 Geneve. 1824, p. 86, mentioned on the same
page on which he regrets not having had knowledge of
Navier's Memoire while writing his book.
10 unpublished ms nr. 233, vol. 24 Ecole nationale des
ponts et chaussees, Paris, according to Amouroux and
Lemoine, footnote p. 67 173
Dufour's proposal for an
underspanned bridge at La
Caille 1823. Original plan
by Dufour (State Archives,
Geneva)
• .. .. • .. • .. t
----
,.._ ..
and Rudrich. Dufour, who began his studies at the
Ecole polytechnique in Paris the year it was
designed, may conceivably have encountered the
sensational proposal then. However it may have
happened, Dufour had obviously heard of the
idea, as he wrote that it was not a new one. 11
Nevertheless, his first proposal followed neither
Belu nor Stevenson.
La Caille Bridge
Dufour's design of 1823 for La Caille was there-
fore the third of that type and the first proposed
in wire cables:
, ... I have designed a project for a bridge
of 150 m in span calculated to carry four of
the heaviest wagons at once. I have here
used a novel suspension system which I call
the mixed system, as the pressure of the deck
compensates in part the tension of the
cables. It is not the proper place here to give
its description; I shall only say that the deck
forms a system of timber arches of small rise
174 which press against the abutments and are
- ..........
carried by columns of iron which themselves
rest on cables. In this project, iron wire
advantageously replaces forged iron and a
great simplicity in execution and substantial
economy result.'12
It would have been difficult to recognize this as the
La Caille Bridge had Dufour not identified it in a
manuscript note added to his copy of the book. 13
There had previously been a bridge at the site
which had been destroyed by Austrian troups in
1814 necessitating a bothersome detour of three
miles from the main road. 14
11 Dufour: Description d'un pont construit a Geneve
d'apres un nouveau mode de suspension. BU vol. 57,
1834, p. 230-231
12 Dufour: Description .. , 1824, p. 86
13 ibid, manuscript commentary in Dufour's copy of
Description . .. 1824, p. 86. Dufour Library, Geneva. In
this comment Dufour refers to a brief mention of the
project in BU Nov. 1823, pp.4-5, a source I have not
been able to trace.
14 Mechanics' Magazine, vol. 88, Oct. 4, 1834-March 28,
1835, p. 11
 'It was to have been built on a system with
timber forming the arch resting on the two
abutments; but as this arch was too light to
hold by itself, it was to have been supported
by sixteen cables of iron wire stretched
between the arches and on which rested iron
beams of the necessary form from time to
time. This mixed system, comprising both
timber and iron wire or chain construction,
would have produced a very beautiful
picture at a site such as that I have just
described. It would also be economical as
the abutments would not have had to be as
strong as when one uses the ordinary system
since the forces partly counteract one
another.'15
This description increases the probability that the
La Caille proposal was indeed an underspanned
suspension bridge rather than an underspanned
beam. The plan preserved at Geneva does not
show anchorage details, but the ten cables appear
to be piercing the structure and not anchored to it.
The site remained without a bridge until 1839 when
a suspension bridge of traditional type, with the
somewhat larger span of 192 m was erected by
Belin with P. L. Le Haitre as site engineer. 16
Underspanned proposal for Fribourg
The committee for the construction of a high-level
bridge over the Sarine Valley in Fribourg had asked
Dufour for a design around June 1825. The follow-
ing November he delivered his proposal for under-
spanned twin spans of 120 m supported in the mid-
dle by a 47 m high pier. Dufour explained that the
new system provided advantages over the tradi-
.
.I
tional one, as the ends of the bridge would not be
obstructed by backspans: 17
'As the bridge abuts directly on to houses in
the city, it will be impossible to provide
anchorage points behind the piers using the
ordinary system without cutting across roads
and obstructing traffic disagreeably. And, at
the other end of the bridge, as the road has
to make a sharp turn ... in order to run
along the steep slope, it would not be
possible to find sufficient space to erect piers
and for the roadway without causing great
earthworks to be made. '18
Other advantages were the reduction of mainte-
nance and the simplification of the erection process.
As the cables hung below the deck, they would be
sheltered from both rain and vandalism and pro-
vide a catwalk for erection and a convenient scaf-
folding for maintenance too. It would be easier to
anchor the cables since they were spread out over
the entire width of the deck instead of being con-
centrated at two points. 19 Not only that, but the
bridge would also be cheaper than any other due
to the fact that fewer piers made of dressed mas-
15 Dufour: Description d'un pont construit a Geneve
d'apres un nouveau mode de suspension. BU vol. 57,
1834, p. 231
16 Le vieux pont de 10 Caille. Journal de Geneve, June 11,
1939, with additions and corrections taken from Notice
sur Ie Pont Charles-Albert pres la Cailie, p. 13
17 Dufour ms nr. 11 Projet de Pont Suspendu pour
Frybourg, p. 12
18 Dufour: Description d'un pont construit a Geneve
d'apres un nouveau mode de suspension. 1834,
p.231-232
19 ms nr. 11, p. 12
Pencil sketch by Dufour for
an underspanned suspen-
sion bridge at Fribourg
1825, drawn over the
profile of the Sarine Valley
sent to him in June 1825
(State Archives, Geneva)
175
 onry were needed, and Dufour argued that the
greater horizontal thrust of the structure used the
properties of the rock of the abutments to greater
advantage. 2o This last argument was somewhat
contrived and in the same vein as his pladoyer for
the Drac Bridge had been. The argument implied
that it would have been even more advantageous
to leave out the middle pier altogether and to built
the bridge with a single span as Chaley was to do.
This would have made it fully 100 m longer than
the Menai Bridge which was then nearing comple-
tion. But Dufour hesitated to embark on such an
undertaking:
'If, in order to avoid it [masonry] entirely,
one were to make the bridge a single arch,
one would economize on the pier it is true,
but one would thereby embark on a colossal
enterprise which boggles the mind and
which would incur a fourfold price for
the chains and the abutments. This would by
far exceed any economy made on the
. ... '21
pier
Furthermore, Dufour considered the psychological
effect of the structure on the user:
'The bridge ... has the chief advantage of
not showing the traveller anything more than
the aspect of an ordinary bridge. As all the
means of suspension lie below, his imagina-
tion will not be shocked and he will dare use
this aerial road with little hesitation. This is
also the reason I chose for making the
railings rather high and for placing a cornice
outside them, whose depth widens the
bridge [visuallyL imparting a semblance of
greater solidity and preventing the eye from
measuring the depth of the precipice verti-
cally, only permitting it to perceive the depth
from a distance so to speak.'22
How new and unusual suspension bridges were
then, and how little they must have been trusted by
the public! Later, writing in 1834, Dufour changed
his argumentation, shifting the emphasis to esthet-
'ics rather than to visual expression of safety, indi-
cating perhaps that people had by then accustomed
themselves to the novelty and could trust thin sus-
pension wires:
176 'Finally, it seems to me that it would be a
beautiful thing to approach a bridge elevat-
ed one hundred and fifty feet above the
river with nothing external to show in what
way it was supported. The cords of iron wire
which are always very thin and do not
harmonize with the other parts of the
structure, would be hidden and the bridge
would aquire a monumental character which
could not be achieved using the other
method.'23
It would have meant a great deal to Dufour to have
been able to build one of the largest bridges in the
world and one which used an entirely novel system
of suspension as well. It would have consolidated
his recognition as one of the foremost modern
bridge designers. However, his anxiety is less evi-
dent here than it had been the year before in the
description of the Drac Bridge.
All documents concerning the proposals for and
the building of the Fribourg Bridge have disap-
peared. But Dufour retained his rough draft of the
description and a pencil sketch of the elevation.
The two symmetrical spans of 121 m were later in-
creased to 124 m. Each span was subdidived into
three rows of eight laminated timber arches. These
carried the deck and rested on joists crossing the
20 cables. The number of arches was later in-
creased to ten and the number of cables to 22. The
three rows of arches were interconnected and
stabilized by the joists under their springing on
which stood Seguin trusses with crossing diagonals
supporting the deck on their upper chords. Two
deck joists lay between these and crown joists and
were supported by radial struts footing on the
arches. The configuration resembled a simplified
version of Apollodorus's timber arch bridge built
over the Danube at Orsova, Roumania, for the
Emperor Trajan in 105 A. D. as it is depicted on
Trajan's column in Rome.
Influenced by the then modern arch bridges of the
Bavarian Karl Friedrich von Wiebeking, Dufour
proposed using tarred pine instead of the usual
20 ibid, p. 12
21 ibid, pp. 12-13
22 ibid, p. 12
23 Dufour: Description d'un pont construit a Geneve
d'apres un nouveau mode de suspension. 1834, p. 232
and more expensive oak, relying on Wiebeking's
experiments on the strength of the material: 24
'This wood is locally abundant, lighter and
less expensive than oak. It comes in longer
pieces and is easier to use. If the structure is
exposed to the air on all sides, it will lose all
Elevation and longitudinal section of Telford's Menai
Bridge pylons showing hollow masonry construction.
From Telford 1838
''''~\. /I IWIIHil:

its moisture and one would expect under the "'-

-... ...
~~ ,.",...,..

circumstances a long lifetime for the pine. ..-.-

.........
W"~",,,,,,·""..,J

~ ~

We have, in this respect, the example of all

the new Bavarian bridges built in pine by the
engineer Wiebeking, in spite of the fact that
it has been necessary to place the structures
quite close to the surface of the water and
to drive several piles or stakes into the river.
But with all the care he lavished on the
construction of these bridges, he does not
fear to guarantee them for a century.'25
This hope proved to be vain. Not one of the
bridges Wiebeking built survived for more than a
few years. In part this was due to the use of soft-
wood, but also to the fact that Wiebeking insisted,
as Navier reported,26 on using arches that were
too flat.
Between the two spans of Dufour's proposal, stood
a truncated, elongated masonry pyramid. The
manuscript gives little information on this pier, but
Dufour's article of 1834 mentions that it was to
have been hollow and vaulted, and even suggest-
ed using the interior as a public granary.27 Telford
had just developed an economical, light, cellular
pier for such structures consisting of thin outer walls
supported on the interior by slender crosswalls and
vaults. The system had been used in the piers of his
aqueducts at Chirk (1796-1801), for the Pont Cy-
syllte (1795-1805) in Wales where the piers were
hollow from 21-38 m above ground, and for the
Menai Bridge. The system was to be published by
Provis only in 1828 and more fully by Rickman in
1838. But Dufour may have had an oral report,
possibly from Pictet who may have visited the
Menai site.

24 ms nr. 11, p. 8
25 ibid, pp. 1-2
26 copy of Navier letter, p. 2 in ms nr. 17 Dufour: Projet
du Pont en arches cintn§es ...
27 Dufour: Description d'un pont construit a Geneve
d'apres un nouveau mode de suspension. 1834, p. 232 177
 The cables ended in eyebars anchored in rock and
attached to the middle pier in the same manner as
Dufour was to propose for the Turin Bridge the next
year. Each cable was 6 cm in diameter and con-
sisted of 300 wires. The ultimate capacity of the
22 cables was 2700 tons. Each span weighed 256
tons, and the liveload at 84 kg/m 2, gave 74 tons.
This corresponded to nine of the largest wagons
then known or to 1060 persons. Thus both spans
could support 25 % of the population of the
town,28 which Dufour considered to be sufficient.
While this represented a ratio of deadload to live-
load of 1 : 0.29, and far less than the earlier 1 : 1.2,
Chaley was to use 1 : 0.53,29 his deadload being
roughly equivalent (300 tons), but the liveload
much higher at 160 tons.
Reasons for awarding the contract
to Chaley
Chastened by the fact that audacious calculation
had not helped him get the contract for the Drac
project, Dufour calculated conservatively, while his
only competitor Chaley manipulated his values in
order to cheapen his bid. Chaley calculated with a
maximum allowable wire stress of 27 kg/mm 2 30
which, according to the then accepted values was
about 50 % of the ultimate stress. But Chaley used
82 kg/mm 2 as his ultimate stress which correspond-
ed to the highest values reached in Seguin's and
Dufour's tests and not to the average of 60 kg/mm 2
both had adopted. Thus, by raising his ultimate
stress, Chaley laid claim to a safety factor of three.
Obviously Chaley was ultimately justified in using
this value, as the bridge stood without strengthen-
ing until 1881. But the structure was marginal, as
the dead load alone caused a stress of 17.53 kg/
mm 2, and, had Chaley been obliged to reduce his
stress to the then acceptable level, he would have
had to increase the number of his cables from 4 to
10. 31
Such methods reduced costs considerably. And yet
a measure of doubt remains as to whether Chaley's
bridge was really as cheap to build as he first
claimed. Amadee Gremaud, who must have had
access to the original documents now lost, wrote in
1878 that a first issue of shares and a collection
178 from private donors brought a total of 340479 frs,
but that this did not take into account the many
services and voluntary .contributions of material
and tools. As this still proved too little, the govern-
ment authorized a lottery which provided an addi-
tional115 974 frs. And when this still proved insuffi-
cient, the commission was obliged to appeal to the
shareholders to raise an additional 4% over their
original purchase price. It was difficult for Gre-
maud to determine the final cost of the structure,
but it appeared to him to be about 600000 frs, or
the sum Chaley had originally quoted. 32
From the discrepancy between this sum, the
207000 frs Chaley contracted for and Dufour's bid
which ranged from 370000 to 445750 frs, we can
see that both the question of cost and the reason
for awarding the contract to Chaley rather than to
Dufour is more complex than it first appears.
A contributing factor for awarding the contract to
Chaley is possibly to be sought in the presumption
that the government and bridge commission of Ro-
man Catholic Fribourg may have preferred the
Catholic Chaley to the Protestant Dufour. Swiss
cantons, as do many other European states, have
religious affiliations with either the Roman Catholic
or the Protestant church. Such differences in reli-
gious affiliation led to the forming of camps in
many wars, and even today, most Swiss cantons do
not subscribe to the principle of separation of
church and state as many Anglo-Saxon countries
do. Business contracts, professional and political
appointments are still frequently awarded taking
the religion and ethnic background of the appli-
cant into consideration, although today this is true
to a lesser extent than was the case in the nine-
teenth century.
Finally, a third and very powerful reason for the
rejection of Dufour's proposal lay in the lukewarm
endorsement given it by Navier:
Navier's report
It was Dufour himself who proposed that the gov-
ernment of Fribourg consult Navier on his propo-
28 Strub, p. 10
29 Chaley, 1st ed., p. 29, footnote 18
30 Hofer ms nr. 25
31 ibid
32 Gremaud, Revue Suisse, nr. 5 May 1878, pp. 98-99
sal,33 and a copy of Navier's report, dated May 20,
1826, accompanies Dufour's own dossier on the
subject.
Although he must have known that Navier opposed
ed wire cable construction on principle, Dufour's
hands were tied. Navier stood at the height of his
career in the early months of 1826. It was the year
of the publication of the first part of his compen-
dium on statics which was to earn him lasting fame,
and the first edition of his work on suspension
bridges had been in print for three years. The In-
valides Bridge in Paris was then under construction,
and still seemed to have every chance of success.
Chaley was still working for Jules Seguin and Vic at
had barely begun the Marie Bridge at Argentat.
Friedrich Schnirch, who had built his first suspension
bridge in 1824, was not yet known internationally,
and Dufour would not have wanted the Seguins as
consultants, as they would have to be counted
competitors. Navier, Dufour and Marc Seguin were
at the time still the only three acknowledged con-
tinental European experts on suspension bridge
construction, and Navier was the only theoretician
of the three. Dufour therefore had no choice.
Navier's opening words were cautious but never-
theless ominous:
'This mission is difficult to fulfill as the project
which is supported by the reasoning and
calculation of a well-trained person, must
not be rejected out of hand in spite of its
difficulties: and on the other hand, one
cannot recommend its erection without incur-
ring great responsibility.'34
Navier had consulted several collegues on the
matter. His mistrust of wire cable construction was,
by now, well-known:
'Gentlemen, you particularly draw my atten-
tion to the use of iron wire in the manufac-
ture of the chains. As you do, so do I not
have any knowledge that this type of
construction has ever been used or even
suggested in America or in England.'35
This was imprecise. It was true that the under-
spanned system and wire cables had never been
combined in a single project, but Belu and Steven-
son had suggested the underspanned type and
there was also Hazard and White's wire catwalk
over the Schuylkill of 1816, all of which Navier had
reported in his own book of 1823. Although he
perhaps had no knowledge of Telford's proposals
for wire bridges, both the Seguins and Dufour had
by then already built several wire cable bridges
each, a fact Navier could not entirely ignore:
'It has been used at Geneva and in France
for a bridge built over the Rhone, but I
believe that this has been ill-advised. I have
often presented the question as to whether
bar iron or wire is'to be preferred, and I
have never encountered anyone who was
worthy of confidence by reason of experi-
ence aquired in analogous matters, who did
not decide the question in favor of bar
iron.'36
Vicat, Molard, Plagniol and the Seguins were evi-
dently all 'not worthy of confidence'. The habit of
justifying one's own prejudices by quoting selective
sources as being more authoritative than one's own
judgement or argument, is clearly no novelty, and
Navier went on to spend two and a half foolscap
pages expounding on all possible reasons against
the use of wire cables.
Some of Navier's critique was constructive, howev-
er. He ur~ed the adoption of a higher liveload of
200 kg/m , adding that the manner in which the
members had been dimensioned gave no cause for
objection. 37 He suggested fixing the cables to the
upper side of the deck to prevent the wind from
lifting it, citing the Wettingen and Schaffhausen
timber brid~es of the eighteenth century as good
examples. 3 He also criticized the arched form of
33 ms nr. 11, answer to Navier's critique: Observations,
p.1
34 ms nr. 11, Navier: Rapport sur Ie Projet de pont
suspendu a construire sur la Sarine a Fribourg, p. 1
35 ibid, pp. 2-3
36 ibid, pp. 2-3
37 ibid, p. 4
38 ibid, p. 16. Navier was obviously familiar with Mechel's
publication on three bridges by the eighteenth century
Swiss master carpenters Hans Ulrich Grubenmann and
Kaspar Josef Ritter. The publication of 1803, which was
to have great influence on timber bridge building in
Germany, France and later in the United States, also
gave rise to the fable of a timber span of 120 m over the
Limmat in Wettingen, in reality a span of 30 m {see:
Killer}. What Mechel mistook for this was the overambi- 179
 the timber supports which he deemed extravagant
and senseless, proposing a larger number of bear-
ing points for the deck. Dufour incorporated some
of this critique into the second version of his pro-
posal in which he increased the number of bearing
points. He retained the arches, however. Navier
also criticized the lateral stability of the bridge, one
of the main weaknesses of the underspanned sys-
tem, and suggested spreading the cables more
than the deck. This Dufour did not comply with
either, but he did add another two cables at each
edge.
One mistake that Navier found was that the central
pier was too narrow:
'The load on each linear foot of the foun-
dation has been calculated to be 64000
kilograms, and the author does not consider
this to be too large when compared to those
of the bridges at Neuilly and Orleans.
Colonel Dufour seems here to have been led
astray by an error which unfortunately
occurs on page 187 of my memorandum on
suspension bridges, where 100000 kg was
printed instead of 100000 pounds as being
the load on the piers of these bridges.'39
However embarassing this remark must have been
to Dufour, it is a great boon to us, as we thus have
proof that Dufour knew, and, as one of the first,
actually used Navier's report of 1823.
The critique closed with an exhaustive analysis of
the behavior of masonry abutments which throws
light on Navier's thought processes and, as 5tGssi
points out,40 documents the evolution of our mod-
ern, scientifically based viewpoint to which he had
himself so largely contributed. 41
In spite of a conciliatory final paragraph,42 Du-
four's project was scrapped. The rebuttal Dufour
wrote went unheeded, although he remarked that
the system had just been adopted for the proposed
Bergues Bridge in Geneva. 43
tious and therefore wisely abandoned first proposal of
1755 for the Rhine Bridge at Schaffhausen by Gruben-
mann. Both structures had been destroyed by retreating
Napoleonic troups in 1799 and were therefore only
known through publications.
39 ibid, p.8
180 40 StGssi, p. 1
Micklewood Bridge
50 Dufour was not to be the first to build an under-
spanned suspension bridge either. Part of the deck
in the backspan of William Tierney Clark's Ham-
mersmith Bridge of 1824-1827, rested on the
chains,44 just as they do in the Brooklyn Bridge and
did at midspan in Finley's even earlier bridges too,
but this did not make any of these underspanned
suspension bridges. A designer named Anderson,
perhaps the same who had proposed a suspension
bridge over the Firth of Forth in 1818, also design-
ed an underspanned suspension bridge for the
Avon Gorge at Clifton about 1830, but this was not
built.
41 StGssi was, however, overenthusiastic when he claimed
that Navier clearly enunciated the principle of
reinforced concrete in the report:
·'In order to be permitted to calculate using the whole
mass [section] of the pillar, it would be necessary to have
the masonry strung top to bottom with iron rods .. .'; this
signifies that Navier unequivocally expresses the
fundamental idea of reinforced concrete, namely that
the lack of tensile resistance in concrete (or in masonry)
is to be compensated for by the introduction of iron
rods. Consequently the history of reinforced concrete
therefore is pushed back by several decades as opposed
to what is generally believed: (StGssi, p. 1)
Navier had merely expressed one of the conditions
which were later to prove basic to reinforced concrete,
much as Vicat had when he discovered the rust preven-
tive characteristics of hydraulic cement. The method of
reinforcing masonry to augment its loadbearing
capacity or to take the tension masonry could not, was
used by late Roman engineers, for instance in the Hagia
Sophia in Istanbul, begun in 532 A. D. (Gordon, p. 203),
and more frequently since the Middle Ages for securing
vaults and walls. Later, Renaissance engineers adopted
the method for dome construction. St. Peter's Cathedral
in the Vatican by Giaccomo della Porta (1588-1593)
and St. Paul's in London by Sir Christopher Wren
(1675-1710) are two prominent examples. It was also
used in the abutments of the very wire cable bridges
Navier belittled: Tain-Tournon, Serrieres and Vienne. It is
to Navier's credit that he differentiated between tension
and compression members, but it was the experiments of
his collegue and adversary Vic at which were to advance
the development of reinforced concrete. We shall see in
later, on page [187], how basic the tendency to require
the use of the full cross-section of any structural member
was to Navier's approach to construction.
42 Navier: Rapport sur Ie projet, ms nr. 11, p. 17
43 Dufour: Observations sur Ie rapport de M. Navier, ms
nr. 11, p. 2
44 Drewry, p. 30
The first structure of this type actually erected was
probably the 31.5 m Micklewood Bridge over the
Forth River in Scotland in 1831. The builder was
James Smith of Doune, apparently unconnected
with the brothers William and John Smith of the
Dryburgh Abbey Bridge. Smith's client was Colonel
Graham of Micklewood. Two pairs of chains,
spaced a foot apart, carried forked iron uprights
on which the joists sat. Iron rods braced the uprights
to the ends of the joists and to the solid parapets
forming a stiff lateral bracing system. At the abut-
ments, the chains rose above the deck, passing
through iron posts bolted to the joists and the par-
apets. 45
The bridge was so solidly built that Drewry, who
apparently visited it, considered it a wasteful sys-
tem, but it lasted 17 years and collapsed on
June 12, 1848 due to rotten beams in the super-
structure. Drewry was the only source to report the
structure which aroused no other professional
interest or emulation. Dufour and other continental
engineers were unaware of its existence.
Bergues Bridge
The first underspanned suspension bridge Dufour
built and the first that the profession took some
note of, took eight years to erect. The corporation
for the construction of the new Bergues Quarter of
Geneva and the Bergues Bridge was registered at
the 'Tribunal de Commerce' on June 27, 1826. The
purpose of the corporation was to buy land on the
right bank of the Rhone opposite the city, to devel-
op and resell it: 46 a speculative venture on a grand
scale. The economic boom period following the
end of the Napoleonic Wars which had also
spawned the Saint Antoine Bridge corporation
three years before, had led to speculation as a
form of city planning. It was an instrument of early
capitalist expansion by which the bourgeoisie, as
post-revolutionary heir to aristocratic privilege,
was able to encourage economic growth. Banks,
bankers, politicians and lawyers owned the 1600
shares with the exception of 40 which Dufour re-
ceived for serving as engineer to the venture. The
shares were valued at 1.6 million florins or about
752000 frs. The plan forsaw a downpayment of
25 % with a later increase of capital to two million
florins (940000 frs) by the issue of another 400
shares. A dividend was fixed at 4 % per annum and
paid in half-yearly installments. Originally the
agreement had been to liquidate the corporation
after fifteen years, but at the shareholders' meeting
held on March 16, 1842, with only 800 shares re-
presented, it was decided to prolon~ the venture
for a further period of fifteen years. 7
The corporation announced from the outset its in-
tention to negotiate with the city for the resale of
streets, squares, the quai and the bridge. This re-
quired ratification by the government which fol-
lowed on May 1, 1828. 48
Dufour's first desi~n of 1826 was for an under-
spanned bridge. 4 But this was abandoned for
unknown reasons and the first proposal to have
survived dates from 1829. Over the years, Dufour
designed five proposals for the corporation span-
ning from 1826-1832. They matured in a delightful
glut of variants, three of which are well-document-
ed and a fourth represented only in plan. Finally, in
1833, the bridge reemerged as an underspanned
structure, and building began in earnest. The prob-
lems encountered over the years led to wide cor-
respondance with the most famed European engi-
neers of the day associating the project with the
evolution of a plethora of contemporary bridge
types. It was during this period that Dufour's struc-
tural engineering practise spread and matured. He
was involved in the design and construction of the
quais lining both sides of the Rhone from 1828
on,50 with the extension of Geneva's pumps and
water supply and with military planning and con-
struction for the Confederation.
45 ibid, p. 95-96
46 Tribunal de Commerce, jur. civ. CCm, nr. 3 Docu April
28, 1828, ratified May 1, 1828, State Archives, Geneva
47 Extraits d'actes de Societe de 1841 a 1845, vol. 4 Trib-
unal de Commerce, jur. civ. CCm, nr. 5. State Archives,
Geneva. For this and the preceeding information, the
author is indebted to Dr. Walter Zurbuchen, former State
Archivist, Geneva
48 ibid
49 Dufour: Description d'un pont construit a Geneve
d'apres un nouveau mode de suspension. 1834, p. 236
50 Dufour ms nr. 15: Arrangements des Bords du Rhone.
Fevrier 1828 181
Plan of the mouth of the
Rhone at Geneva with
proposed Bergues Bridge,
c. 1830 (State Archives,
Geneva)

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'1..

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'"\./~
I I
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,\~ ~ \ <..

en<" / I
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182

The bridge configuration was determined from the
outset. It was to lead at right angles from the
planned Bergues Quai in five spans of just under
17 m, to the middle of the river where it ended at
an artificial platform to be established just south of
the island bastion called lie aux Barques, today
named lie Rousseau. From this man-made island,
seven slightly smaller spans led obliquely off and
abutted at right angles to the Fusterie Quai on the
other side of the Rhone. Dufour obviously feared
the heavy additional cost he had suffered in the
building of the skewed Paquis Bridge and went to
great lengths to avoid oblique lines.
Preliminary versions in timber
The initial proposal for an underspanned bridge is
lost, but the second was a timber structure, of which
only a plan remains. This was a typical slant-legged
frame with two versions for cantilevering brackets
at the abutments, one in timber and one in cast-
iron. The frames were to have been hidden from
view behind arch-shaped board siding, evidently
meant to protect the frame while at the same time
giving the appearance of masonry arches which
were considered more proper for an important ur-
ban bridge than a mere timber structure. From
what we know of Dufour as an engineer, it is diffi-
cult to conceive of his having whole-heartedly en-
dorsed this false-fronted project. His signature
does, however, appear on the plan.
The third version was a far more interesting engi-
neering solution, comprising a series of timber
arches with a suspended roadway. There was an
80-year history behind this type based on the com-
plex and highly-developed timber bridges of the
]
Single span of first timber
proposal for the Bergues
Bridge showing strut in
timber at left and in
cast-iron at right. Original
............. plan by Dufour. Ink and
Co: watercolor wash (State
Archives, Geneva)
eastern Swiss and German master carpenters of
whom the Grubenmann dynasty was the best
known. 51
Since the gradual introduction of mathematical
and scientific method into building at mid-eigh-
teenth century, builders had begun to simplify their
bridges and to understand them as systems rather
than as a sum of overlays, an additive composition
of simple elements. 52 Simple models replaced com-
posites, and structures began to be viewed as units,
made accessible to analysis by means of an intel-
ligent choice of model. Begun long before Navier
was to complete his codification of the mathemat-
ics which described such models, a trend became
manifest to reduce structures to their most elemen-
tary forms and connections. The reasons for this
were that they could be understood with the primi-
tive mathematical means then available, that as lit-
tle material as possible should be lost at the con-
nections where the stresses were great and the
structure weakest, and so that less skilled workmen
could duplicate them with assurance. Johann Gross
and Franz Joseph Jekel in Galicia, (then Austria),
Caspar Walter in Augsburg and Ritter and the
Grubenmann family in Switzerland came under this
influence as did academically trained engineers
such as Gauthey in France and, above all, Wiebe-
king in Bavaria. Gradually, the typical timber bridge
became standardized in the form of the massive
timber arch, sometimes with a truss incorporated in
it, but always made of saw-tooth joined and bolted
51 see: Killer
52 Houri, and see chapter: 'Some basic issues: from overlay
to system', pp. [9-11] . 183
Elevation of half of Bergues
Bridge. First timber version
with arch-shaped siding
meant to hid.e and protect
structure. Original plan by
Dufour. Ink and watercolor
wash (State Archives,
Geneva)
184
r-i T ~
beams or steamed, bent and banded planks with a
suspended deck beneath.
The first document of the timber arch version of the
Bergues Bridge dates from May 21, 1830, and de-
scribes a carriageway flanked by two arches with a
sidewalk cantilevered to either side. 53 The arches
were to be prefabricated in a site factory. Dufour
departed somewhat from the established type by
connecting the bases of each arch with a tension
member in order to facilitate the transport and
erection of the large units thus, making them
into beams which transmitted no thrust to their
abutments. This had been suggested by Bernard
Poyet in France ten years before. 54 It later came to
be patented as a cast-iron truss by Squire Whipple
in the United States in 1841, and was named the
'bow-string truss' by the railway contractors Fox
and Henderson 55 in Great Britain who were
credited with its proliferation in wrought iron from
1849 on.
The upper chord was to be made of a double layer
of oaken beams and the lower of either oak or
larch. Dufour had evidently followed the fate of
Wiebeking's bridges and had learned to mistrust
the use of pine. The deck was suspended on iron
rods,56 and the arched truss was to be supported
on the piers by brackets affixed to the masonry
caps. Dufour did not intend to bend his arches as
did several other engineers, notably Colonel Ar-
mand Rose Emy in France, who used steaming
ovens and clamps available from the French naval
dockyards,57 chosing instead to cut the pieces to
shape, using naturally bent pieces wherever possi-
ble. 58
53 Dufour considered several possibilities while searching
for a simple solution. Another variant had a third row
splitting the carriageway in two. (Devis de la Charpente
et des Ferrures du nouveau projet de Pont en arches
cintrees, p. 1, part of ms nr. 17)
54 see: Poyet
55 later the builders of the Crystal Palace of 1850-1851
56 Dufour ms nr. 17: Projet de Pont en arches cintrees et
en charpente pour etablir la Communication entre les
Quais du Rhone et des Bergues an 1830, p. 16 (Dufour
referred to the iron as "so-called German iron", see
discussion under 'Imported iron?', pp. [110-111])
57 Memorial du genie militaire, nr. 10. State Archives,
Geneva
58 Dufour ms nr. 17: Projet de Pont en arches cintrees .. .,
p.16
The abutments were built in 1830,59 and the pier
foundations begun in 1832. The piers are still in use
today and now bear their third bridge. Dufour used
the tremie method of Roman origin for depositing
concrete for the foundations under water. The ma-
terial was made of a natural hydraulic lime and a
crushed stone aggregate laid separately in the
formwork. Earlier, he had made extensive tests of
the lime found in the region and recorded the data
in a notebook. 6o Perhaps it was cheaper for Dufour
to use the natural local product than to import Vi-
cat's new industrially produced cement which the
Seguins had been the first to use for bridge piers six
years before.
In the course of the long, drawn-out work on this
project, Dufour contacted many of his illustrious
contemporaries in France whose opinions influ-
enced his decisions. He consulted Duleau, his for-
mer classmate at the Ecole polytechnique who died
in 1832 while the project was still in the develop-
mental stages, Navier, de la Garenne, Bellandol,
Claude Deschamps Jr. and Julien.
Navier seemed, from the tone of his letter, to have
' ...
- - - ',.- -:: . ;-:; . =-=-----
:;
./\
mellowed after his sobering experience with the
Invalides Bridge. He supported the project along
with all the others consulted. A copy of the letter
adressed to an unnamed Conseiller d'Etat states:
, ... in France, and especially in Paris and its
environs, a great number of bridges have
been built similar to that Mr. Dufour has
proposed. I have myself built two and I shall
finish a third this year. I have taken the
liberty of sending the projects to Mr. Eusta-
che, Ingenieur-en-chef in Paris, who also
commissioned me to build several more of
these bridges. You can therefore consider
the observations which I have the honor to
present you here, as being founded on direct
experience.'61
It is unclear from the letter whether Navier meant
simple beams, bow-string trusses or merely timber
arches. No evidence of previous bow-string trusses
59 ibid, p. 1
60 Dufour ms nr. 12: notebook kept between May 9, 1825
and July 14, 1826
61 copy of a Navier letter in ms nr. 17.
Hans Ulrich Grl,lbenmann's
timber bridge at Schaff-
hausen over the Rhine
1757. From Mechel1803
,.!---~- .
I'o.'-r .,.: 801:> nr. . ( 'I l\Hl 101 ', .. , I K u : It""
1756- I7S8.
P ....,~ $.I • 59 ..
185
Timber bowstring version of
Bergues Bridge. Plan by
Dufour. Ink and watercolor
wash (State Archives,
Geneva)
has yet come to my attention, but Navier's familiar-
ity with the concept seems to denote that there
were indeed earlier instances.
Dufour and Navier had met as is proven by a post-
script to the letter:
'I received the note concerning the new
bridge of iron wire built at Geneva as well
as a copy of Mr. Dufour's work with great
pleasure and gratitude. I know of the very
distinguished talents of the author whom I
had the honor of seeing here a few months
ago.'62
Navier may have been exhausted by his profes-
sional fights, but he was still incisive. He pointed out
several details which required particular attention:
the bearings of the trusses, the lower chords and all
timber connections in general. Obviously relieved,
Dufour noted:
'This system, which exerts no thrust on the
piers, pleased him very well as a matter of
186 fact.'63
While praising the system generally, Navier was
less pleased with the flatness of the arches in the
first variant:
'If the rise of the curve is very small, the
slightest decrease in arc length will cause a
definite sinking [to take place]. The bridge
will therefore be put of commission much
more easily. The lack of success of most of
Mr. Wiebeking's great works has only de-
monstrated the more clearly to me the
correctness of these remarks.'64
Dufour based his calculations on Navier's remarks:
'Mr. Navier regards our arches as rigid
elements which are incapable of bending
due to their connection with the tension
member. He therefore believes that only the
bearings on the piles and the tension
62 ibid, p. 4
63 Dufour ms nr. 17: Notes, p. 1; part of: Projet de Pont
en arches cintrees . ..
64 Dufour ms nr. 17: Navier's letter, p. 2
 members need to be examined as those
parts supporting the entire thrust.'65
This is a very clear and correct analysis of the struc-
tural system Dufour was considering using, and it
lucidly explains its advantages. Looking back a
mere six years, we can see how far structural
understanding had advanced since the first pro-
posals for the Saint Antoine Bridge.
Connections
Neither Navier nor Duleau, who were the most
eminent among the critics, would accept the 'Jupi-
ter joint' which was then a common means for con-
necting timbers longitudinally, and which Dufour
had envisioned using for the lower chords:
, ... he totally disapproves of the Jupiter-
joint as diminishing the force by more than
half, and proposes a system of iron
clamps66 ... Mr. Navier would have the
arches made without mortices or internal
tenons and only use squared ends which
would greatly simplify the construction.
He prefers stirrups to bolts as they do not
weaken the timber.'67
Navier's preference for simple detailing was based
on a trend toward clearer structural forms which
paralleled a similar development in North America.
In the United States, simple forms were preferred
due to the fact that not enough professional car-
penters were available to erect the large number
of bridges necessary for opening up a continent.
Bridges could only be built by unskilled, or at best,
semi-skilled labor if systems and connections were
prefabricated, standardized and simplified to the
utmost. Navier's goal, on the other hand, was to
simplify connections and clarify structural systems,
so as to postulate a model for precise calculations
using the full cross-section of all members, particul-
arly at the critical connections - the same reason
Navier proposed tension rods imbedded in the pier
of Dufour's project for Fribourg.
Duleau, as so many others in France at the time, in
spite of the neglect of Dufour's name in French
publications, was conversant with what Dufour had
built. And he wrote modestly to his former
schoolfellow:
'You do me far too great an honor in
consulting me, you who have carried out
and still continue to build so many and such
beautiful works ... '68
Like Navier, Duleau concentrated on the detailing
of the timber connections. He recommended fixing
the ends of timbers in iron shoes to prevent deter-
ioration which always occurs first at the end-
grain. 69 The introduction of iron connectors in
timber construction in the first quarter of the nine-
teenth century, served the practical purposes of
prefabrication and ease of erection in the United
States, while in Europe it fulfilled the more theoret-
ical criteria of precise transmission of forces, pro-
tection from deterioration and prevention of re-
duction of cross-section at the connections.
Navier recommended the version with the three
over that with two rows of trusses, and concluded:
'If you insist on the bridge project having
two arches, it appears to me absolutely
necessary to make them in forged or
cast-iron.'70
We can therefore presume with a fair degree of
certainty that Dufour's third project in cast-iron was
the direct result of Navier's remark.
Arch bridges in cast-iron
In the early years of the Industrial Revolution, start-
ing around 1790, attempts were made to build
beams and proto-trusses in cast-iron. These ranged
from the first simple railway rails, the failure of
which caused the demise of Richard Trevithick's
model railway in 1804 to an early successful truss
of a type later attributed to Vierendeel, cast in
Belgium in 1844.7 1 But beams were impractical in
65 Dufour ms nr. 17: Notes, p. 2
66 A sketch of this proposal, probably prepared by an
assistant, accompanies Duleau's unsigned letter joined
to this verion of the project. The hand is clearly not that
of a copist. It was possible to attribute the handwriting to
Duleau, as there is a signed letter and manuscript
dedication by him bound into a copy of his "Essai theo-
rique et experimental ... " to be found in the library of
the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at lausanne.
67 Dufour ms nr. 17: Notes, p. 2
68 Dufour ms nr. 17: letter by Duleau
69 Dufour ms nr. 17: Notes, p. 2
70 Dufour ms nr. 17: Navier's letter, p. 3
71 Elton nr. 135 187
View of Iron bridge at Coal-
brookdale, Shropshire,
England 1779
Detail of timber-like connec-
tions between cast-iron
members of Iron bridge.
188
cast-iron due to the lack of tensile, shear and tor-
sional strength of the material. French engineers
used wrought iron in fireproof roof construction
with some success, but this material was still expen-
sive. However, cast-iron was appropriate to the
construction of compression structures such as
arches. So arch bridges, but only those with decks
supported above the arches, were attempted from
1719 in France and slightly later in England. The
first successful one, for which the founder Abraham
Darby III was responsible, was the celebrated lron-
bridge over the Severn at Coalbrookdale in Shrop-
shire, erected in 1779. It had five arched ribs, cast
in two sections each and a span of 30 m. By the
time Dufour designed his arches, three distinct
types were known:
The first used rib segments of rectangular section,
similar to what had been built at Coal brookdale.
Telford built many in the course of his career, the
first notable one being the Buildwas Bridge of 1796
which had three ribs under the deck and two lateral
 Southwark Bridge over the
Thames at London by John
ones rising slightly above the deck at midspan. The sonry counterparts. Thomas Paine the United States Rennie 1819. The central
span was the largest
earliest on the European continent was a small revolutionary is said to have been the inventor of cast-iron arch ever built:
span of 12.6 m over the Striegauer Wasser, a brook this type, and he demonstrated the system, with 73 m. From Taylor 1829
in Laasan in what was then Lower Selesia. It was which he planned to erect a bridge over the
cast in 1794-1796 and lay six km outside the city Schuylkill in Philadelphia, to the French Academie
of Breslau. The first French bridge of this type, and in 1786. The Sunderland Bridge built ten years later
the first in cast-iron in France, was Louis Alexandre over the Wear by Thomas Wilson was the first of
de Cessart's Pont des Arts, a pedestrian bridge built this type. It spanned 72 m and is said to have incor-
1801-1803 over the Seine in Paris. John Rennie porated elements from a test structure Paine had
who had used this system ever since his Witham previously erected on Paddington Green in Lon-
Bridge in Boston (lincolnshire, England) in 1803, don. Wilson went on to built several further iron
erected the largest span ever to be built in cast- voussoir bridges, some of which still stand?2 Tel-
iron, the Southwark Bridge over the Thames in Lon- ford and Douglass used the voussoir type in their
don in 1819. The main span measured 73 m.
The second cast-iron arch system used block-
shaped iron cages called voussoirs after their ma- 72 James: Wilson, pp.55-72
1 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - : - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - , View of Sunderland Bridge
"In', over the Wear by Thomas
Wilson 1796. At 72 m, the
largest cast-iron span of its
time. Wilson used Thomas
Paine's voussoir elements
and system. From Pope
1811.

189
Arrangement of the
elements to form a system.
Sunderland Bridge. From
Mehrtens 1908

Cast-iron voussoir element

of the Sunderland Bridge.
From Mehrtens 1908 DG~
gargantuan, single span Thames Bridge to replace
the old London Bridge in 1801, but their project
was abandoned, partially for political and financial
reasons and partly because Telford's partner in this
venture, Douglass decamped, probably to enemy
France?3 In France, the first was built between
1800 and 1806, the Austerlitz Bridge over the Seine
in Paris by Mande Corneille Lamande and erected
under the supervision of Joseph Marie Stanislas
Becquey-Beaupre. This was the first major cast-iron
bridge in France, and it had casting flaws caused
by differential cooling of the material due to the
change in cross-section from one part to another in
the voussoirs 74 which showed how French iron
casting techniques then still trailed behind the Brit-
73 see: A. W. Skempton in Penfold
74 letter from Navier to Robert Louis Astolphe ceard
concerning advice on Dufour's cast- iron variant
Travaux AA 27, nr. 122. State Archives Geneva.
In spite of the fact that Navier wrote in 1831 that
no further cracks had developed since 1816, 5000 had
been repaired by then and another 6000 had devel-
oped by the time it was decided to demolish the bridge
in 1855. (Vierendeel in 1903 cit. in Steiner, p. 713)

Proposal by Telford and

Douglass for gigantic,
1 83 m cast-iron arch bridge
of voussoir construction to
replace the old London
Bridge over the Thames
1801. From Telford's
engraving 1801

190
ish. The reason that the French were relatively slow
in following the British lead in iron construction is to
be sought in the conservatism of the Directorate of
the Ponts et Chaussees 75 which lasted until Napo-
leon forced it to adopt more a modern stance. As
soon as the French did change their attitude, how-
ever, iron bridges proliferated. The innovative An-
toine Remi Polonceau built a small voussoir bridge
of three spans of 7 m each over the Seine at Mai-
sons in 1822 which used channel sections rather
than the standard solid bar to avoid the fractures
which had occured in both the Pont des Arts and
the Austerlitz Bridges.7 6
The third system used arches made of tubes which
was a rational way of using the material, as tubes
resist compression and buckling well. The German
'mechanic' Georg von Reichenbach published the
idea in 1811 based on observations he had made
in the course of a journey of industrial espionage
to England in 1792 where he had seen tripods
made of tubular members. Reichenbach's proposal
led to a small bridge over the Oker in Brunswick in
1824, which was the first, although John Nash in
England (1797), Wiebeking in Bavaria and Gau-
they in France (in a project for Lyons of 1805), had
all previously considered using the same idea. The
best of these bridges was Polonceau's last bridge,
the tri-span Pont du Caroussel of 1839 over the
Seine in Paris, in which the cast-iron tubes had
laminated timber cores. A copy of this bridge,
the Puente de Triana of 1851, still spans the
Guadalquivir in Seville.
But all of these bridges had decks supported over
the arches and no early example of a cast-iron
bridge is known with decks suspended below. On
the other hand, bow-string trusses and arches with
suspended decks made of timber had been known
ever since a certain James Jordan had taken out a
US patent on such a structure in 1796.77
There had indeed, been several proposals in metal,
the earliest by Faustus Verantius who depicted one
to be cast in bell-metal?8 The idea of nullifying the
effect of arch thrust on abutments by the use of tie
rods derived from Leonardo da Vinci's experiments
on thrust, although it may well have been used
earlier. And Verantius apparently had knowledge
of these experiments. Poyet also proposed a bow-
e
a
string truss as part of the patent publication of his
stayed bridge in 1820. The main patent was for a
multi-stayed timber and wrought iron double can-
tilever, but also included was a design for a bow-
string truss with timber deck which could be used in
conjunction with the major span or as an inde-
pendant structure.7 9
Dufour may have known of Poyet's design,
although the truss was not as widely known as the
Cast iron tubular arch
stayed bridge. However, Dufour, in 1829, seems to system proposed by Georg
have been the one of the first to attempt an iron von Reichenbach and first
bow-string truss meant to be built. Joseph Schmied- used for the Brunswick
bauer of Munich, published another such proposal Bridge over the Oker,
Germany, 1824. From
using a hollow cylindrical cross-section the same Mehrtens 1908
year. It is not known whether or not Schmied bauer
actually built one.
Finally, four years later, in 1833, the first cast-iron
bow-string truss with a box cross-section for the
upper chord, was erected over the Czuka Creek at
Lugos in Hungary, and another with cylindrical
chord followed in 1837 over the Cserna River at
Mehadia, also in Hungary. The first in Britain were
about contemporaneous with these, built by a
Mr. Leather over the Aire at Leeds and as an aque-
duct for the Aire and Calder Navigation at Stan-
ley Ferry.80 But Dufour seems to have been una-
ware of these.
75 Michel: Les Annales des Ponts et Chaussees. See also
chapter 'Evolution of method and thought in French
engineering education', p. [42]
76 Elton nr. 165
77 Tyrrr:ll, p. 204
78 Verantius, 1615, pI. 32
79 Elton nr 174
80 Hosking in: 'Veale vol. 2, pp. 112-113 + pI. p. 102 191
 I!. /" _

Cast-iron bowstring version

for Bergues Bridge. Sketch
by Dufour, c. 1832 (State
Archives, Geneva)

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- r, ...:...c-. :- • .,. ._ e~,

-~----':!. .

Third proposal in cast-iron
The cast-iron design for the Bergues Bridge is first
mentioned in an abstract of the minutes of a meet-
ing of the Conseil d'Etat of February 18, 1829,81
where money was requested to undertake a model
test. The design was for a cast-iron pierced plate
arch. Pierced plate members were otherwise un-
known until a small girder bridge built in Ghent
around 1844 by the Belgians Ch. Marcellis and
V. Duval,82 and another design by the Swiss Niko-
laus Riggenbach in 1857. And they were only to be
popularized by the Belgian Vierendeel at the be-
ginning of the twentieth century. The form of the
solid plate girder in wrought iron was only to be-
come common with the work of Sir William Fair-
192 bairn after 1846.
Although Dufour based the costing of this version
on twin arch rows, the plans show four rows, one on
either side and a double one splitting the carriage-
way. A letter by Dufour to Deschamps, Inspecteur
general des Ponts et Chaussees at Bordeaux, de-
scribes the genesis of the idea:
"In this project it was intended to substitute
arches of iron for the arches in wood,
arranged in a manner which is not new at
all. For centuries, [and here Dufour exagger-
ates slightly], timber bridges of very great
spans have been built in Switzerland support-
81 Registre du Conseil d'Etat, 1er sem., 1829, folio 239,
Feb. 18, 1829
82 Elton nr. 135
 ed solely by two lateral frames, normally of
arched form. The deck of this bridge is
so-to-speak suspended from the frames by
hanging posts. In our proposal, we substitute
simple suspender rods for these posts ...
if no very strong objections are offered
against its adoption, the iron will offer the
great advantage of a long life for all the
essential parts of the structure." 83
International tenders were invited for the bridge.
An unspecified foundry in Liverpool was the low
bidder offering the work for 101 016 florins, Le
Creuzot in France was the highest at 124255 flor-
ins, while foundries in Solothurn and Ardon lay in
between. The low bid still lay 30% over those for
the timber beams, but Dufour considered those
prices too low to be realistic.
Dufour figured on a temperature differential of
+200 C and a coefficient of 1.22 X 10-5.84 He cal-
culated an expansion of 3.8 mm for his 19 m long
arches. But for ease of erection, he would in any
case have been obliged to leave an open joint of
more than 10 mm between consecutive arches,
which was about three times the maximum ex-
pansion.
The incertitude as to which material to chose, tim-
ber or cast-iron, delayed final decisions. The piers
had been begun in 1830 and by 1831, when de-
sign work on the cast-iron arches was progressing,
(Louis Frederic) Paul Emile Maurice was substituting
for Dufour on the site while the latter was occupied
with pressing national business at the Swiss Diet in
Lucerne. No decision as to the type of pier cars
could be taken until Dufour had been consulted. 5
Consultation with Navier and
a proposal by Telford
Navier was again consulted, this time by Conseiller
d'Etat Ceard. He responded with the letter com-
menting on the difficulties encountered in the cast-
ing of the Austerlitz Bridge which he considered
surmounted by then as proven by Rennie's large
cast-iron Southwark Bridge. 86 Navier did not con-
sider the problem of the large cast-iron arch itself,
but rather discussed his own experience with the
83 Dufour: Devis et Calculs du Pont en Cintres de fer fondu
an 1830. ms nr. 13, notes (written in 1831), p. 1
84 Modern Swiss standards, by comparison, recommend a
differential of ±300 C for steel structures with a
coefficient of 1.0 X 10-5, a difference of just under
20% which is about right for cast-iron.
85 Travaux A 19, folio 102, June 7, 1831. State Archives
Geneva
86 Travaux AA 27, nr. 122. State Archives Geneva
One span of the bowstring
cast-iron version, showing
both abutment and pier
bearing. Dufour sketch in
ink with watercolor wash
(State Archives, Geneva)
193
Detail from a manuscript
letter by Navier of 22 July
1831, describing problems
of the voussoir castings
for the Austerlitz Bridge
(State Archives, Geneva)
194
material. Cast-iron, of course, expands less than
wrought iron or steel. This fact, taken together with
the relative large number of joints in the structure,
convinced Navier that the problem was not a grave
one. The letter was read to the Chamber of Public
Works and then sent on to the mayor87 who had
also requested information from London. 88
A month passed before Ceard could report at the
meeting of the Chamber on September 27 that
Dufour was of the opinion that it would be advan-
tageous to consult Telford in London on the ques-
tion, and Dufour had prepared a list of questions to
be enclosed in a letter. This was then written by
Maurice who had been connected with the project.
Maurice was also an alumnus of the Ecole polytech-
nique and a military engi neer89 who had met
Telford in May 1830 through an introduction by
Charles Dupin. He also had the necessary business
connections through the London branch of the
family firm of Maurice, Prevost & Cie.
Dufour's questions are interesting as they throw
light on what the incertitudes of this type of con-
struction were then considered to be:
"1 : What is your opinion of the suspension
system which we were obliged to adopt as
the banks of the Rhone are too low to admit
of arches under the deck?
"2: Would four stronger arches grouped two
by two on either side of the bridge be better
than two more massive and consequently
stronger ones?
"3: Would you consider that these arches
are so stable due to their own weight and to
that of the deck suspended from their
common joints from one to the next and also
due to their being fixed below to the bridge
deck, so that vibrations will not be able to
overturn them in spite of the fact that they are
not interconnected at the crowns of the
arches?
87 Travaux A 19, folio 144. State Archives Geneva
88 ibid, folio 157
89 Dufour: Description d'un pont construit a Geneve
d'apres un nouveau mode de suspension. 1834, p. 259
footnote
 "4: Could the effects due to the expansion
lead to a fracture, and is not the elasticity of
the arch sufficient to allow the curvature to
increase and decrease with variations in
temperature?
"5: Are the two tension members in forged
iron of sufficient strength to resist the
horizontal thrust in the end arches which
thrust has been calculated to be 20479 kilo-
grams?
"6: Are the means of suspension appropri-
ate?
'7: Admitting this to be so, which material is
to be preferred to guarantee the joints and
to keep the various voussoirs perfectly
aligned?
"8: Do the masonry piles, of which the
dimensions are given in the sketch, appear
sufficiently solid to resist vibration, and are
they of sufficient size to take the springing of
the arches?''90
A note on the matter of this letter found its way into
Telford's papers. His biographer Gibb noted am-
ong his list of Telford's works:
"1832 Rhone Bridge, Geneva. Reference to
designs made by Telford were found in his
papers, but it is not known if they were ever
carried out."91
Telford's project, which has not been traced in the
State Archives in Geneva, was evidently long in
arriving, possibly due to the fact that his health had
been gradually failing over a period of years,
while the press of work remained unrelenting. By
the end of December, after several months of wait-
ing, Maurice evidently dispaired of ever getting an
answer from London, and he reported back to the
Chamber of Public Works:
"Mr. E. Maurice explained the difficulties of
getting a reply from Mr. Telford who has
definitely refused to consider the problems
concerning the project ... In consequen-
ce ... the Chamber requests Mr. Maurice to
have the plan copied and to send it together
with the questions to Mr. Deschamps, Gener-
al Inspector of the Ponts et Chaussees at
Bordeaux, in order to obtain the desired
opinion." 92
As we have already learned, Deschamps replied
promptly and supported the iron arch version, as
mayor Fatio subsequently argued for the iron and
against the timber version before the Senate. 93
Telford's proposal finally did arrive, and although it
has not yet been traced, a description of it does
exist:
"Returning to several detail questions refer-
ring to the iron arch bridge which the
commission was inclined to adopt, the fa-
mous engineer Mr. Telfort [sic] has sent an
entirely different proposal whose elegance
was very convincing.
"It consisted of erecting cast-iron obelisks on
each of our existing piles which are to carry
chains from which the bridge deck is to be
suspended. The distance between the piles
would have formed a bridge similar to those
on our ramparts. [i.e.: the Saint Antoine and
the Paquis Bridges] The strength of the
suspension cables and the small spans
between the piles would suffice to make it
able to support the greatest loads.
"This project, the cost of which would not be
noticably different from that of the iron arch
project, was examined with interest by the
commission and submitted to the State
Engineer. It had to be admitted that the site
did not permit its adoption. The space
necessary for the massive abutments serving
as anchors would not be available at all,
either on the central platform uniting the two
parts of the bridge, nor on the Bergues Quai
where the exit is narrow and angular.
"Nevertheless this gracious packet was far
from being without meritj it contributed to
the recall of the idea which the engineer had
originally proposed, an idea which had only
90 Travaux AA 27, nr. 142 State Archives Geneva. The
cursive portions of the questions were added by
Maurice to Dufour's originals
91 Gibb, p. 307
92 Memorial des seances du Conseil representatif, 5th
year, nr. 51, report read at the session of December
26, 1832, pp. 652-653. State Archives Geneva
93 Travaux A19, folio 253. State Archives Geneva 195
A span of the Bergues
underspanned bridge as
built. Photograph before
1886 (Musee d'art et d'his-
toire, Service Vieux-
Geneve)
196
been abandoned with the decision to avoid
suspension systems.
lilt was a result of this train of thought and
various researches that the commission was
at last pleased to propose unanimously to
the Senate, a plan which it considers to be
generally satisfactory: it is that for an
underspanned suspension bridge, shown in
the plan here subjoined .. ."94
Several questions must perforce remain open until
more material is found. Why had Telford decided
to send a proposal after apparently having refused
to respond to the questions? What has happened
to his project? Were the cables mentioned really
cables, or were they rather chains, such as Telford
habitually used? It is noteworthy that the Telford
proposal was refused for the same reason as his
London Bridge project had been in 1801. Telford
and Douglass had designed a great cast-iron arch
of 183 m span to bridge the Thames at the site of
the old London Bridge. There too he had not paid
enough attention to the ramps needed for the ap-
proaches on both sides of the river, and they prov-
ed impossible to build without serious disruption
of the surrounding area and great cost. Was Tel-
ford inclined to regard only the structure itself and
not its context? The catalogue of his many works
suggest that this was not usually so. But in the plan-
ning of the London and the Geneva Bridges, the
only major bridges among the very few he design-
ed for metropolitain sites, it seems to have been the
case.
The underspanned Bergues Bridge
Thus it was Telford's proposal which finally served
as catalyst for the readoption of the original pro-
ject of 1826. Now that the underspanned version
had once again become acceptable, the govern-
ment decided to settle the matter for once and for
all. A special session of the Chamber of Public
Works was held on January 25, 1833 to deliberate
on the final report on the timber arches and a
model of the underspanned bridge which Dufour
94 Travaux A 19, folio 88, April 17, 1832. State Archives
Geneva
had prepared. 95 The model is doubtless that pre-
served in the Musee Vieux Geneve in Geneva. It
represents a single span of the proposed bridge to
a scale of about 1 : 10 showing almost the same
detailing finally adopted.
No explanation is given for the commission mem-
bers' change of attitude. For three years the abut-
ments had been considered to be too low to permit
any other solution than that of arches raised over
the roadway. Now, suddenly, they were comforta-
ble with chains under the deck. The only comment
on this point was that the distance betwen the
extraordinary high water mark of 1817 and the
proposed deck was sufficient at 115 cms, whereas
the deck of the cast-iron arch version would have
lain only 2 cms lower.96 Dufour gave no clue either
when he wrote:
"It is senseless to mention at this point why
we renounced using the iron bridge which
would also have been a new type of
structure, and how we came back to the
suspension idea which had at first been
abandoned. The engineer's task was to make
use of what had already been built and to
present the proposal best adapted to the
site."97
The laconic manner in which he dismissed the ob-
vious necessity to discuss the real reasons for the
readoption of the original project point to differen-
ces, perhaps of a political nature, among the com-
mittee members.
Dufour had actually recommenced work on the
underspanned version in November, a month be-
fore the senate discussion of Telford's letter on De-
cember 26. This seems to indicate that the change
of heart was not as spontaneous as could be sup-
posed from the printed minutes of the meeting.
Dufour, at least, was not unprepared.
Discussion in the Chamber was coordinated by
Maurice and Ceard. Some minor changes were re-
quested in the manner of supporting the deck,
where cast-iron was finally preferred to timber,98
and, at long last, the Conseil d'Etat committed itself
to the project on January 28, 1833. 99 Several pro-
posals submitted by others had no further influence
on the course of events. 100 A bill of specifications
was prepared and the project opened to bid. The
contractor was committed to finish the ironwork by
December 1833. 101 As Dufour was often away on
federal business during this period, Maurice was
officially designed site engineer. 102
The structure
The deck of the Bergues Bridge was supported on
ten chains grouped in five pairs. The links were of
the old, open Finley type rather than eyebars, but
they were interconnected by small coupling links
such as those the British used. Dufour had adopted
this arrangement from several sources:
"In the work of Mr. [Louis] Bruyere, Inspector
General of the Ponts et Chaussees, there is a
project for a bridge which has a great deal
in common with mine, but it differs essential-
95 Travaux A 21 m folio 31, Jan. 25, 1833 State Archives
Geneva
96 Dufour ms nr. 19: Note explicative du Projet de Pont
Suspendu a etablir de la Fusterie aux Bergues, p. 1
97 Dufour: Description d'un pont construit a Geneve
d'apres un nouveau mode de suspension. 1834, p. 236
98 travaux A 21, folio 31, Jan. 25, 1833. State Archives
Geneva
99 ibid, folio 34, Jan. 29, 1833
100 ibid, folio 56, Feb. 19, 1833
101 ibid, folio 90, March 12, 1833. Contracts were awarded
to the firm of Targe and Darrier for the ironwork, Junod
father and son for the masonry and Zurlinden for the
timber.
102 Dufour: Description d'un pont construit a Geneve
d'apres un nouveau mode de suspension. 1834, p. 259
footnote
Half of the underspanned
Bergues Bridge (State
Archives, Geneva)
197

Cross-section of the
underspanned Bergues
Bridge 1834, showing
paired chains and their
connection to the uprights
supporting the deck. Plan
by Dufour. Ink and
watercolor wash (State
Archives, Geneva)
Detail plan and elevation of
double chain and upright
supporting a joist (State
Archives, Geneva)
198
•
oj
CJ
;r-
J •
...
"f t much-criticized Jupiter-joint and partly cut into and
Iy in the detailing. lowe to him the idea of
placing the chains in pairs. Mr. Brunei is the
first engineer to have had the idea of
forming the chains as elongated rings." 103
He surely meant Sir Marc BruneI's prefabricated
chain bridges of 1823 as reported in Navier, and
he must have been referring to the intermediate
link with bolts, as BruneI's main links were very dif-
ferent from his. Elongated chain links themselves
had, of course, been known from antiquity. The
connecting bolts Dufour used had elliptical heads,
a standard detail by that time. This permitted them
to be slid through the links when turned in one way
and then rotated 900 to lock them into position.
The chains were tightly spanned and were, unchar-
acteristically in Dufour's work, not continuous, but
fixed individually to the piers. A split connection
bolt at the first and last links of each chain, permit-
ted the adjustment of the chain length. In several
cases, however, chains had to be lengthened, and
this could only be accomplished by demounting
and forging them longer at a site furnace. l04
Cast-iron uprights stood on the intermediate links
and carried the joists, over which stringers were
fixed. The stringers were still connected by the
bolted to the pier saddles with care in order to help
stabilize the piles against overturning. The carri-
ageway lay on the stringers and a sidewalk was
cantilevered out to either side:
"A wooden cornice, covered with sheet
metat sheathes the ends of the upper
members and, by casting a shadow below, it
hides or covers the ends of the [pile] caps
which are, by the way, painted dark like the
chains and drawn 0.4 m back from the
cornices. The sidewalks jut out from the
edgebeams. This is a means to gain width
l03 ibid, pp. 236-237 footnote
l04 ibid, p. 250
 without lengthening the piers, the points of
which barely project beyond the cornices.
However, they are nonetheless visible for
that, and they are separated by reason of
the space between the woodwork and their
tops. This economical arrangement, which I
was forced to adopt as the piers had
already been built and I was unable to
lengthen them, is worth copying in similar
circumstances. Far from being regrettable, it
imparts still more grace and lightness to the
bridge."105
"[The bridge deck) ... shows as a long and
extremely light white line separated from the
piers, as the suspension system is hidden and
obscured in the shade."106
Dufour's complex formal, esthetic and structural
considerations show that he had begun to take a
personal interest in the building of the bridge, once
the project was finally underway.
Calculation and erection
The dimensioning presumed that the bridge was
covered with pedestrians, conforming to his opin-
ion that Navier's rule applied to bridges of small
span and those in capital cities which were likely to
be heavily loaded. But the chain stress was later
reduced from 9.77 kg/mm 2 to 9.46 kg/mm 2• Since
5.2 kg/mm 2 of this was due to the liveload, he still
had a safety factor of 3.5-4, using the standard
ultimate stress of 35-40 kg/mm 2 for the forged
iron. 107 The safety factor for the connecting links
lay somewhat higher and that of the anchor bolts
was two. Dufour considered this to be sufficient as
they were so short that they could not bend, and
were also made of a higher quality cast-iron. 108
He purposely did not take into account that fully
1/6 of the load rested directly on the piers and
not on the chains at all,109 so this effectively reduc-
ed the chain tension to about 7.32 kg/mm 2. Using
round numbers, he finally arrived at a value of
8.3 kg/mm 2 for the stress in his chains, and the ratio
of deadload to liveload was 1 : 0.82 (33 tons dead-
load and 27 tons liveload).
The cost was estimated at 297700 frs which includ-
ed 18 000 frs for the lie Rousseau suspension
bridge. The final cost ran only 4935 frs over this
estimate, and half of this was due to the unforeseen
repair of the links damaged in testing. 11 0
The anchor bars were to be bedded in the masonry
of the abutments, but, careful as ever, Dufour took
precautions to make the anchor bars thicker in the
event that the mortar should protect the iron less
well than Vicat had envisaged. 111 It is this kind of
caution in detailing coupled with a general under-
standing of the pitfalls in construction which dis-
tinguishes the successful engineer from the rash
constructor. The experienced builder almost instinc-
tively avoids situations which he cannot predict.
Dufour had reached this level of certitude in his
judgement of structural detailing through ten years
of experimentation and thoughtful design, as he
had never had to build too quickly and engage in
speculative construction, and was able to experi-
ment, observe and alter his projects time and again.
As far as is known, Dufour seems to have been
the only suspension bridge builder to have harbor-
ed reservations about Vicat's recommendations as
long as they had not passed the test of time.
Planning the building process in detail
Every critical detail of the building process was de-
scribed in the last part of the manuscript, finished
on December 22, 1833. Dufour's painstaking com-
ments on all aspects of the erection process were
motivated by the fact that he was obliged to dele-
gate the site supervision, as the Diet in Lucerne and
his recent appointment to Quartermaster General
and Chief of Staff of the federal army with the
added burden of the new map of Switzerland, de-
manded more of his time than was compatible with
close contact with work in progress on a novel
structure. Building processes were then seldom con-
sidered as independant problems worthy of careful
planning. The comparison between Dufour's care-
105 ibid, p. 238
106 ibid, p. 235
107 Dufour ms nr. 19: Calculs et Details ... , p. 2 / Calculs
relatifs ... , pp. 1-2
108 Dufour ms nr. 19, Calculs et Details ... , p. 3
109 ibid, p. 2
110 Dufour: Description d'un pont construit a Geneve
d'apres un nouveau mode de suspension. 1834, p. 260
111 Dufour ms nr. 19: Calculs et Details ... , p. 6 199
 fully thought out process and for example the
haphazard digging of the Thames Tunnel in Lon-
don by Sir Marc Brunei which was being carried
out at the same time, is a stark contrast in attitude
toward construction.1l2
We get a blow by blow description of a construc-
tion process which was in essence still manual.
It contains many underlined comments such as:
"Once again it is the engineer who must carry this
out." Dufour was not speaking of himself but for the
benefit of his deputy Maurice. The smallest details
were worthy of attention, as where he carefully
tabulated the very minor differences of only a few
centimeters in the spans, normally well within the
usual tolerances of a building site. These are only
worthy of note if instructions are to be given to a
less experienced site manager together with solu-
tions to the problems these differences cause. This
too, Dufour did in great detail.1l3
The organization of the delivery of material and
parts to the site was also part of planning the pro-
cess. Dufour divided the ironwork into lots, the con-
tracts for which he awarded to different factories,
reserving some for a factory to be set up at the site.
The timber parts were to be fabricated while the
masonry work was progressing:
"In order to speed up the works, I think that
all the wrought iron for one of the bridges
[halves], as well as all cast-iron saddles,
should be ordered from a single forge, and
all wrought iron for the second bridge
together with the assembly bolts in cast-iron
from a second. One of the two factories will
also manufacture all the saddle bolts.
"As to the ironwork for the abutments, this
will be prepared in town in order to have it
at hand and to be able to place it in position
as soon as it is ready. The anchor plates will
be cast in a third factory.
"While all this ironwork is being made, the
masonry shall be carried out and the
timberwork prepared.
liThe iron for the railings will form a separate
lot, independant from the rest.11114
The wording may not be the same as would be
used in planning a building site today, but the re-
200 cognition of a sequence in the manufacture and
preparation of parts indicates a way of thinking
about building processes which lies close to the
modern critical path method. The manuscript of the
building of the Bergues Bridge is by far the most
detailed description of a building process of the
period, and by planning the erection of his struc-
ture as he would a military campaign, Dufour re-
veals his military training. His was an unusual meth-
od at a time when the criteria of trade: deadlines,
interest on invested capital, amortization of site
plant and similar concepts had by no means yet
penetrated the building field l and Dufour's interest
in process documents a nascent engineering, as
distinct from an architectural approach to build-
ing.1l5 It also gives us a clue as to possible military
origins of the engineering bias toward process
which supplemented the general philosophical
trend of the Industrial Revolution.
Being not only a practitioner, but also theoretically
inclined, Dufour could not leave well enough alone
and accept matters as they were practically solved.
He always desired to learn the principles behind
whatever he did. So he wrote a long section on the
effect of sudden loading or shock on the structure
using two methods to determine the stresses.
The first method used a formula which he did not
describe in detail, but which he showed to be use-
less by means of his empirical values. In continua-
tion of his thoughts on the subject expressed in
earlier manuscripts, he demonstrated that he was
well aware of the influence that material properties
and form had on the absorbtion and transmission
of shock:
"The shock does not act on our chains as we
supposed, but it rather acts on an intermedi-
ate body which dampens the effect. It is
known that one can strike an anvil placed on
the chest of a man very hard with no ill
effect, whereas a single blow would suffice
to kill him if only a board or some such light
body is interposed between. Secondly, a
chain is not a rigid bar, but is jointed and
112 Peters: Time is Money, pp. 89-106
113 Dufour ms nr. 19: Calculs et Details ... , p. 13
114 ibid, p. 16
115 see: 'Some basic issues: Structural engineering and
architecture', pp. [11-12]

can be deformed to avoid, so-to-speak, the
sudden effect of shock.
"The experiments I carried out while erecting
the first bridge in iron wire, confirmed this
supposition. From these experiments could
be deduced that each square millimeter of
bar cross-section can withstand a live force
expressed by the number 200 without break-
ing, with the weights given in kilograms and
the height of fall in centimeters, and this
when the bar is supporting a weight equal to
a third of its ultimate load, it will withstand a
far greater live force, that is to say that
multiplying the weight by the height of the
fall, the product which expresses the live
force can exceed 200 kilograms per millimet-
er section.
"Let us therefore suppose that one bridge be
loaded up to a third of the strength of the
[suspender] bars in spite of the fact that we
have seen that the maximum will not be
more than one quarteri and we shall see
how much shock it can withstand, proceed-
ing from the above data. As our ten chains
total a cross-section of 20480 square milli-
meters, they will be able to support a live
force of 20480 X 200 = 4096000 without
danger of fracture. And, as the height from
which we let the weight p fall is 2 meters or
200 centimeters, it follows that this weight is
itself 20480 kilograms.
"But, due to the chain force, the stress will be
about triple the load. If then, we grant that
the shock will be transmitted undimished to
the bars, which will however, not be the
case, we would have to take a third of the
preceeding value which would be 6826 to
obtain the value for the weight p. This value
is far greater than that which was found
using the other method. [Dufour's first meth-
od]
"This type of calculation shows that two
hundred people could jump from the height
of one meter on to one span of the bridge at
the same time without a fracture occuring in
the chains.
"Moreover, it has already been demonstrat-
ed by experiment that when a suspension
bridge is loaded with its full dead load,
nothing is to be feared from the live forces
to which it is subjected, the less so as the
span size increases. The elasticity inherent in
the suspension system itself, however it may
be put together, is the best prevention
against the nefarious effects of live forces.
They are dissipated, so-to-speak, in the
vibrations which they cause. They can only
become really dangerous if they are repeat-
ed at equal intervals, as their effect then
accumulates and soon becomes frightening.
If there is any difference in this respect
between anyone system and another, I
believe it to be to the advantage of that
adopted for the Bergues bridge, due to its
large number of fixed points. And one thing
that is certain, is that the lateral swing will be
absolutely zero, and that it will only manifest
a vibration in the vertical very little different
from that of ordinary timber bridges when
carriages are driven over it."116
These surprisingly independant and highly original
thoughts on the effect and propagation of dynamic
loads and the stability of suspended structures,
show that Dufour's experience had greatly increas-
ed since the first hesitant ideas and experiments in
the manuscript for the Saint Antoine Bridge twelve
years before. He had not developed into a theoret-
ician in the intervening decade, but remained pri-
marily a practitioner who used theoretical methods
wherever fit to achieve his practical goals, in other
words, he remained preeminently a technologist. 1l7
Thus does Dufour's development document the
genesis and the permeation of mathematical and
theoretical method into practical engineering in the
first part of the nineteenth century.
To a certain extent, Dufour's thoughts resemble
those of another great engineering practitioner
and bridge builder, Othmar Hermann Ammann.
116 Dufour: Description d'un pont construit a Geneve
d'opres un nouveou mode de suspension. 1834,
pp.243-246
117 see: 'Some basic issues: Technical and scientific
thought', p. [9] 201
 Ammann was an equally gifted cable suspension
bridge builder active in the middle of the twentieth
century. He was even more exclusively a practition-
er than Dufour, and, when in 1940, he was violently
confronted with the problems of suspension bridge
stability upon the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows
Bridge in Washington, he developed an empirical
'stiffness index' for determining the stability of sus-
pension bridges under wind loading which was just
as untheoretical and scientifically 'incorrect' as
Dufour's 'live force' had been. But, at the same
time, it was an equally useful and sufficient tool for
practical design.
Testing the structure
The works were finished on time by December 1833
and tests were set for December 30, so that the
bridge could be opened before the new year.
Cannon were trundled over the new bridge, first
one behind the other, then parallel or crossing
at midspan. A tandem of gun carriages, totalling
12.8 tons and far less than the 27 tons designed for,
caused one pair of chains to fail suddenly.
"We expected occasional rings to rupture
here and there, but as they were easy to
replace, it was no concern for alarm. This
reason and the excellent reputation of the
iron of our country, led the engineer to
save [the expense of] a machine for testing
the rings and the labor it would have
entailed."118
Therefore the tests were continued. When, due to a
misunderstanding, two gun carriages again drove
on to the damaged span, all remaining chains with
a single exception broke with a loud report. This.
was totally unexpected, as the weight was far
below the calculated ultimate load of the remain-
ing chains. This, of course, indicated that something
was very wrong with the manufacture of the links.
The accident did have one positive aspect: it prov-
ed the effectiveness of the longitudinal bracing
between the piers. In spite of the missing span, the
piers remained perfectly stable.
A committee was formed to test all chains and
verify the general stability of the structure under
the chairmanship of C€lard, with Daniel Colladon,
202 Dufour, Maurice and a not further identified
Brocher.119 Colladon built a testing machine and
found:
" ... that the iron used for this part of the
bridge was brittle and easily altered in
quality at the welds in spite of the fact that it
was elastic when cold. It was unfortunately
the first time this iron had been used. The
other part of the bridge, built with a well-
tried iron, gave rise to no doubts as to its
quality."120
Each and every chain on that section of the bridge
was therefore taken down one by one without de-
mounting the deck, altered, and reerected. Then a
new series of trials was ordered during which load-
ing gradually increased up to 30 tons or 10% over
the design load. Aside from a single link failure, no
changes were observed in any part of the structure.
Then tests were carried out for shock. Thirteen tons
of material were spread out over the span while a
cart totalling 2.09 tons ran at a trot over a 3 inch
high sill. Finally a 600 kg water barrel was dropped
on to the deck from a height of 110 cms.
While all this was going on, Colladon made precise
observations on the behavior of the structure,
using water-levels to determine any change in sag
in the span being tested as well as in the neigh-
boring ones. He also measured the movement of
the piers.
Only after all these tests had shown satisfactory
results, was the bridge opened. The precise date of
the opening cannot be determined, but, as Mau-
rice's site report runs from October 18, 1830 to
May 10, 1834, it was probably opened around that
date. 121 The last report of the C€lard committee is
from June 10, and the loading tests on the small
suspension bridge to the lie Rousseau were finished
on December 24, 1834. 122
118 Dufour: Description d'un pont ... 1834, p. 253
119 either Jacques Etienne Brocher (1802-1880),
a politician; Jacques Louis Brocher (1808-1884), an
architect or Charles Antoine Brocher (1811-1884), a
lawyer and professor. Given the date, it was probably
the first.
120 Dufour: Description d'un pont construit a Geniwe
d'apres un nouveau mode de suspension. 1834, p. 254
121 Travaux A 22, folio 443, Nov. 11, 1834 State Archives
Geneva
122 Brocher et al ms nr. 2: Enquete sur Ie pont des
Bergues en 1834
Dulk, writing thirty years later, was critical of the
construction of the Bergues Bridges which had suf-
fered in the interim:
liThe main advantage of this structural
system should be that the joists are not only
supported at both ends as in normal suspen-
sion bridges, but also at several points in the
middle. Therefore, although the loadbearing
capacity of the bridge should be much
greater, this does not seem to be the case
here, as a police ordinance prohibits the
passage of all loads greater than that which
can be pulled across by two horses. Not only
are strong vibrations to be observed when a
waggon pulled by two horses passes, but
also a very evident lifting and sinkin~ of the
deck. No sidesway is discernable." 12
The lie Rousseau Bridge had also suffered: it vi-
brated and swayed too. An attempt had been
made to stabilize it by two stays fixed to a joist at
midspan and anchored crosswise to the river
bed. 124
Why chains?
One of the most inexplicable problems is Dufour's
use of and plea for the future use of chain con-
struction. This reversal of his former conviction is all
the more astonishing when we consider the trouble
he had with his chains and know that all his sub-
sequent projects up to 1849 were all wire bridges
without exception.
"I shall conclude these notes, already very
long, by remarking that, if it is true that chain
bridges require more work and care than
iron wire bridges, inasfar as the care of the
joints, the testing of the links and the fact
that scaffolding is required in their erection is
concerned, they nevertheless have indubita-
ble advantages over these. They can be
erected and adjusted with ease, they do not
present those irregularities so disagreeable
to the eyes of the knowledgeable, the size of
the chains is more at harmony with the
strength of the pillars, and finally they are
less exposed to deterioration due to rust, a
fact which no one has yet disproved. With
respect to their solidity, chain bridges, once
they have been correctly tested, do not
guarantee less safety than iron wire bridges.
And in this connection, I must make mention
of a fact which deserves serious considera-
tion: in the twelve years since my first
suspension bridge was opened to the public,
two of the guy cables, placed as stiffening
under the deck, broke in the middle of the
cable loop due to the continual shocks which
they had to withstand. This happened sud-
denly without warning. The accident was
without consequence, but who would dare
affirm that the main cables will not suffer the
same fate sooner or later? As I am one of
those most directly concerned with wire
cable bridges, I must admit that my doubts in
their usefulness increase daily, particularly
when I see how the cables are usually
manufactured, and how little guarantee they
give as to the equal tension of the wires and
against the penetration of water into their
interior. Only at great expense, perhaps
greater than that of chain bridges, can faults
be avoided in the manufacture of cables.
From this we can deduce that, if wire cable
bridges are to be built by large companies
who aim at profit, chain bridges, if not
masonry bridges or iron arches, are to be
preferred for public works where longevity
should be united to elegance and harmony
of proportion." 125
Nowhere can we find an explanation of this about-
face in Dufour's opinion, the total abandonment of
all his previous convictions. No note or comment
gives a clue as to what moved him to this step -
which he immediately forgot as soon as he began
his next project. It is hard to believe that these so
negative statements, written in 1834, issued from
the same pen as the article of 1831.
Perhaps there had been a controversy between the
committee members similar to that which led to the
original abandonment of the underspanned system
123 Dulk, column 37
124 ibid, column 38
125 Dufour: Description d'un pont construit a Geneve
d'apres un nouveau mode de suspension. 1834,
pp.264-265 203
View of underspanned
Bel-Air Bridge over the
ramparts of Geneva at la
Coulouvreniere 1837
(Musee d'art et d'histoire,
Service Vieux-Geneve)
204
in 1826. Such a controversy could have been the
reason why Dufour, who till then had only built wire
cable bridges, and who had always stressed their
advantages over chains, now became uncharac-
teristically an advocate for chains without explain-
ing his change of heart. The fact that he never
again proposed them for another project casts
some doubt on his sincerity. The committee may
have forced Dufour to use chains, and he may
have felt that, as the committee's engineer, he was
obliged to support a fictive unanimity of opinion.
Or he or the committee may have been induced to
prefer chains by Vicars report of 1831 on the
Rhone Bridges. At any rate, Dufour's original and
subsequent dislike of chains was justified in this
case, as the failures under test loading proved.
And just a year later, in August 1835, Dufour exam-
ined the state of both the Saint Antoine and the
Paquis Bridges paying particular attention to their
safety, and found:
liThe State Engineer having visited the two
wire cable suspension bridges accompanied
by Master Targe, the result of his report of
19th inst. states that the cables are in a
perfect state of preservation and esteems
that the means of support of the said bridges
guarantees the same solidity as in the first
day of their existence." 126
126 Travaux A 23, folio 257, Aug. 25, 1835. State Archives
Geneva
The Bergues Bridge was the longest-lived of all Cross-section showing trussed joist construction
Dufour's bridges. The chains were only replaced by and detail elevation showing bracing and intermediate
joist support. Bel-Air Bridge. Plan by Dufour.
a steel beam deck in 1886 and the modern con- Ink and watercolor wash (State Archives, Geneva)
crete deck is still supported by the original piers of
1832. Dufour was to build only one more under-
spanned suspension bridge, this time using cables.
But this also suffered the fate of his other Geneva
Bridges, and was torn down with the demolition of
the city ramparts, probably in the 1850s.

The Bel-Air Bridge at la Coulouvreniere " .

The most mature of Dufour's bridge designs was his •
second underspanned suspension bridge. It was
also the last bridge he was to build. Similarly to
Gustave Eiffel, who was to leave construction at
the age of 57 and embark upon another 34-year
career in aerodynamics, Dufour too abandoned
construction for other interests in the latter part of
his life. The Bel-Air Bridge at la Coulouvreniere was
finished the year Dufour turned 50. He did sign at
least three more suspension bridge designs until
1849 when he was 62, but nothing innovative ap-
peared under his signature after the Bel-Air Bridge.
The design underscored the second reversal of his
opinion of the usefulness of wire cables. Until re-
cently it was uncertain whether this bridge was in
fact an early example of a truss bridge, or a real
underspanned structure. But the discovery of plans
and a manuscript dissipated any doubt on this
score.
Similar in layout to the other twin bridges over the
ramparts, this one had individually anchored
spans. The spans were of different lengths and the
decks inclined. Each was carried by six cables very
tightly stretched which made erection difficult. 127 In
contrast to the design for the Fribourg Bridge of
1825, the joists supported the deck. These were
made as timber trusses braced longitudinally by
three series of diagonal struts 128 which gave the
structure the appearance of three parallel lenticu-
lar trusses with the lower chords made of wire
cables. The lenticular truss in wrought iron was first
to be patented and extensively used by Friedrich

127 Dufour ms nr. 20: Pont de 10 Coulouvreniere (fosse).

Execute en 1836, Systeme nouveau, p. 8
128 ibid, pp. 1-2
... rl~-'"""-----"'-'~---'=-=-----'''''''
 August von Pauli in Germany in 1857, but the type
had been sporadically used before then, as, for'
instance in the support for a crane track over the
mouth of the furnace at the foundry Sayner HOtte
at Bendorf am Rhein in Germany, built in 1830. 129
The gantry-type crane rides on cast-iron rails
which form the upper chords of two trusses. The
verticals are also cast while the lower, arched
tensile chords are made of steel waggon springs.
The difference between these and Dufour's Bel-Air
Bridge is merely one of materials and the inde-
pendant anchorage of the tension members.
The ratio of dead load to liveload in the Bel-Air
Bridge was 1 : 1.5 with the usual safety factor of
three for the main cables. The calculations were
simple and straightforward and resemble modern
statics. 130 While elongation of the cables under
loading and due to temperature changes would
increase the sag and thus reduce the cable
tension,131 Dufour recognized that this would
simultaneously weaken the superstructure, and he
detailed the spans accordingly.132
Once again the notes accompanying the manu-
script and sketches describe the erection proceed-
ure in exhaustive detail,133 indicating again that
Dufour was able to find less and less time for his
occupation as State Engineer and was not sure that
he would be able to oversee the works in person.
Just as in the erection directives for the Bergues
Bridge, Dufour demonstrated his experience, and
the simplicity of his arrangements are the hallmark
of his construction style. Only someone who has
accumulated a vast fund of experience with such
structures and all their problems, can be the author
of such concise specifications. Looking back over
twenty four years to the tentative nature of the
description of the building of the Saint Antoine
Bridge, we note the far greater degree of sureness
which Dufour had attained and the fact that many
of the questions first raised in the early document
had now been more fully understood and in part
also resolved. The project was formulated in just
over three days, as the specifications were finished
on April 20, 1836 and the cost estimate is dated
April 23.
Once again, the politics of permit granting took
206 over. Syndic de la Garde (Military Commander)
Galatin criticized the proposal and demanded that
changes be made. It appears as though he at-
tempted to cast doubt on Dufour's competence. But
Dufour was faithfully defended by Ceard who
wrote a harsh letter to the council defending the
proposal. The agressive tone also characterized
Maurice and J. P. Wolfschberger's report of May 31
to the Chamber of Public Works which began with
the words:
UWhen an enlightened and responsible en-
gineer presents a project for a suspension
bridge in whose system there is nothing of
importance to criticize [and] no error to be
corrected, one normally waits for the test
loading to admit it into the category of
public roads."134
The Military Council evidently had attempted to
doubt the feasibility of the project and to put the
responsibility for its success a priori in the lap of the
Chamber of Public Works. The controversy between
the two bodies took some time to resolve, as, dur-
ing the construction of the bridge, the Chamber felt
the need to document in writing that it and not the
Military Council, was overseeing the works. 135
The Military Council had not made any serious
trouble over the two other bridges over the ram-
parts, but here it seemed to be determined to ob-
struct the work as long as possible. Dufour had
risen to national and international prominence by
that time, and this probably caused professional
and political jealousy. Dufour's diplomatic abilities
which were to enable him to defuse the civil war of
1848, were perhaps being formed under the pres-
sure of such political problems, and he was certain-
129 None of the articles published on the Sayner HGtte
describes the crane although the longitudinal sections
through the building invariably show it, for example:
Werner: Die Giesshalle ..., p. 255. The Sayner HGtte
was, together with Henry Maudsley's workshop, the first
known cast-iron building structure. Maudsley's collapsed
the year it was built, in 1830. The Sayner Hutte still
survives as the oldest existing cast-iron building.
130 ibid, pp. 4-5
131 ibid, p. 9
132 ibid, pp. 10-11
133 ibid, pp. 13-14
134 Travaux AA 33, nr. 144. State Archives Geneva
135 Travaux A 25, folio 56, Feb. 28, 1837. State Archives
Geneva
 Study for the cable
anchorage with detailed
notes by Dufour 1836 (State
Archives, Geneva)

r-----
Detail sketch of cable
o .J: J... ~_ --'.... ~ ~ r- ti . ,;,,;....;.. r' ~.. ..,:., ... deflection and anchorage of
9. 3 ....::...M.- ,:..u.-;r- ~ <~ ,~ It' ::.~-.:....~ the Bel-Air Bridge. From
N".. ...,_• .r... '-- , ~ /. /~"f-
Dufour manuscript (State
"'JV- ~ ~ .... _ ........ _ ~ ~ A / ..~~
I~- -
.... ~ • ..G "J ....... ---...V- ,...,. ~'"---..:t._/,t>J;.. .....N:.
Archives, Geneva)
').· .. ft _ _ _ ".o." , •....,.......: .",41/
)<

~ 4 ti'J.... ;--·...r
. ~'~:.,...·I-~
-".... 9--4> --r---"'"-
i~;-::'~ r- ...... 'il--

-- -r----
~..;.,& f). ... _->- I I .....
c.. _?IIL. 1.1:.

.f ____ g. A . . . -- /",.-.,- ?~rr""

_ J',,. .U: = 4,;"4/.1

...e J __ • r.-4 _ .rl". t •= .l:', '3.1

207
 Iy aided by capable supporters in Geneva. The
Military Council forced Dufour to show how he
proposed to demolish the Bel-Air Bridge quickly in
case it was required for reasons of defense:
II ... on the abutment cylinders, the neces-
sary openings will be reserved for this
purpose, as has been decided by the
Military Council,1I136
Such arrangements were to become standard in
Swiss bridge construction, and even today the en-
gineers responsible for building a bridge are also
frequently the military officers responsible for its
destruction in case of attack. All Swiss bridges have
recesses built into their structures, ready for the
placement of mines at short notice. Once again,
perhaps inadvertantly, Dufour pioneered a basic
policy of the Swiss attitude to defense, integral
both to their social structure and to their culture of
construction.
While the controversy between the Chamber of
Public Works and the Military Council was proceed-
ing, the bill of specifications was completed,137
and the works put out to bid, with the proviso that
the structure was to be complete in the course of
1837. 138 After that, things finally moved quickly.
The bids were awarded by November 4 and the
corporation was chartered,139 the members of
which had never been concerned with any of Du-
four's previous projects.
Little is known about the progress of the works.
Schuck wrote to the Chamber on April 1, 1837 that
the erection of the cables could only be undertaken
when Dufour was in town,140 and, in a session of
the same body in June,141 Dufour and Odier-
Baulacre were commissioned with the test loading.
The whole structure had therefore been manufac-
tured and erected in the space of two months, one
third of the time taken for the Saint Antoine Bridge.
The success of the tests was reported on June
13,142 and the bridge was opened to the public on
July 6. 143 Fourteen years later, the bridge was
ceeded to the State on November 21, 1851,l44 and
it was probably demolished shortly thereafter.
Proposal for an Aar Bridge at Aarau
As far as it has been possible to determine, no
208 underspanned suspension bridge was built after
the Bel-Air Bridge. One other proposal is known,
discovered among a series of plans for a new
bridge to span the Aar at Aarau, a Swiss city situat-
ed to the west of Zurich. 145 All these projects form
part of a single competition, dating between 1840
and 1845. Among them is the only known Chaley
project to have survived.
The underspanned proposal, by masterbuilder Bi-
schoffsberger, was for a chain bridge derived in all
details from Stevenson's publication. The surviving
sketch indicates that the designer probably had lit-
tle knowledge of suspension systems and that he
was not familiar with the Bergues Bridge.
Conclusion
The year 1850 and the collapse of the Basse-
Chaine Bridge form a barrier between the early
era of wire cable bridges and the maturation per-
iod beginning in the last quarter of the century. The
French virtually ceased building and the technology
spread to the United States where Ellet and parti-
cularly Roebling developed new possibilities while
simultaneously chanelling design trends and aban-
doning variety. This concentration instigated the
dominance of the wire cable bridge for long spans,
a dominance which has not yet abated.
1850 was also the year the IIGreat Exhibition of the
Works of Industry of all Nations was organized in
ll
London. Great Britain was at the height of her
136 ibid, folio 114, April 18, 1837
137 this is the only such bill to have survived among Dufour's
documents: "Cahier de charges pour I'adjucation d'un
pont suspendu en fil de fer, tendant du bastion de
Holland a la Coulouvreniere, en execution de la loi du
5. septembre 1836" Travaux AA nr. 329. State Archives
Geneva
138 ibid
139 ibid: addendum and letter LeFort to the Chamber of
Public Works of Nov. 4, 1836. The members were: Ami
des Arts, notary public; J. D. Congnard, sr., public
prosecutor; J. P. Pepignon; J. D. Grezet, sr.; J. F. Pelaz;
Doret and Dizerans; J. Grezet and J. P. Schuck.
140 Travaux AA 33, nr. 329. State Archives Geneva
141 Travaux A 25, folio 167, June 6, 1837. State Archives
Geneva
142 ibid, folio 173, June 13, 1837
143 ibid, folio 200, July 4, 1837
144 Travaux A 68. State Archives Geneva
145 Archives of the Stadtbauamt, Aarau, Switzerland
industrial and engineering inventiveness, and was
soon to begin her decline. The railway had outlast-
ed its infancy and was beginning to spread in
North and South America, over the European con-
tinent, in India and Egypt. Ferdinand de Lesseps
was soon to publish his proposal for the Suez Canal
in 1854 which marked the beginning of French
practical engineering ascendancy and which was
to promote structural changes over the face of Eu-
rope, structural changes which reached from the
founding of new harbors, the abandonment of old
ones, new means of inland communication, bridg-
ing chasms, to tunnelling through the Alps. The
canal also marked the rise of steam navigation and
the gradual demise of sailing vessels, as only the
former could navigate the canal. The telegraph
was beginning to spread internationally and would
soon also span intercontinental distances. This
means of simultaneous transference of information
over distance was to change our concept of space
and time irrevocably. Gold had been discovered in
California and oil was soon to be found in Pennsyl-
vania.
While the French were reaching their zenith in en-
gineering at the expense of the British, the Germans
were beginning their development which would
flower forth at the end of the century. The United
States was building its novel form of industrial en-
gineering based on mass production and on re-
petitive, incremental systems in manufacturing as
well as in bridge and structural engineering. This
would eventuailly bring the young nation to the
fore at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of
1876.
Therefore, as I stated at the outset: Some familiarity
with engineering history is a prerequisite of modern
cultural education. Too much of our present life
and our modern attitudes depend on technology to
be able to ignore it altogether. But, as we have
seen, engineering is not the deterministic moloch
that those of us unfamiliar with the technological
mode of thought think it is. On the contrary, tech-
nology is a field of design, determined as much by
style, or manner as any of the 'arts' of yore. There
is style in construction and style in technical proces-
ses which transcends the mundane business of op-
timization. Dufour's style is as different from those
of Marc Seguin, Navier or Vicat, as his personality
is different. In fact, his technological style of
thought ;5 part and parcel of that personality. And
on such differences in style determined by culture,
time and place, bases an esthetic of technology, a
novel form of esthetic, not determined by a consid-
eration of objects alone, but of processes and their
systems, of thought and the theoretical background
that informs them. This book remains to be written.
209
8 Annotated bibliography and index
 This bibliography is offered as a research resource to the reader.
Many of the works listed here went through many editions, some
of which were more important than others for different reasons.
I felt it necessary to trace the publishing and editing history
of those whose change and development are of interest to the
student of the history of technology.
All of us who have attempted to check a collation against a copy
of a work at hand, have occasionally discovered that even the
most reliable of collations can be at a variance with the evidence
of one's eyes. Suspecting therefore, that especially many of the
older books do indeed differ from copy to copy, I have included
variant collations where these seemed reliable.
Finally, cross-references as to who republished what from whom,
and when an article or book was translated into other languages,
can be of value to the researcher. And I did permit myself an
occasional comment as to what I judged to be the merit of a
source.
Abbreviations
APC: Annales des Pants et ChauSSEles
ARS: Histoire de l'Academie royale des sciences annee ... avec
les memoires de mathematique & de physique pour Ie meme
annee. Tires des registres de cette Academie. Note that the
pagination varies between the Paris and the Amsterdam editions,
a fact which has caused much confusion to many in search of
information and which was kindly communicated to me by Dr.
David Corson, Olin Librarian and Curator of the History of
Science Collections, Conell University.
BU: Bibliotheque Universelle des Sciences, Belles-Lettres et Arts.
Sciences et Arts
Books, major journals
and articles
Taccident du Gotteron' La Patrie Suisse 28 May 1919 pp.116-
127 ills.
Albenga, Qiuseppe: I ponti. 2nd ed. augmented, 3 vols. 1:
L'esperienzal2: La teoria/3: La pratica 1958-1966: Turin: Unioni
Tipografico - Editrice torinese XII,5991V1,5181V1I,568 pp., ills.
Allgemeine Bauzeitung mit Abbildungen fUr Architekten, Inge-
nieure, Dekorateure, Bauprofessionisten, Oekonomen, Bauunter-
nehmer und aile, die an den Fortschritten und Leistungen der
212 neuesten Zeit in der Baukunst und den dahin einschlagenden
Fiichern Antheil nehmen. Herausgegeben und redigiert von
Christ. Friedr. Ludwig Forster, Architekten.
1836-1916 Vienna: L. Forster's artistische Anstalt. Journal with text
and ills. in separate vols until 1872, thereafter 1 vol per year. The
first building journal in German, also called the 'Wiener allge-
meine Bauzeitung', of simply 'Forster' after the publisher. Together
with 'Ding/er's Po/ytechnisches Journa/', it was the most influential
of the early building journals in German in the nineteenth century.
Amouroux, Dominique and Lemoine, Bertrand: 'L'oge d'or des
ponts suspendus en France 1823-1850'
APC nouvelle serie, 3e trimestre 1981, nr.. 19, 150 e anniversaire
1831-1981, numero speciale pp. 53-63 ills.
Ana/ix: see 'manuscripts'
Anderson, John: Report relative to a Design for a Chain Bridge
thrown over the Firth of Forth at Queensferry ... 1818
Annales de I'industrie nationale et etrangere ou Mercure tech-
nologique ... 1818120-1821 (1-4), 1820-1827 (1-24), 1827-?
(24-?) Paris vols. 1-4 were reissued in 1824 under the title
'Description des expositions des produits de I'industrie fran~aise
faites a Paris depuis leur origine jusqu'o celie de 1819 inclusive-
ment. Avec un prospectus de 1820, reedite en aoOt 1823'
Annales des ponts et chaussees. Memoire et documents relatifs
a I'art des constructions et au service de I'ingenieur; lois, ordon-
nances et autres actes concernant I'administration des Ponts et
Chaussees. 1831 ff. Paris 1er partie: memoires et documents, 2e
partie: lois decrets, arrets 1(1831 )-1 04(1934)
Annales des Ponts et Chaussees 105(1935)-149(1971)
nouvelle serie 1977 ff.
The Annales were one of the first and the most influential of all
engineering journals in nineteenth century Europe. They appeared
earlier as a collection of articles by P. C. Lesage and others (see
also Michel under 'manuscripts'). The APC took over and ex-
panded the role hitherto played by the BU in the spread of engi-
neering information in the French-speaking world. 'All the greatest
engineers contributed to the Annales which are essential for the
study of the progress of French engineers throughout the railway
age including the major contributions to the use and strength of
materials' - Elton (nr. 399). See also Elton (nr. 421) and Guer-
mente for other collections.
Annale universali di statistica, economia pubblica, storia e
viaggi. 1818-? Milan
Aris, Michael: 'The admonition of the thunderbolt cannon-ball'
and its place in the Bhutanese New Year Festival' Bulletin of the
School of Oriental and African Studies. University of London.
vol. 39, part 3, 1976, pp. 601-635 ills.
Arnodin, Ferdinand (1845-1924): 'Note sur les pants suspendus:
Application du systeme de la suspension aux ponts de grande
ouverture pour les voies ferrees'
APC 1905 1er sem. p. 127-140
'Arts mecaniques - pont en chaines'.
Revue encyclopedique vol. 8, 1820, p. 403
B., A: 'Les ponts suspend us de Fribourg'
La Patrie Suisse 18 oct. 1916 pp. 246-248 ills
B L-S: 'Etats-Unis - Massachusset [sic] - pont en chaines'
Revue encyclopedique vol. 11, 1821, pp. 620-621
Baeschlin, (Carl) Fridolin (1881-?), Kollros, L., Stussi, Fritz
(1901-1982): l'Oeuvre scientifique et technique du general
Guillaume-Henri Dufour, Textes originaux choisi et presentes
par ... suivi d'une bibliographie etablie par Pierre Bourgeois,
Bibliotheque Scientifique 8.
1947 Paris: Editions Dunod/Neuchatel: Editions du Griffon,
447 pp. ills.
Bannister, Turpin C.: 'Bogardus Revisited; Part 1: The Iron Fronts'
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Dec. 1956,
vol15 nr. 4, pp. 12-22, ills.
'Part 2: The Iron Towers'
ibid, March 1957, vol. 16 nr. 1, pp. 11-19, ills.
Bardeschi, Marco D.: le Officine Michelucci ed I'industria artis-
tica del ferro in Toscana 1834-1918
1981 Pistoia: Cassa di Risparmio di Pistoia e Pescia
Barlow, Peter (1776-1862): Essay on the Strength and Stress of
Timber, founded upon experiments performed at the Royal Mili-
tary Academy, on specimens selected from the Royal Arsenal, and
His Majesty's dock-yards, Woolwich. Preceeded by an historical
review of former theories and experiments, with numerous tables
and plates. Also an appendix, on the strength of iron, and other
materials.
1817 london: J. Taylor, XVI. 258 pp. 6 pI.
This book went through many successive editions and alterations
right up to mid-century. The third edition of 1826 contained the
first publication of Telford's wire tests, before that of Proviso The
work, in its final form, bore the title: 'A treatise on the strength of
timber, cast iron, malleable iron, and other materials; with rules for
application in architecture, construction of suspension bridges,
railways, etc. with an appendix, on the power of locomotive
engines, and the effect of inclined planes and gradients, with
seven plates.' 1837 London, John Weale.
Beaudemoulin, Louis Alexis (1790-1875): 'Sur quelques pro-
cedes, outils, machines, etc. employes a la construction des
radiers en beton du pont de Tours.'
APC 1841, 1e, sem, pp. 210-251, pI. 5-7
Becker, Gerard: 'Niedrig schmelzende Eisen-Arsen legierungen
als Hilfsmittel fUr den Verbund romischer Schwertklingen.'
Archiv fur das Eisenhuttenwesen, herausgegeben vom Verein
Deutscher Eisenhuttenleute und Max-Planck Institut fur Eisenfor-
schung, nr. 10, Oct. 1961, pp. 661-665 ills.
Becker, Max: Der Bruckenbau in seinem ganzen Umfange und
mit besonderer Rucksicht auf die neuesten Konstruktionen. Ein
leitfaden zu Vorlesungen und zum Selbstunterricht fur Wasser-
und StraBenbau-lngenieure und andere Techniker.
1858 Stuttgart: Carl Mecken = part 2 of: Handbuch der
Ingenieur-Wissenschaft vollstiindig in 4 Biinden mit 125 gravierten
Tafeln in gr. Folio, zweite vermehrte und verbesserte Auflage
Behrnauer: 'Stevenson, Robert: Beschreibung der Hiingebrucken.
Aus dem Edinburgh Philosophical Journal nr. X und XI ubersetzt
und mit Anmerkungen, begleitet von Herrn B.'
Verhandlungen des Vereins zur Beforderung des Gewerbefleisses
in Preussen. 1822 Berlin, 1st year, pp. 115-128, 2 pI.
de Bl!lidor, Bernard Forrest (1697-1761): L'architecture hydrau-
lique 173711739 Paris 2 vols; 2nd ed. edited by c.l. M. H. Navier
de Belidor, Bernard Forrest (1697-1761): la science de I'inge-
nieur 1729 Paris; 2nd ed. edited by Navier 1813 Paris
Bender, Charles Balthasar: 'Historical sketch of the successive
improvement in suspension bridges to the present time'
American Society of Civil Engineers Transactions vol. 1, 1872
Berg, C. F. W.: Der Bau der Hiingebrucken aus Eisendraht; nach
Stevenson, Seguin, Dufour, Navier u.a. mit sieben groBen Kup-
fertafeln
1824 leipzig: 1m Industrie Comptoir XII, 161,1,7 pI. The first book
on wire cable suspension bridges in German. Appeared in the
same year as Seguin's and Dufour's.
Bergier, Jean-Fran~ois: 'le cycle medieval: des societes feodales
aux Etats territoriaux' pp. 163-264
Histoire et Civilizations des Alpes. 2 vols. published by Paul Guich-
onnet 1980
Toulouse: Privat/lausanne: Payot 417 pp. ills.
Bernoulli, Jakob (1654-1705): Veritable Hypothese de la Resis-
tance des Solides, avec la Demonstration de la Courbure des
Corps qui font Ressort. lettre du 12 mars 1705
ARS 1705 pp. 176-186 Paris edition
Bernoulli, Johann (1667-1748): Solutio problematis finicularii
exhibita a J. B.
Actae Eruditorum lipsiae 1691 leipzig pp. 274-276, 1 pI.
Berthollet, Comte Claude Louis (1748-1822), Monge, Gas-
pard, Comte de Peluze (1746-1818), Vandermonde, Charles
Auguste (1735-1796): Memoire sur Ie fer considere dans ses dif-
ferents etats metalliques par ... a l'Academie royale des sciences
au mois de mai 1786
1788 Paris: Imprimerie royale 71 pp. This led to the following
publication:
Berthollet, Comte Claude Louis (1748- 1822), Monge, Gas-
pard, Comte de Peluze (1746-1818) Vandermonde, Charles
Auguste (1735-1796): Avis aux ouvriers en fer, sur 10 fabrication
de I'acier. Pub lie par ordre du (omite de salut public.
n.d. Paris: Imprimerie du Departement de la guerre 54 pp. 5 pI.
This led, in turn, to Monge: L'art de fabriquer les canons.
Bibliotheque Universelle des Sciences, Belles-Lettres et Arts.
Sciences et Arts. Geneva 1(1816)-6(1835), previously Bibliotheque
Britannique, ou Receuil des Sciences et Arts, Extraits des Ouvrages
Anglais, Periodiques et Autres. Geneva 1(1796)- 60(1815), and
followed by: nouvelle serie. The BU was the chief source of engi-
neering information in French during the period in which, follow-
ing the French Revolution, no substantial direct contact existed
between French and British engineering circles.
Billington, David Peter: The Tower and the Bridge. The new art
of structural engineering
1983 New York: Basic Books XX, 306 pp. ills.
'Biographische Notiz Ludwig Navier' ABZ Vienna, 2nd year
1837 pp. 325-328
Biucchi, B. M.: 'The Industrial Revolution in Switzerland 1700-
1914' The Fontana Economic History of Europe, vol. 4, chap. 10.
General editor Carlo M. Cipolla. offprint, 1969, n. p. Fontana
36 pp., 2 maps
213
 Bodson de Noirfontaine, Alphonse: 'Memoire sur les ponts de
cordage construits a Metz en 1827'
APC 1832, 2e sem. pp. 363-404, 1 pI.
Bolliger, Jakob: Aarburg Gestung, Stadt und Amt
1970 Aarburg 407 pp. ills.
de Boulogne: 'Note sur la construction des ponts suspend us
modernes'
APC 1886, l e , sem. pp. 150-181, pI. 2-6
Brissaud, E.: Aper~u historique et comparatif des systemes de sus-
pension dans les ponts suspendus
1865 Paris
Brocher et al: see 'manuscripts'
Buchs, Victor: 'Les Ponts du Canton de Fribourg'
Nouvelles Etrennes Fribourgeoises 1944 pp. 32-36 ills.
de BuHon, Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte {1707-1788}:
'Experiences sur la force du bois'. Memoire de mathematique &
de physique
ARS 1740 {printed 1742} pp. 453-467 {pagination Paris ed.}
de BuHon, Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte {1707-1788}: 'Expe-
riences sur la force du bois. Seconde memoire'. Memoires de
mathematique & de physique
ARS 1741 {published 1744} pp. 292-334 {pagination Paris ed.}
Bulletin universel des sciences et de I'industrie. Section 5:
Bulletin des sciences technologiques
Camus, Charles Etienne Louis {1699-1768}: Cours de mathe-
matique. 3 parts in 4 vols. 1749-1752 Paris 1: Elements d'arith-
metique 1749 (4}, IV, (4) 472 pp., 1 pll2: Elements de geometrie
1750 {2}, VI, 570 pp., 24 pls/3: Elements de mtechanique statique:
1 1751 XX, 376 pp., 1,27 pls/4: Elements de mechanique statique:
2 1752 VIII, 459, (2) pp., 36 pis
Canta Lupi, Antonio: La construzione dei Ponti e dei Viadotti -
trattato di architettura pratica
1884 Milan: Vallard
Carriere de Baudin-Choteauneuf, Robert: Histoire des ponts
suspend us modernes. Proceedings International Symposium on
Suspension Bridges, Lisbon 7-11 Nov. 1966
Chaley, Joseph (1795-1861): 'Pont suspendu de Fribourg
(Suisse)'
APC 1835 1e' sem. pp.3-55 pis. 90-92. This article was reprinted
twice in book form:
1835 Paris: Carillian-Goeury with identical text, but reset, and:
1839 Paris: Carillian-Goeury et Vv. Dalmont, with some textual
changes and an additional page at the end: "Extra it du rapport
de MM. les ingenieurs Negrelli et Pichardo. However, in neither
of the book versions were mistakes corrected, as for example
p. 34 (1839 p. 35), where 374.24 is given as the length of the main
cables instead of 274.24 m. The first German edition of Chaley's
report appeared in 1837 in the 'Journal fur die Baukunst', vol. 10,
Berlin, and abridged descriptions in 'Allgemeine Bauzeitung' 1836
p. 341 and in 'Zeitschrift fur Bauwesen' 1863, p. 169. This article
was Chaley's only publication. Although he subsequently became
214 a specialist in cable construction for wire bridges, both developing
Vicars aerial spinning idea into a usable method and inventing
the endless-cable construction, no printed description of his
methods reached the engineering public until Endres's and de
Boulogne's articles of 1848 and 1886 respectively.
Chapuisat, Edouard (1874-?): Le general Dufour 1787-1875
1942 Lausanne: Payot 249 pp. ills.
Charlton, T. M.: A history of theory of structures in the nineteenth
century 1982 Cambridge GB etc: University Press VIII, 194 pp.,
diagrams
Chrimes, Mike: 'Bridges: a Bibliography of Articles Published in
Scientific Periodicals 1800-1829'
History of Technology. Tenth Annual Volume, A. Rupert Hall &
Norman A. F. Smith eds.: 1985 London: Mansell; addendum pri-
vately printed?, June 1986 an excellent and laudable attempt at
documenting all ephemeral articles on the subject
Cochard: Sur les ponts en fil de fer; par M. Seguin aine; rappor-
teur M. Cochard. Rapport presente a la Societe royale d'agricul-
ture, histoire naturelle et arts utiles de Lyon, par la Commission
composee de MM. St. Didier, Trolliet, Pelletier, Gonin; et Gras
Rapporteur. Sur la pepiniere departementale du Rhone. Imprime
par ordre de 10 Societe
1824 lyon: J. M. Barret
Colladon, Jean Daniel (1802-1893): Souvenirs et memoires,
autobiographie 1893 Geneva: Auber-Schuchardt 10, 636 pp.,
portrait
Cordier, Joseph Louis Etienne (1775-1849): L'Histoire de 10
Navigation interieure et particulierement de celie de l'Angleterre
jusqu'en 1803, traduit de I'ouvrage anglais de Phillips [John A.
Phillips] 2 vols
1819/1820 Paris: Firmin Didot 477/351 pp. The title of the second
volume varies slightly from that of the first, although this fact is
hardly ever mentioned: 'Histoire de la navigation interieure, et
particulierement de celie des Etats-Unis d'Amerique, traduit de
I'ouvrage de M.A. Gallatin [Abraham Albert Alphonse Gal-
latin 1761-1848], ministre des finances de l'Union'. Gallatin's
work was written in 1808 and is therefore a little later than that of
Phillips. The second vol. thus contains descriptions of engineering
works in the United States. It also contains descriptions of bridges
(pp. 172-185) which were built later than the publication of Gal-
latin. Cordier mentions unspecified 'sources' for these.
de Coriolis, (Gustave) Gaspard {1792-1843}: Memoire sur Ie
frottement des engrenages coniques.
before 1843
Coulomb, Charles Augustin (1736-1806): 'Essai sur une
application des regles de maxim is et minimis a quelques
problemes de statique relatifs a I'architecture'. Memoires de
mathematique & de physique ARS, vol. 7 1773 pp. 343-382 (taken
from Heyman, pagination Amsterdam ed.?). The work may be
considered the first on mathematically based statics as applied to
actual engineering problems.
Coulomb, Charles Augustin (1736-1806): 'Recherches theo-
riques et experimentales sur la force de torsion, et sur I' elasticite
des fils de metal: Application de cette theorie a I'emploi des
metaux dans les Arts et dans differentes experiences de Physique:
Construction de differentes balances de torsion, pour mesurer les
plus petits degres de force. Observations sur les loix de I'elasticite
et de la coherance'. Memoires de mathematique & de physique
ARS 1784 (published 1787) pp. 229-269 (pagination Paris ed.)
Coulomb, Charles Augustin (1736-1806): Theorie des machines
simples en ayant egard au frottement de leurs parties et a la
roideur des cordages. 1785 Receuil des savants etrangers of the
Academie, vol. 10 new. ed. 1821 Paris: Bachelier VIII, 368 pp., pI.
This was a prize winning essay rewarded by the Academie in
1781 for a competition set in 1779.
Couplet de Tartreux, Pierre (?-1744): 'De 10 poussee des terres
contre leurs revestemens & 10 force des revestemens qu'on leur
doit opposer'.
ARS 1726 (published 1728) pp. 106-164
ARS 1727 (published 1729) pp. 139-178
ARS 1728 (published 1730) pp. 113-139 (011 poginations Paris ed.)
von Crell, Lorenz Florenz Friedrich (1744-1816): Die neuesten
Entdeckungen in der Chemie. Gesammelt von DLC 11 parts:
250128412721282 pp., 1 pi 2741292127012821258 pp., 1 pll 286/
268 pp.
1781-1783 n. p.: In der Wegandschen Buchhandlung
Cumming, T. G.: Description of the iron bridges of suspension
erected over the strait of Menai, at Bangor, over the river Con-
way, in North Wales; and over the river Thames, at Hammersmith,
with three views: Also some account of the different bridges of
suspension in England and Scotland; with calculation of the
strength of malleable iron, founded on experiments. 3rd ed. con-
siderably enlarged
n.d. London: J. Taylor XVI, 71 pp., 3 pI. The first edition was pub-
lished in 1824 with the title: 'Description of the Iron Bridge of
Suspension now erecting .. .'
Danysi, (Danyzy) Augustin Auguste Hyacinthe (1698-1777):
Methode generale pour determiner la resistance qu'il faut
opposer a la poussee des voutes. presented to the Academie in
1732. Memoires de l'Academie de Montpellier, vol. 2
Darmstaedter, Ludwig (1846-1927): Handbuch zur Geschichte
der Naturwissenschaften und der Technik. In chronologischen Dar-
stellungen. Zweite umgearbeitete und vermehrte Auflage. Unter
Mitwirkung von Professor R. du Bois-Reymond und Oberst z. D.
C. Schaefer 2nd ed. 1908 Berlin: Julius Springer X, 1262, 1 pp.
Together with Poggendorff the most complete and valuable
source for the chronology of technical development. The second
edition is the more important, as the first was only a short
brochure of a few pages. The book is surprisingly wmplete and
correct. It is far better than all later such works. Darmstaedter
was known as an expert on European porcelain.
Daumas, Maurice (?-1984): L'Archeologie Industrielle en France
1980 Paris: Editions Robert Laffont 464 pp. ills.
Davila, Enrico Caterino (1578-1631): Istoria delle Guerre Civili
di Francia ... , nella qualle si contengono Ie operationi di quattro
re, Francesco II, Carlo IX, Henrico III et Henrico IV ... can I'indice
delle cose piu notabili.
1630 Venice: T. Baglioni 1060 pp., many further editions to 1823
'Un dernier adieu au grand pont suspendu'.
Nouvelles Etrennes Fribourgeoises 1924 pp. 36-49 ills.
'Description du pont en fil de fer, construit sur Ie Rhone entre
Tournon et Tain par M. Marc Seguin (Ann. de I'lndustrie etc., Nov.
1825)'
BU vol. 31, Sciences et Arts 1826 pp. 81-86
'Descrizione con tavole rappresantanti 1. i ponti sui Taro e sulla
Trebbia nei ducati di Parma e Piacenza; 2. la galleria 0 strada
sotto iI Tamigi; 3. i ponti di corde in America; 4. i ponti di file di
ferro in Francia; 5. i ponti e Ie strode in ferro in Inghilterro; 6.
descrizione con tavola rapprensantante il ponte sui Ticino a Bof-
falora con confronto dei ponti di Bordo e di Vaterloo'.
Annali universali di statistica, economia pubblica, storia e viaggi,
1826, vol. 8 pp. 211-226. Republished as an offprint: presso gli
editori 40, IV pp., 5 pI. estrota dagli Annali universali di statistica.
nr. 4 bears the title: 'Descrizione di un ponte di fila di ferro
construtto sui fiume Galore dipartimento dell'isero in Francia di
Seguin seniore.' Tavola IV pp. pp. 18-33
Deuel, Leo: Testaments of Time. The Search for lost Manuscripts
and Records 1966 New York: Alfred A. Knopf
de Diesbach: 'Joseph Chaley, constructeur des ponts suspend us
de Fribourg'
Etrennes Fribourgeoises 1903
Dingler's Polytechnisches Journal
Direction des Travaux Publics, Departement des Ponts et Chaus-
sees: Notice historique et technique. Construction et consolidation
des ponts Suspendus de Fribourg
1916 Fribourg: Imprimerie Gragniere Freres 22 pp. ills.
Drewry Charles Stewart (1805-1881): A memoir on suspension
bridges, comprising the history of their origin and progress, and of
their application to civil and military purposes; with descriptions of
some of the most important bridges; viz: Menai; Berwick; New-
haven; Brighton; Isle de Bourbon; Hammersmith; Bath; Marlow;
Shoreham; Pont des Invalides at Paris; Pont d'Arcole; Jarnac; Tour-
non; Geneva; etc. Also an account of experiments in the strength
of iron wires and iron bars, and rules and tables for facilitating
computations relating to suspension bridges. Illustrated by litho-
graphic plates and wood-cuts.
1832 London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green & Longman
XII, (2), 211, (1) pp. ills., 7 pI. The first comprehensive work on sus-
pension bridges in English. The section on the strength of materials
and theory base on Navier 1823/1830
Dufour see also: 'manuscripts', 'Chapuisat', 'Eisendroht', 'Iron
wire', 'Nouveau', 'Pictet', 'Saint-Petersburg', 'Sayous', 'Senn' ...
Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Experiences sur la
tenacite du fil de fer eprouvee dans des temperatures tres dif-
ferentes. Extraites d'une note communiquee aux redacteurs par
M. Dufour. Lieutentant-Colonel du Genie'
BU vol. 22 Sciences et Arts 1823 pp. 220-222. English translation:
'Tenacity of Iron wire' (ct. Dufour: 'Experiments')
Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Considerations sur les
ponts en fil de fer, et experiences y relatives ... adressees au Prof.
Pictet par I'Auteur'
BU vol. 22 Sciences et Arts 1823 pp. 51-57
Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Experiences sur la force
des fils de fer (iu dans la Seance du 20 fevrier 1823)'. Memoires 215
 de la Societe de Physique et d'Histoire Naturelle de Geneve
vol. 2, part 1
1823 Geneva/Paris: J-J. Paschoud pp. 123-144, 1 pi Although
some experimentation had already been reported in print, this
article seems to have been the first complete treatise on the sub-
ject. The text without the plate was reprinted in Dufour's book the
following year.
Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Experiences sur la
tenacite du fil de fer eprauvee dans des temperatures tres dif-
ferentes'
BU vol. 22 Sciences et Arts 1823 pp. 220-222
Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787 -1875): 'Description du ponsus-
pendu en fil de fer construit a Geniwe'
BU vol. 24 Sciences et Arts 1824 pp.280-299. Bourgeois in
Baeschlin et al suggests that Dufour's book of 1824 must have
appeared in a preprint earlier in order for this article to have
appeared. But this doesn't necessarily follow, as Dufour may have
condensed a part of the book for this journal while writing it.
Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Suspension bridge of
iron wire, at Geneva' Register of the arts and sciences 1824, vol. 1
pp.133-134
Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Description du pont sus-
pendu en fil de fer, construit a Geneve'
Bulletin universel des sciences et de I'industrie, section 5 Bulletin
des Sciences technologiques 1824, vol. 1 pp. 115-119
Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787 -1875): 'Experiments on the
tenacity of iron wire; suspension bridge of iron wire at Geneva'
Glasgow mechanics magazine 1824 vol. 1 pp.234-236
Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Tenacity of Iron wire'
Quarterly Journal of Science and the arts, vol. 15, pp. 373-374
Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Experiment on the
tenacity of iron wire'
Quarterly journal of science and the arts 1824 vol. 16
pp.367-369
Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Remarks on iron wire
suspension bridges'
Quarterly journal of sciences and the arts 1824 vol. 17
pp.147-148
Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787 -1875): 'Voyages dans la
Grande-Bretagne, Troisieme Partie. Force commerciale, section
des travaux publics et d'association. III Cotes et ports maritimes,
par Charles Dupin, membre de I'lnstitut. Officier superieur au
corps du Genie Maritime ...' book review by Dufour
BU vol. 26 1824 Sciences et Arts pp. 127-141
Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): Description du pont sus-
pendu en fil de fer, construit a Geneve
1824 Geneva/Paris: Paschoud 92 pp. 3 pI.
This book was the first work published on wire cable suspension
bridges. It predated Seguin's by several months and, in contrast
to it, described a structure already completed. The copy of this
work in the Dufour library in Geneva is interfoliated and com-
mented by Dufour himself. It is especially illuminating to see how
the author developed in the field of suspension bridge construc-
216 tion after his initial effort in 1823, particularly with respect to the
new field of statics as developed by Navier in 1823 and 1826.
See also Rapport. Bourgeois in Baeschlin et al suggests that
there must have been a preprint of this book in 1823 as part was
published in BU vol. 22. But this need not have been the case -
the article may have been a preview of what he was writing at the
time.
(Dufour, Guillaume Henri) (1787-1875): 'Nouveau pont sus-
pendu a Geneve' Bulletin universel des sciences et de I'industrie.
section 5. Bulletin des sciences technologiques 1825, vol. 3, p. 379
(Dufour, Guillaume Henri) (1787 -1875): 'Nouveau pont en fil
de fer a Geneve'
Bulletin universel des sciences et de I'industrie. section 5 Bulletin
des sciences technologiques 1826 vol. 5, pp.259-260 (from jour-
nal de Geneve 9 Feb. 1826)
Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Lettre de Mr. Ie lieut.
-Col. Dufour au Prof. G. Maurice [Frederic Guillaume Maurice
1750-1826], sur un nouveau pont suspendu en fil de fer etablie
en 1825 sur les fosses d'enceinte de la ville de Geneve'
BU vol. 31 Sciences et Arts 1826 pp. 74-80
Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Sur un nouveau pont
suspendu en fil de fer, etabli en 1825 sur les fosses d'enceinte de
la ville de Geneve'
Bulletin universelle des sciences et de I'industrie. Section 5. Bulletin
des sciences technologiques 1827 vol. 7 pp. 58-61
Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Quelques notes sur les
ponts suspendus'
BU vol. 48 Sciences et Arts 1831 pp. 254-291, 1 pI.
Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Description d'un pont
construit a Geneve d'apres un nouveau mode de suspension'
BU vol. 57 Sciences et Arts 1834 pp.229-268, 3 pI. The same
article under a slightly different title and without the three pages
describing the Fribourg proposal appeared in the APC:
Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Pont canstruit a Geneve
avec chaines de suspension en dessous' (Extrait de la Bibliotheque
Universelle de Geneve)
APC 1835 l"'sem. pp. 180-210, pI. 94. abridged reprint of the
preceeding article
Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Nouvelles epreuves
d'un pont suspendu en fil de fer, construit a Geneve en 1822 et
1823'
BU vol. 50 Sciences et arts 1844 pp.359-366, reprinted without
alteration in APC 1844 2" sem. pp. 89-97
Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Note sur la confection
des cables en fil de fer' Societe des Arts de Geneve. Bulletin
Cia sse de l'lndustrie et de Commerce. vol. 53 Geneva 1853
pp.28-37
other works by Dufour mentioned in the text (for a more complete
bibliography of Dufour's publications in French see: Pierre Bour-
geois in Baeschlin et al pp. 441-443):
Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): BU 1810
Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Memorial pour les
travaux de guerre'
1820 Geneva: J.-J. Paschoud VII, 379 pp., 6 pis.
2nd ed. 1821 Paris: Ab. Cherbuliez IX, 399 pp.
3rd ed. 1850 Geneva: J. Cherbuliez 312 pp., pI.
German translation: Handbuch fUr die praktischen Arbeiten im
Felde 1825 Berlin: Fr. Laue, 6 pis. Italian translation: Memoriale
dei lavori di guerra del Generale Dufour. Tradotto dall'ingeniere
Rinaldo Nicoletti
1848 Venice: Cecchini, 6 pis.
Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'De la fortification per-
manente', 2 vols. 1822 Geneva: J.-J. Paschoud XXIX, 355 pp.,
34 pis (Bourgeois: 33 pis)
2nd ed. 1850 Geneva/Paris: Jo~1 Cherbuliez 506 pp., 35 pis.
Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Geometrie descriptive,
ovec ses applications a la recherche des ombres, 2 vols.
1827 Geneva: Barbezat et Delarue VIII, 84 pp., 22 pis.
Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Instruction sur Ie dessin
des reconnaissances militaires, a I'usage des officiers de I'Ecole
federale'
1827 Geneva: Barbezat et Delarue IV, 34 pp., 5 pis.
Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Cours de tactique'
1840 Paris/Geneva: A. Cherbuliez VII, 471 pp., pis.
German translation: 'Lehrbuch der Taktik'
1842 Zurich: Translated into several other languages as well.
Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Memoire sur I'artillerie
des anciens et sur celie du moyen age'
1840 Paris: Ab. Cherbuliez 123 pp., 9 pis.
Duhamel du Monceau, Henri Louis (1700-1784): Art de reduire
Ie fer en fil connu sur Ie nom de fil d'archal
1768 (Paris): Imp. de L.-F. Delatour 32 pp., pI.
This notice was subsequently published in vol. 15, pp.425-464 +
pI. J. E. Bertrand: Description des arts et metiers, faites ou
approuvees par Messieurs de l'Academie royale des sciences de
Paris. Avec figures en taille-douce. Nouvelle edition publiee avec
des observations, & augmentee de tout ce qui a ete ecrit de
mieux sur ces matieres, en Allemagne, en Angleterre, en Suisse, en
Italie. 20 vols. Neuchatel 1780-1781 (lst ed. 1761-1762 Paris:
Saillant et Nyon?) Also published in notices index ARS 1781-1790.
This edition contains 'Description abregee des trefileries de Ser-
rieres, dans 10 principaute de Neuchatel en Suisse' (pp. 451-456)
Duleau, pseudonym for: Bourgnion, Alphonse Jean Claude
(1789-1832): 'Essai theorique et experimental sur la resistance du
fer forge, contenant des experiences sur des barres charges pa-
rallelement et perpendiculierement a leur longeur; sur un are
place entre deux appuis fixes et charge en un ou plusieurs de ses
pointes; sur des barres qu'on essaie de tordre; avec des applica-
tions des resultats de ces experiences a I'art'
1820 Paris: Vve. Courcier VII, 79 pp., 4 pis. The copy I consulted in
the library of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne,
contains a signed manuscript letter and manuscript dedication by
the author to a collegue in 1826.
Dulk, G.: 'Reisenotizen, Brucken in der Schweiz und in Frankreich
betreffend'. Zeitschrift fur Bauwesen 14th year 1864, Berlin
columns 33-46/123-154/415/426 + pis. 25-26
Dupin, (Pierre) Charles (Fran~ois), Baron (1784-1873): 'Deve-
loppements de geometrie pour faire suite a la 'geometrie descrip-
tive' et a la 'geometrie analytique' de M. Monge'
1813 Pairs: Vve. Courcier XX, 374 pp., pI.
Dupin, (Pierre) Charles (Fran~ois), Baron (1784-1873): 'Me-
moires sur la marine et les ponts et chaussees de la France et de
l'Angleterre'
1818 Paris: Bachelier XlV, 468 pp. This work gained Dupin admit-
tance to the Academie des Sciences (Elton nr. 419) and led to his
voluminous 'Voyages dans la Grande-Bretagne'. It was partially
translated into English and published as 'Narratives of two excur-
sions to the ports of England, Scotland, and Ireland in 1816, 1817
and 1818; together with a description of the breakwater at Ply-
mouth, and also of the Caladonian Canal'. (1819) London: for
Richard Phillips
Dupin, (Pierre) Charles (Fran~ois), Baron (1784-1873): 'App-
lications de Geometrie et de Mecanique, a la Marine, aux Ponts
et Chaussees, etc. pour faire suite aux developpements de Geo-
metrie'
1822 Paris: Bachelier XXXV, 330 pp.
Dupin, (Pierre) Charles (Fran~ois), Baron (1784-1873): 'Ex-
periences sur la flexibilite, la force et I'elasticite des bois, avec
applications aux constructions, en general, et particulierement a
la construction des vaisseaux faites a I'arsenal marine fran~aise a
Corcyre en 1811 ... Premier memoire, presente a la premiere
classe de I'institut de France, Ie 12 d'avriI1813'
(1813) Nimes: Imprimerie de Blachier-Belle
Dupin, (Pierre) Charles (Fran~ois), Baron (1784-1873): 'Voya-
ges dans la Grande-Bretagne, entrepris relativement aux services
publics de la guerre, de la marine, et des ponts et chaussees, au
commerce et a I'industrie depuis 1816'
1820-1824 Paris: Bachelier 3 parts & atlases. The original title in
Bachelier's prospectus of Feb. 1820 was: 'Voyages dans la
Grande-Bretagne, entrepris ... et des ponts et chaussees en 1816,
1817, 1818 et 1819, presentant Ie tableau des institutions et des
etablissements qui se rapportent a I: la force militaire, II: la force
navale, III. aux travaux civils des ports de commerce, des routes,
des ponts et des canaux'. In April 1822, Bachelier's prospectus
adds 1820 and 1821. The work was obviously progressing as it
was being printed. A 4th part was now being planned to be call-
ed: "Ia force productive". Parts I & II were in 2 vols. each. This led
immediately to the publication of a second edition. 1825-1826
4 vols. The first German edition 'Grossbritanniens Handelsmacht'
appeared in Stuttgart in 1825 and the work also served as basis
for:
Dupin, (Pierre) Charles (Fran~ois), Baron (1784-1873), Taylor,
Charles: 'A Supplement to Nicholson's Operative Mechanic, and
British machinist; consisting of a series of descriptions, elucidated
by engravings of plans, elevations, sections, and details of the
most remarkable public works and national improvements of the
British Empire'. Translated and arranged from Baron Charles
Dupin 'On the commercial power of Great Britain' by Charles
Taylor
1829 London: Robert Thurston 3, 786-902 pp., 20 pis.
Dupuit, Arsene Emile Juv(lnal (1804-1866): 'Rapport de la
commission d'enquete nommee par arrete de M.le Pretet de
Maine-et-Loire, en date de 20 avril 1850, pour rechercher les
causes et les circonstances qui ant amene la chute du pont sus-
pendu de la Basse-Chaine'
APC 1850 2" sem. p. 394-411 217
 Dupuit, Arsene Emile Juvenal (1804-1866): 'Reponse a une
note de M. Vicat relative a I'oxidation des fers dans les construc-
tions'
APC 18542" sem. pp. 257-262
Dutens, Joseph Michel (1765-1848): 'Memoires sur les travaux
publics de IAngleterre, suivis d'un memoire sur I'esprit d'associa-
tion et sur les differens modes de concession, et de quinze plan-
ches avec une carte generale de la navigation interieure, indi-
quant les deux systemes des grands et des petits canaux de ce
pays'
1819 Paris: imp. royale XX, 374 pp., 15 pis. 1 map (ef: Navier: 'De
I' execution .. .')
von Dyck, Walther: Georg von Reichenbach. Deutsches Museum
Lebensbeschreibungen und Urkunden'
1912 Munich: Deutsches Museum IV, 140 pp. ills.
Eisendraht Briicken
Allgemeine Handels-Zeitung, vol. 33, p. 42
Ellet: see also Lewis
Ellet, Charles Jr. (1811-1862): 'A popular notice of suspension
bridges, with a brief description of the wire bridge across the
Schuylkill, at Fairmount'
1843 Philadelphia: John C. Clark 18 pp. ills.
Ellet, Charles Jr, (1811-1862): 'Report on the Wheeling and Bel-
mont suspension bridge, to the city council of Wheeling'
1847 Philadelphia: John C. Clark 43 pp., 1 pI.
Elton, Julia: Bridges, Docks and Harbours with related works.
Catalogue 45, B. Weinreb Architectural Books Ltd. 1982 London
212 pp. ills. One of the most erudite and comprehensive anno-
tated bibliographies in existence of primary published material in
engineering history.
Emmery, Henri Charles (1789-1842): 'Chute du pont suspendu
de Longues, pres Vic-Ie-Comte, sur l'Allier'
APC 1833 1"' sem. pp. 82-110
Endres, Ernest (1814-?): 'Memoire sur I'etablissement des ponts
suspend us'
APC 1848 1"' sem. pp. 194-133. Endres was one of Chaley's
assistants and describes his novel cable manufacturing methods.
Epprecht, Willfried: 'Schweiss-Eisen-Kettenbrucke aus dem
14. Jahrhundert in Bhutan (Himalaja) mit arsenreicher Feuer-
schweissung'
Archiv fur das Eisenhutlenwesen 50 (1979) nr. 11 Nov. pp.473-
477 ills.
Epprecht, Willfried: 'Brief report on the metallographic exam-
ination of an iron suspension bridge chain link from Bhutan'. in
Peters, Tom F.: 'The development of long-span bridge building',
3rd ed. 1981 Zurich: Verlag der Fachvereine pp. 148- 151 ills.
'Erfindung der Hangebrucke von den Chinesen'
Notizblatter der ABZ Vienna 1839 vol. 4 nr. 20
Esterer, Maximilian: 'Chinas naturliche Ordnung und die Ma-
schine'
1908 Stuttgart/Berlin: Cotta. Wege der Technik 175 pp. ills.
218 Euler, Leonhard (1707-1783): Mechanica, sive motus scientia
analytice exposita auxtore L. E ... Instar supplementi ad 'Com-
mentar. Acad. Scient. Imper.' Petropoli 2 vols.
1736 St. Peterburg: Ex Typographia Academiae Scientiarum 1:
(16),480 pp., 14 pls.l2: (8), 500 pp., 18 pis.
Euler, Leonhard (1707-1783): 'Methodus inveniendi lineas
curvas maximi minimive proprietate gaudentes, sive solutio pro-
blematis isoperimetrici latissimo sensu accepte, auctore L. E .... '
1744 Lausanne/Geneva: Marc Michel Bousquet & Cie 322 pp.,
5 pis.
Euler, Leonhard (1707-1783): 'Sur la force des colonnes'
Memoires de IAcademie royale des sciences et Belles lettres
vol. 13 pp. 252-? 1757 Berlin
Eytelwein, Johann Albert (1764-1848): Handbuch der Statik
fester Kerper mit vorzuglicher Rucksicht auf ihre Anwendung in
der Architektur. 3. vols. 1808 Berlin: Realschulbuchhandlung
Fairbairn, Sir William (Bart.) (1789-1874): An Account of the
Construction of the Britannia and Conway Tubular Bridges, with a
complete history of the progress, from the conception of the orig-
inal idea, to the conclusion of the elaborate experiments which
determined the exact form and mode of construction ultimately
adopted.
1849 London: John Weale/Longman, Brown, Green and Long-
mans XII, 291 pp. ills. 20 pis.
Favre, R.: 'Die Erneuerung von zwei Maillart-Brucken'
Schweizerische Bauzeitung 87th year nr. 17 1969 pp. 313-319 ills.
Feline Romany (1805-1878): 'Notice historique sur les ponts de
Paris'
APC 1864 2" sem. pp. 127-224
Figuier, (Guillaume) Louis (1819-1894): TAnnee Scientifique et
Industrielle ou expose annuel des travaux scientifiques, des inven-
tions et des principales applications de la science a I'industrie et
aux arts, qui ant attire I'attention publique en France et a I'et-
ranger' (accompagne d'une necrologie scientifique) 57 vols. +
2 index vols. 1857-1914 Paris: Hachette yearly vols. for
1856-1913. The first index vol. 1866 for 1856-1865, the second
1877 for 1857-1877, 2 vols. for the 3rd year in most eds., 1 vol.
for years 15 & 16 (the war years 1870-1871). Many of the vols.
reissued in up to three eds. Figuier edited the series until his death
in 1894. The 38th vol. was then finished by Daniel Bellet and the
series continued up to the First World War by Emile Gautier. As
Figuier was no chauvinist, the technological development of the
western world is well documented blow by blow and year by year
in great detail. An encyclopedic compendium of this breadth is of
invaluable service to the student of the history of technology.
Finch, James Kip: The story of engineering
1960 New York: Anchor Books Doubleday & Co. XXVIII, 528 pp.,
45 pis. ills.
Finley, James (1762-1828): 'A description of the patent chain
bridge invented by James Finley of Fayette County, Pennsyl-
vania, with date and remarks, illustrative of the power, cost, du-
rability, and comparative superiority of this mode of bridging' The
Port Folio, vol. 3 nr. 6 June 1810 Philadelphia: J. Maxwell
pp. 441-453, 1 pI. The article appeared as an offprint the next
year, the title remaining the same except for the name 'James'
being replaced by 'Judge'. 1811 Union Town PAl printed by
W. Campbell 13 pp., frontis
Fischer von Erlach, Johann Bernhard (1656-1723): 'Entwurf
einer Historischen Architektur in Abbildung unterschiedlicher be-
rOhmten Gebcude, des Alterthums, und fremder Volcker Umb aus
den GeschichtsbOchern, GedochtnismOntzen, Ruinen, und einge-
holten wahrhaffter Abriszen, vor Augen zu stellen .. .' Alles mit
groszer MOhe gezeichnet und auf eigene Unkosten, von ... 5 vols.
1721 Vienna 5 pp., 20 pis., 15 pp.!1 pp., 15 pis., 7 pp.!1 pp.,
15 pis., 2 pp.!l pp., 21 pls.!l pp., 13 pis.
Flachat, Eugene (1801-1873), Petiet, Jules Alexandre (1813-
1871): 'Memoire sur les ponts suspendus avec cables en rubans
de fer lamine'
APC 1842 1or sem. pp. 336-399, pis. 25-27. German translation in
ABZ Vienna 8th year 1843
Fourcy(-Gauduin), Ambroise (Louis) (1778-1842): 'Histoire de
l'Ecole Polytechnique'. 1828 Paris: Chez l'Auteur a l'Ecole polytech-
nique VIII, 516 pp.; 2nd ed. Introduction Jean Dhombres. 1987
Paris: Belin 1-70, VIII, 516, 71-198 pp.
Fortier, Bruno: 'La nascita dell'Ecole des Ponts et Chaussees'
Casabella nr. 495 Milan Oct. 1983 pp. 40-48 ills.
Frazer, James Baillie (1783-1856): 'Journal of a tour through
part of the snowy range of the Himalaya mountains and to the
sources of the rivers Jumna and Ganges'
1820 London: Rodwell & Martin XX, 548 pp., maps
Frezier, Amadee Fran~ois (1682-1773): 'La theorie et la pra-
tique de la coupe des pierres et des bois ... ' ou, Traite de Ste-
reometrie. 3 vols.
1737-1739 Strassbourg
Fugl-Meyer, Helge: 'Chinese Bridges'
1937 Shanghai/Hong Kong/Singapore: Kelly and Walsh IX, 138,
1 pp. ills.
Gallatin, Albert (Abraham Alphonse) (1761-1848): 'Report of
the Secretary of the Treasury on the subject of Public Roads and
Canals; made in pursuance of the resolution of Senate, of
March 2, 1807'
1808 Washington D. c.: R. C. Weightman 123 pp. French transla-
tion: see Cordier
GarbeH: Treatise on Design
1850 London: John Weale (cit. in John Ruskin: Stones of Venice,
vol. 1, p. 386)
Gauthey, Emiland Marie (1732-1807): 'Traite complet sur la
construction des ponts et des canaux navigables'. Publie par
Navier. 3 vols.
18091181311816 Paris: Firmin Didot XXXII, 404pp., 17pls.!
400 pp., 11 pls'!10 pis. Title of the first two vols.: 'Traite de la con-
struction des ponts'; that of the third: 'Memoire sur les canaux'.
(Elton nr. 71 gives 1808 for vol. 1 and 16 pis.); 2nd ed. 1833 (Elton:
1832 and for vol. 2 (4), 399, (1) pp., 11 pis.) 1, 403 pp., 16 pls.l4,
399 pp., 11 pis.; 3rd ed. 1843 Mons/Naumur/ Bruxelles/Liege:
Leroux Freres 335 pp., 17 pls.!236 pp., 11 pls.!344 pp., 9 pis.
Gautier, Hubert (1660-1737): 'Traite des Ponts, OU il est parle de
ceux des Romains & de ceux des modernes; de leurs manieres,
tant de ceux en ma~onnerie, que de charpente; & de leur disposi-
tion dans toute sorte de lieux (& c)'
1716 Paris: Carilleau (8), 215, (5), frontis, 26 pis.
von Gerstner, Franz Joseph, RiHer (1756-1832): 'Handbuch
der Mechanik' 3 vols. + atlas vol. 1: 1831 Prague: Johann Spurny
VIII, (8), 633, (1) pp.!vol. 2: 1832 Prague: Johann Spurny XII, 547,
1 pp.!vol. 3: 1834 Vienna: J. P. Sollinger portrait, VII, 570 pp.!atlas:
pis. 1-40 1831 Prague, pis. 41-68 1832 Prague, pis. 69-109 1834
Vienna. A second ed. of vol. 1 appeared in 1833 with portrait
added. The work was edited and published by the author's son
RiHer Franz Anton von Gerstner (1793- 1840)
Gibb, Sir Alexander (1872-1958): 'The Story of Telford. The rise
of civil engineering'
1935 London: Alexander Mackehose XX, 1, 357, 1 pp. ills. 3 maps.
Gibb, the grandson of one of Telford's assistants on the Menai
Bridge, was responsible for the restoration (and ruin of most of the
technologically interesting parts), of the Menai Bridge. His book is
the first complete record of Telford's work
Gilbert, Davies (1767-1839): 'On the mathematical theory of
suspension bridges' 182611831 London: Phil. Trans. of Royal So-
ciety (1826: March pp.202-208), partially reprinted at the end of
Provis
Gillespie, Charles Coulston: 'Dictionary of Scientific Biography'.
14vols. 1970-1976 New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. supple-
ment vol. 1978
Gillespie, Charles Coulston: 'The Montgolfier Brothers and the
Invention of Aviation'
1986 Princeton: University Press XII, 210 pp. ills.
Gillmor, C. Stewart: 'Coulomb and the evolution of physics and
engineering in eighteenth century France'
1971 Princeton: University Press XXIII, 328 pp. ills.
Girard, Pierre Simon (1765-1835): 'Traite analytique de la resis-
tance des solides, et des solides d'egale resistance, auquel on a
joint une suite de nouvelles Experiences sur la force, et I'elasticite
specifiques des Bois de Chene et de Sapin'
1798 (an VI) Paris: Didot/Du Pont IV, 1, 238, (1), 48 pp., 9 pis.
Gordon, James Edward (b. 1913): 'The New Science of
Strong Materials or Why You Don't Fall Through the Floor'
1968 New York: Walker & Co. reprinted 1971, 1973, 1974,
1975
2nded. 1976 reprinted 1977, 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982 Lon-
don: Penguin 187 pp., ills.
Graefe, Reiner: 'Projektbereich Architektur: Geschichte des Kon-
struierens. Hcngedccher des 19. Jahrhunderts' Arcus 1985 nr. 2,
pp. 7-81/94, ills.
Gregory, David (1661-1708): 'Properties of the catenarian
curve'1697 Edinburgh: Phil. Trans. 1694 nr. 231, p.637 according
to Wagner: 'The properties of the Catenarian, or curve line for-
med by a heavy and flexible chain, hanging freely from two
points of suspension'. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal So-
ciety 1697 London.
Gremaud, Amadee (1842-1912): untitled article on suspension
bridges in: 219
 Revue Scientifique Suisse 1877/1878 Fribourg. 1877: pp.25-
31/54-65 + pl./255-2601280-284 1878: pp.13-19/32-37/
53-60/97 -105 + pl'/145-151
Gubler, Jacques: 'Nationalisme et internationalisme dans
I'architecture moderne de 10 Suisse'
1975 Lausanne: L'Age d'Homme 346 pp. ills.
Guermente, G.: 'Description d'un pont pro jete pour Bordeaux sur
10 Garonne, par M. Caupenne'
Receuil polytechnique des ponts et chaussees 1807 vol. 2, cah-
ier22-23,pp.344-345
Hartung, Giselher: 'Eisenkonstruktionen des 19. Jahrhunderts',
mit einer Einfuhrung von Professor Gunter Behnisch
1983 Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 231 pp. ills.
Hauri, Hans Heinrich: 'Thoughts on the historical development
of methods for dimensioning bridges: in Peters, T. F.: 'The devel-
opment of long-span bridge building' 3rd ed. 1981 Zurich: Verlag
der Fachvereine, pp. 153-157
Healy, John F.: 'Mining and Metallurgy in the Greek and Roman
World'
1978 London: Thames and Hudson 316 pp. ills.
Hedin, Sven Anders (1865-1952): 'Trans-Himalaja'. Entdek-
kungen und Abenteuer in Tibet, mit 397 Abbildungen nach photo-
graphischen Aufnahmen, Aquarellen und Zeichnungen des Verfas-
sers und mit 10 Karten.
3 vols. 1 & 2: 1908 Leipzig: Brockhaus 2, XVIII, 405 pp'/2, X,
406 pp.; 3: mit 169 Abb .... und mit 4 Karten, 1912 Leipzig:
Brockhaus 2, X, 390 pp.
Heyman, Jacques: 'Coulomb's Memoir on Statics. An Essay in
the History of Civil Engineering'
1972 Cambridge: University Press IX, 212 pp. ills.
Hildenbrand, Wilhelm: 'Die Hangebrucke von der altesten bis
zur neuesten Zeit'. 1905 New York
Histoire de l'Academie royale des Sciences depuis son etablisse-
ment en 1666 jusqu a 1686. 11 vols. 1730-1733 Paris: Chez Gab-
riel Martin, Jean-Baptiste Coignard, fils, Hippolyte-Louis Guerin.
Vol. 1 used her: (12), 448 pp., 1 pI.
Histoire de I'Academie Royale des Sciences 1666 a 1698 Avec les
Memoires de Physique pour les memes Annees Tires des Registres
de cette Academie 3 vols 1777 Paris: Chez Panckoucke VIII,
404 pp'/VIII, 406 pp'/VIII, 404 pp.
Hittorff, Jean Ignace (1792-1867): 'Description de 10 rotonde du
Panorama des Champs Elysees (Paris 1842)'
Revue Generale vol. 2,1841, pp. 500/511, pis. 27-31
Hodgkinson: see also Tredgold
Hodgkinson, Eaton (1789-1861): 'On the transverse strain, and
the strength of materials'
Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester,
2nd series, 1824, vol. 4, p. 255
Hodgkinson, Eaton (1789-1861): 'Theoretical and experimental
researches to ascertain the strength and the best forms of iron
beams'
220
Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester,
2nd series, 1831, vol. 5, p.407
Hofer: see 'manuscripts'
Hoppe, 0.: 'Beitrage zur Geschichte der Erfindungen, vierte Lie-
ferung: Dos Drahtseil. Seine Erfindung (1834) und EinfUhrung,
seine Eigenschaften, Herstellungsweise und seine Zukunft. Lebens-
skizze des Erfinders, Oberbergrat Albert (1787-1846) zu Claus-
thai'
1907 Essen-R.: G. D. Boedecker Verlagshandlung 48 pp.
'Hrn. Baron Benjamin Delessert's Hangebrucke aus Eisendraht
auf einem seiner Guter zu Passy bei Paris' Dinglers Polytechnisches
Journal 1825 vol. 17, pp. 138-144 + pI. 5. Translation of Tarbe
Hruban, Ivo B.: 'First suspension roof design published in A. D.
1824 in Brno, Czechoslovakia'
International Association of Shells and Spatial Structures - Bulletin
nr. 78, April 1983 pp. 9-23 ills.
Hiibsch, Heinrich: 'Entwurf zu einem Theater mit eiserner Dach-
rustung'
1825 Frankfurt a. M.
Hume, John R.: 'Scottish Suspension Bridges' in: Lisbeth
M. Thorns ed.: The Archaeology of Industrial Scotland. Scottish
Archaeological Forum 8.
1977 Edinburgh: University Press pp. 91-105 ills.
Hutchinson William: 'The History and Antiquities of the comity
Palatine of Durham'. 1794
'Iron wire suspension bridge at Geneva'
Franklin Institute Journal and American Mechanics' magazine
vol. 3, 1st series, 1827, p. 211.
'Iron wire suspension bridge at Geneva'
Register of the arts and sciences, vol. 4, 1827, p. 191
Jakkula, Arne Arthur (1904-1953): 'A History of Suspension
Bridges in Bibliographical Form'. A publication of the cooperative
investigation of bridge types by the Public Roads Administration
and the Agriculture and Mechanical College of Texas. Engineer-
ing Experiment Station Nr.57. School of Engineering, Texas En-
gineering Experiment Station, College Station Texas. 4th vol. July 1,
1941 nr.7 564, (4) pp. Curiously enough, although the work is
quoted in almost all books dealing with suspension bridge history,
copies are exceedingly rare and difficult to trace. Perhaps this is
due to the fact that the Texas A & M University was still a 'college'
at the time, and libraries were prone to overlook its publications.
James, John G.: 'Ralph Dodd, the very ingenious schemer'
Transactions of the Newcomen Society, 1976, pp. 161-178 ills.
James, John G.: Thomas Wilsons's Cast-Iron Bridges 1800-
1810'.
Transactions of the Newcomen Society 1978-1979, vol. 50,
pp. 55-72 ills.
Jekel, Franz Joseph (?-1809): 'Galiziens Strassen- und Brucken-
bau'. Nach dem System des Herrn Johann Gross, k. k.
Strassenbau-Direktor, entworfen von F.J.J .... mit zwey Planen
1809 Vienna/Trieste: in Geistinger's Buchhandlung 4, 52, 9 pp.,
tables, 2 pis.
Jezeler, Christoph (1734-1791): Beschreibung der holzernen
Brucke uber den Rhein in Schaffhausen. Nebst einem sehr ge-
nauen architektonischen Abriss von Herrn Professor J ... in Schaff-
hausen. Auf Begehren aus den anno 1776 herausgekommenen
Briefen aus der Schweiz nach Hannover extra abgedruckt
1778 Winterthur: Heinrich Steiner u. Co. 29 pp., 1 pI. According to
the title, an offprint.
Kemp, Emory L.: 'Links in a chain. The development of suspen-
sion bridges 1801-1870'
The Structural Engineer nr. 8, Aug. 1979, pp. 255-263 ills.
Kemp, Emory L.: 'Samuel Brown: Britain's Pioneer Suspension
Bridge Builder'
History of Technology. Second Annual Volume 1977 A. Rupert Hall
& Norman A. F. Smith eds. London: Mansell pp. 1-37 ills.
Kerisel, Jean Luheron: 'Historique de la mecanique des sols en
France jusqu'au 20" siecle' Geotechnique vol. 6, 1956, p. 151 ff.
Killer, Josef: 'Die Werke der Baumeister Grubenmann'
1941 Zurich: Verlag Leemann; 2nded. 1959 Zurich: Verlag Lee-
mann 172 pp. ills.; 3rd ed. 1985 Basel/Boston/Stuttgart: BirkhCiuser
Verlag 206 pp. ills.
Kircher, Athansius (1602-1680): 'China monumenta qua sacris
qua profanis illustrata'
1667 Amsterdam; 2nd ed. 1667; French ed. 1670
Kuschelbauer: 'Memoire sur la theorie des ponts suspendus
(Extrait der Zeitschrift fOr Physik und Math. 1830 vol. VII, nr. 2)' BU
vol. 46, Sciences et Arts 1831, pp. 402-407
Kuzmanovic, Bogodan 0.: 'History of the Theory of Bridge
Structures' Paper presented at the September 27 -October 1, 1976
ASCE Annual Convention, Philadelphia (Preprint nr. 2738) and
published in ASCE Journal of the Structural Division, Proceedings
of the American Society of Civil Engineers, May 1977,
pp. 1095-1111
Lame, Gabriel (1795-1870): 'Sur les ponts de chaines (de Russie)
et sur les resistances des fers employes dans leur construction.
Extrait d'une lettre ecrite a M. Baillet par M. L., Ingenieur des
Mines de France et Major du Genie au service de Russie'
Annales des Mines, Paris 1825, vol. 10, pp. 311-330
Laur-Belart, Rudolf: 'Studien zur Eroffnungsgeschichte des Gott-
hardpasses mit einer Untersuchung uber Stiebende Brucke und
Teufelsbrucke'
1924 Zurich: Orell Fussli 71 pp. ills.
Leblanc: 'Obervations comparatives sur les avantages et les
inconvenients qu'offre I'emploi des fils de fer, ou de fer en barre,
dans la construction des ponts suspendus d'une grande ouverture'
APC 1835 2" sem. pp. 315-327, pI. 93, figs. 12/13
Leblanc, P.: 'Pont de la Roche-Bernard sur la Vilaine.
Experiences sur la resistance des fils de fer et la fabrication des
cables'
APC 1839, pp. 300-334, pI. 178
Lecointe, Alfred: 'Notiz uber einige in Frankreich nach dem Sys-
tem der HCingebrucken ausgefuhrte HCingedCicher'
ABZ Vienna vol. 8 1843, pp.388-399 ills., pls.568/569 see:
Reibell
Leinekugel Le Cocq, G.: 'Ponts suspend us'
Encyclopedie Scientifique vol. 1 1911 Paris: Octave Doin et Fils
pp.3-31
Le Moyne, Nicolas Rene Desire (1796-1875): 'Moyens faciles
de parvenir a fixer les conditions de I'etablissement des ponts sus-
pendus, ou renseignemens sur les dispositions a adopter dans ces
nouvelles constructions, et tableaux de calculs que tout Ie monde
peut effectuer, pour connaitre sur-Ie-champ la valeur et les
dimensions des differentes parties qui les composent. Avec une
planche gravee'
1825 Paris: Carilian-Goeury 42 pp., 1 pI.
Lesage, Pierre Charles (1740-1810): 'Receuil de divers me-
moires, extra its de la bibliotheque des Ponts et Chaussees a I'usage
des eleves ingenieurs 1806 Paris': Bernard 8, 297, 1 pp., 1 portrait,
15 pis. Lesage included a great deal of Perro net's work in the form
of an obituary which he had read at the funeral in 1794
Lesage, Pierre Charles (1740-1810): 'Deuxieme receuil de
divers memoires extra its de la Bibliotheque Imperiale des ponts et
Chaussees, a I'usage de MM. les ingenieurs'
1808 Paris: D'Hacquart 4, X, 2, 154 pp., 2 portraits, 10 pis.
Lesage, Pierre Charles (1740-1810): 'Receuil de divers me-
moires ectraits de la Bibliotheque Imperiale des ponts et Chaussees
a I'usage de MM. les ingenieurs'
1810 Paris: 2nd ed. of the two above. 2 vols. These three works
were the precursors of the APC. Another two such collections are
mentioned in Elton: nr. 421: Receuil de 245 dessins ou feuilles de
textes relatifs a I'art de I'ingenieur extra it de la premiere collection
terminee en 1825. 1826 Paris; Receuil de 237 dessins ou feuilles
de textes relatifs a I'art de I'ingenieur extra its de la seconde col-
lection terminee en 1825. 1827 Paris: See also: Guermente
Le Seur (Sueur), Thomas (1703-1770); Jacquier, Fran~ois
(1711-1788); Boscovich, Ruggiero Giuseppe (1711-1787): 'Par-
ere de tre mattematici sopra i danni che si sono trovati nella Cup-
ola di S. Pietro sur fine dell'Anno 1742-1743 Rome' (see also:
Poleni)
Leupold, Jacob (1674-1727): 'Theatrum Pontificale oder Schau-
Platz der Brucken und Bruckenbaues .. .'
1726 leipzig: Zunkel 14, 153, 5 pp., 57 pis. = vol. 7 of Theatrum
machinarum Universalis 9 vols. 1723-172711739 Leipzig: Zunkel.
Supplement and register by J. E. Scheffler 1741 Leipzig. "Leupold's
treatise is the most comprehensive of all the early bridge building
books and the first to be published in Germany. He acknowledges
his indebtedness to Gautier's treatise of 1716" (Elton nr. 107)
Leupold also mentions several other sources, both German and
French, such as Blondel and Sturm. Particularly good on the
theory and practise of the construction of timber proto-trusses.
Lewenton, G.: 'Die Rhone-Brucke Tournon'. Beratender Ingenieur
und Architekt nr. 7 of: Schriftenreihe des Vereins Beratender
Ingenieure, 1967 Essen
Lewis, Gene D.: Charles Ellet, Jr. the engineer as individualist
221
 1968 Urbana/Chicago/London: University of IIlionois Press VIII, 2,
220 pp. ills.
Locart, E.: 'Description du pont construit sur la Saone a Lyon, par
M. Ferdinand Seguin, ingenieur civil'
APC 1851 2" sem, pp. 369-380, pis. 18/19
Lythall, Richard: 'The most correct details of the grand suspen-
sion bridge, erected over the Menai Straits, by order of govern-
ment'. Designed by Thos. Telford. Begun in May, 1819, and
opened Jan. 30, 1826
1829 Dublin: R. Grace 36 pp., 1 pI.
Malberg: 'Historisch-kritische Bemerkungen uber Kettenbrucken'
Zeitschrift fUr Bauwesen. Berlin 7th year 1857, pp.225-238/
559-573; 9th year 1859, pp. 397-412/547 -570. Malberg was the
builder of the chain bridge over the Ruhr at Muhlheim, Prussia in
1850
(Mallet, Robert): Introduction, pp. 1-64 in: The Record of the
International Exhibition 1862
n.d. (1862) Glasgow/Edinburgh/London: William Mackenzie
592 pp., 18 pis. ills.
Marchal, P. E.; Seguin, Laurent: Marc Seguin 1786-1875. 'La
naissance du premier chemin de fer fran~ais'
1957 Paris: J. Cuzin 224 pp. ills.
Marchetti, Alessandro (1632-1714): 'De resistentia solidorum'
1669 Florence: V. Vangelisti & P. Matini 127 pp. ills.
Marshal, John: A biographical dictionary of Railway Engineers
1978 Newton Abbot: David & Charles 243, (4) pp.
Martin, (Fran~ois Marie) Emile (1794-1871): 'Emploi du fer
dans les ponts suspend us (Annales des mines, fevrier 1834)'
APC 1834 2" sem, pp. 257-168. This article is followed by Vica!:
'Observations .. .' Messina gives: 'Martin, E.: Du fer dans les
ponts suspendus, Paris 1832', and Poggendorff: ibid, 1831.
Martin, (Frans;ois Marie) Emile (1794-1871): Dessins et descrip-
tion des piliers en fonte de fer du pont suspendu de Cubzac
1841 Paris: Schneider et Langrand 20 pp., frontis, 5 pis.
Martin, Paul Edmond: 'Les fortifications de Geneve et la
defense nationale Suisse'
Revue Suisse d'Histoire vol. 8, 1958, pp. 21-93
Martin, Pierre Dominique: 'Description du pont suspendu, con-
struit sur la Garonne, a Langon, Departement de la Gironde; suivi
du detail des travaux executes pour sa construction'
1832 Paris: Eberhart 2, 201, 1 pp., 8 pis. Elton: VI, 102, 2, 8 pis.
(nr. 103)
Martini, Martino (1614-1661): 'Novis Atlas Sinensis'
1655 Amsterdam
Mary, Louis Charles (1791-1870): 'Analyse et extrait des deux
ouvrages de M. G.-H. Dufour, sur les ponts suspendus'
APC 1832 2" sem, pp. 85-123, 1 pI.
Mary, Louis Charles (1791-1870): 'Chute du pont suspendu de
Broughton, pres Manchester (Extra it du Philosophical Magazine)'
APC 1832 1"' sem, pp. 408-411
Maude, T.J.: 'An account of the repairs and alterations made in
222
the structure of the Menai Bridge, in consequence of the damage
it received during the gale of January 7, 1839'
Min. Proc.lnst. C. E. 1841 vol 1 London pp. 58-59
Mayniel, K.: 'Traite experimental, analytique et pratique de la
Poussee des terres des murs de revetement, contenant, 1° l'Exposi-
tion et la Discussion des Experiences anciennes et nouvelles sur la
Poussee des terres; 2° l'Exposition et la Discussion des diverses
Theories sur la Poussee des terres; 3° la Comparaison des nou-
velles Experiences sur la Theorie de M. Coulomb generalisee, et
Application de cette Theorie; 4° Traite pratique sur la Poussee des
terres et des murs de revetement, suive d'un Appendice sur Ie
Frottement des Vannes dans leurs coulisses ... '
1808 Paris: Bachelier
von Mechel, Christian (1737-1817): Plan, Durchschnitt und Auf-
riss der drei merkwurdigsten holzernen Brucken in der Schweiz,
nomlich: der beruhmten Brucke uber den Rhein, jener zu Wet-
tingen, uber die Limmat, und der zuletzt gebauten zu Mellingen,
uber die Reuss. Nebst einer umstondlichen Erklarung der Kupfer-
tafeln, dienlich als Anleitung der gleichen Brucken, es seien Hiing-
oder Sprengwerke von einer grossen Offnung aufzurichten,
Herausgegeben nach den Original-Zeichnungen der Erfinder von
C. V. M., Kupferstecher und Verleger in Basel
1803 Basel: Mechel 2, 18, IV pp., 3 pis. French version the same
year.
Mehrtens, Georg Christoph (1843-1917): Vorlesungen uber
Ingenieur-Wissenschaften. Part 2: Eisenbruckenbau. 3 vols.
19081191211923: Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann X, 814 pp./ VIII,
266 pp'/VIII, 445 pp. ills.
Mellet: 'Memoire sur un pont en cables de fer, de 500 pieds
d'ouverture' Annales de I'industrie nationale et etrangere ou Mer-
cure technologique.
March 1821, folio 156, pp. 156-169. Excerpts from several English
memoranda by a correspondent
Messina, Claudio; Paolini, Leonardo; Sestine, Valerio: Panti a
sospensioni de funi: materiali e techniche costruttive nei primi
esempi europei.
Costruzioni metalliche, nr. 4, 1980, pp. 220-214 ills.
Michel: see also 'manuscripts'
Michel, Jean: The genealogy of the 'Grandes Ecoles': Origins
and development of the French system for the training of engin-
eers. European Journal of Engineering Education 5 1981 Amster-
dam: Elesvier pp. 189-214
Michel, Jean: 'Le patrimoine de I'ecole nationale des ponts et
chaussees. Quelques traits historiques pour mieux a la connaltre,
pour savoir I'utiliser et pour avoir envie de I'enrichir.'
APC 2" trim. 1981 pp. 25-31
Michel, Jean: 'Les Annales de Ponts et Chaussees. Deux moments
essentiels de leur histoire.'
APC 3" trim. 1981 nr. 19 pp.7-15
Mills, A.P.: 'The Old Essex-Merrimac Chain Suspension Bridge at
Newburyport, Mass., and Tests of its Wrought-Iron Links after
100 Years' Service'
The Cornell Civil Engineer, vol. 19, April 1911, nr. 7, pp.252-282
ills. Condensed and reprinted in Engineering News, vol. 66, nr. 5,
Aug. 3, 1911, pp. 130-132 ills.
von Mitis, Ferdinand Edler (1791-1856): 'Andeutungen bey
Gelegenheit der Aufstellung eines Versuches in grosserer Art uber
die Anwendbarkeit der Drath Seil Brucke ... mit einer Tabelle und
einem Plane, gedruckt mit den von den k. k. pens. Oberleutnant
Math. Trentseksky erfundenen Litho/Stereotypen-Platten und zu
haben bei Joseph Trentseksky in dessen Verschleissgewolbe litho-
graphischer Pradukte ... '
1824 Vienna: Trentseksky 4 pp., 1 table, 1 pI. An offprint from
1824 Erinnerungen an merkwurdige Gegenstiinde, pp.243- 247
ills.
Monge: see also Bertholet
Monge, Gaspard, Comte de Peluze (1746-1818): 'Traite ele-
mentaire de statique, a I'usage des colleges de la marine'
1788 Paris: Chez J. B. G. Musier 2, 1, 227 pp., 5 pis.
2nd ed. 1795; 3rd ed. 1799 (an VII) Paris: Obeline 200 pp. + pis.;
4th ed. 1801 (an IX); 5th ed. 1810; 6th ed. conforme a I'edition
precedente, revue en 1810 par M. Hachette [Jean Nicolas
Pierre HacheHe 1769-1834) ... avec note par A.-l. Cauchy
[Baron Augustin Louis Cauchy 1789-1857) sur la demonstra-
tion du paralleleogramme des forces) 1826 Paris: Bachier VIII,
216 pp. + pis.; 7th ed. 1839 Paris: Bachier VIII, 215 pp.) pis.;
8th ed .... et suivie d'une note contenant une nouvelle demonstra-
tion du paralleleogramme des forces, par M. Aug. Cauchy 1846
Paris: Bachier VIII, 212 pp. + pis.
Monge, Gaspard, Comte de Peluze (1746-1818): 'Geometrie
descriptive, lec;ons donnees aux Ecoles Normales, I'an 3 de la
Republique'
1798/1799 (an VII) Paris: Baudoin VIII, 132 pp. + pis.; 2nd ed.
avec un supplement par M. Hachette [Jean Nicolas Pierre
Hachette 1769-1834)1811-1812 Paris: Klostermanns fils; 4thed.
augmentee d'une theorie des ombres et de la perspective extraite
des papiers de I'auteur par M. Brisson [Barnabe Brisson
1777 -1828) . .. 1820 Paris: Vve. Courcier XX, 187 pp. + pis.;
5th ed. 1827 Paris: Bachelier XX, 188 pp. + pis.; 6th ed. 1838;
7thed. 1839/1847 Paris: Bachelier XX, 184 pp. + pis.; 8thed.?
1922 Paris: Gauthier Villars 2 vols. ills.
Monge, Gaspard, Comte de Peluze (1746-1818): 'Description
de I'art de fabriquer les canons, faite en execution de I'arrete du
Comite de salut public 1793 (an II) Paris 231 pp. 60 pis., 4 tables;
2nd ed. du 18 pluvoise de I'an 2 de la Republique Franc;aise une
et indivisible (1793) Paris: Imp. du Comite de la Republique
Franc;aise
de Montplaisir, Hericart: 'Note sur un pont de fer suspendu,
propose pour etre execute en Angleterre'
Societe d'Encouragement pour l'lndustrie Nationale. Bulletin
vol. 17 1818, pp. 39-40/69
de Montrand, Margot: 'Rapport sur la chute d'un pont suspendu
de Mirabel sur I'Eygues, par suite d'une epreuve'
APC 1862 1"' sem. pp. 211-217
Morin, Arthur Jules (1795-1880): 'Rapport sur un memoire con-
cernant de nouvelles experiences sur Ie frottement, presente a
l'Academie des Sciences, Ie 12 decembre 1831'
APC 1832 2" sem. pp. 77-84
Morin, Arthur Jules (1795-1880): 'Nouvelles experiences sur Ie
frottement ... faites a Metz en 1833'
Memoires prElSentes par divers savans a l'Academie Royale des
Sciences de I'lnstitut de France vol. 6, Paris 1835 pp.641-783.
Later incorporated in: ibid, 1831-1833.3 vols. Paris: 1833-1835
Morton, Eleanor: Josiah White, Prince of Pioneers
1946 New York: Stephen Daye
Muller: see 'manuscripts'
Muetzenberg, Gabriel: 'Education et Instruction a Geneve
autour de 1830.'
Geneve 1830, restauration de I'ecole
1974 Lausanne: Grand-Pont 679 pp. ills.
Muheim, Hans: 'The Devil's Bridge in the Schollenen Canyon'. in:
T. F. Peters: 'The Development of long-span bridge building.'
3rd ed. 1981 Zurich: Verlag der Fachvereine, pp. 164-171
van Musschenbroek, Pieter (1692-1761): Essai de Physique -
avec une description de nouvelles sortes de machines pneuma-
tiques, et un receuil d'experiences par ... traduit du Hollondois par
Mr. Pierre Massuet. 2 vols. same year as Dutch 2nd ed. Beginsels
der natuurkunde
1739 Leyden: Samuel Luchtmans. with portrait and 34 pis. 'Mus-
schenbroek's works consist of a series of increasingly expanded
versions of his Utrecht lectures first published as Epitome elemen-
torum physicomathematicorum, 1726. The Dutch and French edi-
tions of 1739 are the first to contain the appendix on air pumps
(with 4 plates)" Bernard Quaritch Ltd. Bulletin 5, 1982
van Musschenbroek, Pieter (1692- 1761): 'Introductio ad co-
haerentiam corporum firmorum'
1756 Vienna (cit. in v. Gerstner, vol. 1, p. 285)
van Musschenbroek, Pieter (1692-1761): 'Introductio ad philo-
sophiam naturalem (cit. in v. Gerstner, vol. 1 p.286)
Naegele: see 'manuscripts'
Navier: see also 'manuscripts', 'Biographische Notiz', Prony:
'Notice'
Navier, Claude Louis Marie Henri (1785-1836): 'Rapport a
Monsieur Becquey, conseiller d'Etat, directeur des ponts et
chaussees et des mines [Louis Becquey 1760-1849); et Memoire
sur les ponts suspendus ... '
1823 Paris: Imprimerie royale XXIV, 288 pp., 13 pis. According to
Ostenfeld, p. 54, published 18 Sept. 1823. First German edition
(partial): J.F. Dietlein: Auszug aus Naviers Abhandlung uber die
Hiingebrucken. 1825 Berlin. Full German edition: Bericht an Herrn
Becquey ubersetzt J. G. Kutschera, Lemberg 1829; 2nd ed. aug-
mentee d'une notice sur Ie pont des Invalides 1830 Paris 2, 1,
326 pp., 9 pis. See also book review Rapport
Navier, Claude Louis Marie Henri (1785-1836): 'Resume des
Lec;ons donnees a l'Ecole Royale des Ponts et Chaussees sur I' ap-
plication de la mecanique a I'etablissement des constructions et
des machines'. 1"' partie: lec;ons sur la resistance des materiaux et
sur I'etablissement des constructions en terre, en maconnerie et en
charpente
1826 Paris: Firmin Didot pere et fils 27 112 feuilles (= 440 pp.),
5 pis.; 2nded. corrigee et augmentee, 3 parties en 2 tomes. 223
 1833/1838 Paris: Carilian-Goeury. vol. 1: Le~ons sur la resistance
des materiaux et sur I'etablissement des constructions en terre, en
ma~onnerie et en charpente, revues et corriges XXIV, 448 pp.,
5 pis. vol. 2: Le~ons sur Ie mouvement et la resistance des fluides,
la conduite et la distribution des eaux. vol. 3: Le~ons sur I'etablis-
sement des machines VIII, 422 pp., 3 +6 pis. The second edition is
the first printing of the complete work; 3rd ed. 1864 Paris: Dunor
in 2 vols. with notes and appendices by Adhemar Jean Claude
Barre de Saint-Venant (1797-1886), who added a history of the
theory of bending teams and who did seems to have done the
same popularizing service for Navier as Wilhelm Ritter
(1847-1907) was later to do for Carl Culmann's (1821-1881)
Graphische Statik in Zurich. The popular use of Navier dates
from this edition. German ed. trans. G. Westphal 1851 Hannover:
"Mechanik der 8aukunst von Navier. Aus dem Franzosischen uber-
setzt nach der 2. Auflage 1833"; 2nd ed. G. Westphal & August
Foeppl eds. 1878 Hannover.
Navier, Claude Louis Marie Henri (1785-1836): 'De I'execution
des travaux publics, et particulierement des concessions'
APC 1832 1"' sem. pp. 1-31. See also Dutens
Needham, Joseph: 'Science and Civilization in China'. Continu-
ing series 1954ff.
Cambridge: University Press. vol. 4/3 Physics and Physical Techno-
logy Civil Engineering and Nautics, written with the collaboration
of Wang ling and Lu Gwen-Djen 1971 pp. 184- 210 ills.
Neuman, Aubry: 'The Stanhopes of Chevening. A family biog-
raphy'
1969 London: Macmillan 414 pp. ills.
'A note on early American suspension bridges'
Engineering News vol 53 nr. 11 1905 pp. 269-270 ills.
'Notes sur les ponts en fil de fer'
Societe d' Encouragement pour l'lndustrie Nationale. Bulletin 1816
vol. 15, pp.278-279 and 1817 vol. 16, p.63. In spite of 'wire' in
the title, on Finley, and taken from the Port Folio 1810 (according
to Chrimes)
'Note sur un pont suspendu en fer forge, construit en Angleterre'
La Societe d'encouragement pour I'industrie nationale. Bulletin
vol. 21, 1822, p. 399
Notice sur Ie Pont Charles-Albert pres la Caille
1845 Anneci: Imprimerie Burdet 24 pp.
'Notice sur Ie pont suspendu en chaine et fil de fer, de Passy'
Bulletin universel des sciences et de I'industrie. Section 5: Bulletin
des sciences technologiques. vol. 3 1825 Paris pp. 327 - 329.
Essentially a reprint of TarM
'Nouveau': two articles, not signed but by Dufour: see under
Dufour
Noyon: 'Sur la restauration et la consolidation de la suspension
du pont de la Roche-Bernard'
APC 18592" sem. pp. 249-329, pis. 169/170
O'Gorman, James F.: 'The Marshall Field Wholesale Store'
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians vol. 37 nr. 3,
Oct. 1978, p. 186ff.
224
Orlandi, Giulio Lensi: 'Ferro e architettura a Firenze'
1978 Florence: Vallechi 64 pp. + pis.
Ostenfeld, Christian: 'Franske Broingeni0rer og videnskabs-
mcend, deres historie, ingeni0rskoler og b0ger'
1975 Lyngby: Polyteknisk Forlag. Danmarks Tekniske Bibliotek Pub-
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Paine, T.: 'Mao Tse Tung, Ruler of Red China. 1950'
de Pambour, Fran~ois Marie Guyonneau, Comte de P ...
(1795-?): 'De 10 resistance des machines locomotives en usage sur
les chemins de fer'
Comte rendu vol. 5 1837/vol. 6 1839/1843
de Pambour, Fran~ois Marie Guyonneau, Comte de P ...
(1795-?): 'Experiences concernant Ie frottement des waggons et
Ie resistance de I'air contre les trains ... ' Comte rendu vol. 9 1839,
or, according to Poggendorff, vol. 17 1843
Panuzio, Giovanni: 'Ferro e architettura a Firenze' Revista Fin-
sider, y-14, June 2, 1979 pp. 64-66 ills.
Parent, Antoine (1666-1716): 'Essais et recherches de Mathe-
matiques et de physique. Nouvelle edition augmentee d'un 3e. vo-
lume et d'un tiers au moins en chacun des deux premiers'. 3 vols.
1713 Paris: J. de Nully. The editions which led up to this work were
in reality only parts: Elements de mecanique et de physique. 1700
Paris: Florentin & T. Delaule 458 pp. + pis.; Recherches de phy-
sique et de mathematique, mois de mars 1703. Paris: J. Moreau
3 parts; Recherches de mathematique et de physique... 1705
Paris: F. Delaule 2 vols. + pis.
Parsons, William Barclay (1859-1932): 'Engineers and Engin-
eering in the Renaissance'
1939 Baltimore: The Williams & Wilkins company 2, 1, III-XIX,
661 pp., ills., map
Paxton, Richard: 'Menai Bridge 1818-1826 and its influence on
suspension bridge development'
Transactions of the Newcomen Society vol. 49 1977-1978,
pp.87-110
Penfold, Alastair: 'Thomas Telford' Engineer
1980 London x, 181, 1 ills.
Peters: see also 'manuscripts'
Peters, Tom Frank (b. 1941): 'The development of long-span
bridge building' (with articles by other authors)
1979 Zurich: Verlag der Fachvereine 189 pp. ills.; 2nd ed. 1980;
3rd ed. in English 1981
Peters, Tom Frank (b. 1941): 'Guillaume-Henri Dufour und die
Entwicklung der Drahtseilbrucke'
Neue Zurcher Zeitung Sept. 29/30 1979
Peters, Tom Frank (b. 1941): 'Guillaume-Henri Dufour and the
development of the wire cable suspension bridge' in: The devel-
opment of long-span bridge building pp. 173-186 ills.
Peters, Tom Frank (b. 1941): 'General Dufours Beitrag zur
Entwicklung der Drahtseilbrucke'
Schweizerische Technische Zeitschrift, Zurich nr. 10 May 1980
pp. 556-562 ills.
Peters, Tom Frank (b. 1941): 'Time is Money. Die Entwicklung des
modernen Bauwesens'
1981 Stuttgart: Julius Hoffmann 275 pp. ills.
Peters, Tom Frank (b. 1941): 'The Apparent Setback to the Iron
Skeleton System of Construction after the Experience with the
Crystal Palace of 1851'
Eisen Architektur. Die Rolle des Eisens in der historischen Architek-
tur der zweiten Hiilfte des 19. Jahrhunderts. ICOMOS Interna-
tional Council of Monuments and Sites, symposium 1982 Han-
nover: Curt R. Vincenz Verlag pp. 216-221 ills.
Phillips, John A.: 'A General History of Inland Navigation, For-
eign and Domestic; Containing a Complete Account of the Canals
already Executed in England, with Considerations on those Project-
ed. To which are Added, Practical Observations. The Whole illus-
trated with a Map of All the Canals in England, and Other Useful
Plates.'
1792 London: I.&J. Taylor xx, 370 pp., tables, pis. 2nded. A New
Edition Corrected, with Two Addendas, which Complete the His-
tory to 1795. London: 1.&J.Taylor xx, 366, 6, 2, 186pp., 4pls.
4th ed. Abridged from the Quarto Edition, and Continued to the
Present Time. 1803 London: J. Taylor and C. & R. Baldwin xx, 598,
1, 2 pp., 1 pI. See also Cordier
Pictet, Marc Auguste (1752-1825): 'Notice sur un pont con-
struit en fil de fer pres d'Annonay, Departement de I'Ardeche, et
sur celui qu'eleve actuellement, porte par des chaines, sur Ie bras
de mer qui separe l'Angleterre de I'lie d'Anglesea'
BU vol. 21 Sciences et Arts 1822 pp. 123-141
Pictet, Marc Auguste (1752-1825): 'Notice sur deux pants sus-
pendus, en fil de fer, recemment etablis sur les fosses d'enceinte
de la ville de Geneve. Lue a la Societe Helvetique des sciences
naturelles siegeant a Arau [sic] Ie 21 Juillet par Ie Prof. Pictet, I'un
de ses membres'.
BU vol. 23 Sciences et Arts 1823 pp. 305-322 + pI. 3
Pictet, Marc Auguste (1752-1825): 'Suspension bridge of iron
wire at Geneva'
Quarterly journal of science and arts. vol. 16 1824 pp. 369- 370
Plinius, Caius Secundus (23-79): 'Historia naturalis' s. historia
mundi, libri XXXVII. published in many editions, for instance: es
recensione Joannis Harduni 1793 Bisponti 5 vols.
Poggendorff, J. C.: 'Biographisches-Literarisches Handworterbuch
zur Geschichte der exacten Wissenschaften enthaltend Nachweis-
ungen uber Lebensverhiiltnisse und Leistungen von Mathemati-
kern, Astronomen, Physikern, Chemikern, Mineralogen, Geologen
usw. aller Volker und leiten'. Gesammelt von J. C. P ... 2 vols.
1863 Leipzig vol .. 1: A-L VIII, 1583 pp.!vol. 2: M-l 1467 pp. and
continuing vol.s. to present.
2nd facsimile ed.: 1970 Amsterdam: B. M. Israel M. V.
Poleni, Giovanni, Marchese (1683-1761): 'Memorie istoriche
della gran cupola del Tempio Vaticano 1748 Padova'. See also Le
Suer .. .
Poletti, Luigi (1792-1869): 'Intorno la construzione dei ponti sos-
pesi sulla fila di ferro'
Arcadia di scienze, lettere ed arti vol. 22 1824 pp. 195-222 ills.
reissued as an offprint: 1824 Rome: Nella Stamperia del Giornale,
Presso Antonio Boulzalev 30 pp., 1 pI.
Polo, Marco (1250/54-1323/24): 'The travels'. translated and
with an introduction by Ronald Lathan 1967 London: Penguin. First
editions: 1477 German, 1490 or 1503 Latin, 1496 Italian, 1502
Portuguese, 1520 Spanish, 1556 French, 1567 English
'Pont de Peney'. Almanach du Vieux-Geneve 1941-1942 Geneva
pp. 45-48 ills.
'Ponte di Catene di ferro, sui canale della Maika in Russia' Annali
universali di statistica, economia pubblica, storia, viaggi e com-
mercia. vol. 4 1825 Milan p.278. probably translated from 'Saint
Petersburg . . .'
Pope, Thomas: 'A Treatise on Bridge Architecture; in which the
superior advantages of the flying pendant lever bridge are fully
proved. With an historical account and description of different
bridges erected in various parts of the world, from an early per-
iod, down to the present time'. By T. P. architect and landscape
gardener
1811 New York: by the author 288 pp., 10 pp. subscribers' list and
errata, 16 pis.
Porter GoH, R. F. D.: 'Brunei and the design of the Clifton Suspen-
sion Bridge' Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, 1974
London 56 (August) pp. 303-321
Portet: 'Traite elementaire des pants suspend us'
1862 Montpellier (information from Messina)
Poyet, Bernard (1742-1824): 'Nouveau systeme de pont en bois
et en fer forge ... compare avec les pants ordinaires pour la
duree, la solidite et I'economie'
1820 Paris: Imprimerie de Plassan 3, 1 pp., 4 pis.
de Prony, Gaspard Clair Fran~ois Marie Riche, Baron de P ...
(1755-1839): 'Notice biographique sur M. Navier, membre de
I'lnstitut royale de France (Academie des Sciences), officier de la
Legion d'Honneur, inspecteur divisionnaire du corps des ponts et
chaussees'
APC 1837 1er sem. pp. 1- 19
de Prony, Gaspard Clair Fran~ois Marie Riche, Baron de P ...
(1755-1839): 'Recherches sur la poussee des terres et sur la forme
et les dimensions a donner aux murs de revetement'
1802 (an X) Paris: Imp. de la Republique 44 pp., 1 pI.
Provis, William Alexander (1792-1870): 'An Historical and
descriptive Account of the Suspension Bridge constructed over the
Menai Strait, in North Wales; with a brief notice of Conway
Bridge. From designs by and under the direction of Thos.
Telford .. .'
1828 London: for the author by Ibotson and Palmer 4, 1, 105 pp.,
17 pis.
Provis, William Alexander (1792-1870): 'Observations on the
effect of wind on the suspension bridge over the Menai Strait,
more especially with reference to the injuries which its roadways
sustained during the storm of January 1839'
Min. Proc.lnst. C. E. 1841 London vol. 1 pp. 74-80. see also Maude
Pugsley, Sir Alfred Grenville (b. 1903): 'The Theory of Suspen-
sion Bridges' 2nd ed. 1968 London: Arnold VIII, 155 pp. ills.
Quarterly Journal of Science and the Arts
225
 Quenot, J. P.: 'Memoire sur Ie pont suspendu en fil de fer, con-
struit sur la Charente, a Jarnac, et details de sa construction ...
accompange de 14 planches'
1828 Paris: Bachelier 41, 1 pp., 14 pis.
'Rapport a Mr. Becquey, Conseillier d'Etat, Directeur-general des
Ponts et Chaussees et des Mines, et memoire sur les ponts sus-
pend us. Par M. Navier ... Description du pont suspendu en fil de
fer construit a Geneve, par G.-H. Dufour .. .' book reviews
BU vol. 24 Sciences et Arts 1823 pp. 280-299
Re, Luciano: 'II progetto di Guillaume-Henri Dufour per il ponte
sospeso de Valentino (1826) un'iniziativa di Michele Benso de
Cavour'
Studi Piemontesi Nov. 1980 vol. 9 part 2 pp. 371-387
de Reaumur, Rene Antoine Ferchault (1683-1757): 'lart de
convertir Ie fer forge en acier, et I'art d'adoucir Ie fer fondu, ou de
faire des ouvrages de fer fondu aussi finis que de fer forge'
1722 Paris: Michel Brunet 20, 566, 2 pp., 17 pis.
de Reaumur, Rene Antoine Ferchault (1683-1757): 'Nouvel art
d'adoucir Ie fer fondu et de faire des ouvrages de fer fondu aussi
finis que du fer forge. 1726 Paris .. .' avec une introduction, par
M. Duhamel de Monceau. Suite de la 3e. section sur Ie fer. 1er.
partie. in: Courtiron et Boucher: art des forges et fourneaux a fer.
1761-1762 Saillant et Nyon 6 parts in 1 voL, pis. part of Descrip-
tion des arts et metiers, faites ou approuvees par Messieurs de
I'Academie royale des Sciences
Reibell: see also Sganzin
Reibell, Felix Jean Baptiste (1795-1867): article in Annales
maritimes et coloniales Feb. & Nov. 1837 on wind tests on suspend-
ed wire cable roofs. Reported in ABZ, see: Lecointe
von Reichenbach: see also von Dyck
von Reichenbach, Georg (1772-1826): 'Theorie der Brucken-
Bogen und Vorschliige zu eisernen Brucken in jeder beliebigen
GroBe'. Mit flinf Kupfern!
1811 Munich: Jos. Lindauer 91 pp., 5 pis.
Rendell, James Meadows (1799-1856): 'Memoir of the Mon-
trose Suspension Bridge'
Minutes of the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers
1841 vol. 1 London pp. 122-129
Rennell, James (1742-1830): 'Description historique et geo-
graphique de l'lndostan'
18003 vols.
Rennie, George Jr. (1791-1866): 'Experiments on the Friction and
Abrasion of the Surfaces of Solids'
Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. vol. 34 London 1829 pp. 143-170
Revue Encyclopedique ou analyse raisonnee des productions les
plus remarquables dans les sciences, les arts industriels, la littera-
ture et les beaux-arts; par une reunion de membres de I'lnstitut, et
d'autres hommes de lettres. 1819-1835 Paris: Au bureau central
de 10 Revue Encyclopedique.
Riche de Prony: see Prony
von Richthofen, Friedrich Freiherr von R.: Tagebucher aus
226 China. at least 2 vols.
Rickman, Thomas: see Telford
de la Rochefoucauld, Duc: 'Note sur Ie pont suspendu par des
chaines de fil de fer, construit a Liancourt, departement de 1'0ise,
par M. Le duc de la Rochefoucauld'
Bulletin de la societe d'encouragement pour I'industrie nationale.
Arts mecaniques. nr. 248 vol. 24 Feb. 1825 pp.38-39. German
translation: 'Des Hrn. Herzoges de la Rochefoucauld Bericht uber
die von ihm erbaute Draht-Kettenbrucke zu Liancourt.' Dinglers
Polytechnisches Journal vol. 17 1825 pp. 144-145
Rohn, Arthur: 'Les Ponts de Fribourg'. Conference faite en
assemblee generale de la 107" session de la S. H. S. N. a Fribourg
Ie 29 aout 1926. Extr. des actes de la Societe Helvetique des
Sciences Naturelles. Fribourg 1926
1926 Berne, 2nd part pp. 56-79
Rohn, Arthur: 'Die Ziihringerbrucke in Freiburg, der Neubau
anstelle der groBen Hiingebrucke'
Schweizerische Bauzeitung 1923 pp. 189-194
Rolt, L. T. C.: 'Victorian Engineering'
1970 London: Lane 300 pp. ills.; 1974 Harmondsworth: Penguin
300 pp. ills.
Rondelet, Jean Baptiste (1743-1829): 'Traite theorique et pra-
tique de I'art de batir'. 5th ed. 1812-1814 with atlas apparently
from 1843 Paris 6 vols. 1: XVI, 442 pp'/2: 4, 351 pp./3: 4, 412,
4 pp.l4: 4, 416, 143, 5 pp, + 3 pls./5: 22, XXXVI, 36, 346 pp. +
19 tables/6: atlas: 4 pp. + 207, 2 pis.
Ruskin, John (1819-1900): 'The Stones of Venice'. 3 vols.
1851/1853/1853/london: Smith, Elder ond Co. vol. 1: The Foun-
dations xv, (1), 413, (1), 2 pp., ills., 21 pls.lvol. 2: The Sea-Stories
VI, (2), 394, (2), 16 pp., 20 pis., ills./vol. 3: The Fall (4), 362, (2),
16 pp., ills. 12 pis. + 3 issues of folio plates 16 pis. nr. 1-5, Sa,
6-15
'Saint-Petersburg - Pont suspendu en chaines' Revue encyclope-
dique, Juli 1824, vol. 23 p. 746. Probable translation into Italian:
'Ponte di catene .. .'
Sayous, Eduard (1842-1898): General G.-H. Dufour, Cam-
pagne du Sonderbund et evenements de 1856 precede d'une
notice biographique avec cartes et portrait
2nd ed. 1876 Paris: Sandoz et Fischbacher I Neuchatel: J. Sandoz
I Geneva: Desrogis 1, 250, 1 pp., 4 pis., 1 portrait
Schadlich, Christian: see 'manuscripts'
Scharf, J. Thomas & Westcott, Thompson: 'History of Philadel-
phia 1609-1884'
1884 Philadelphia: L. H. Everts & Co
Schmiedbauer, Joseph: 'Neueste mit schweren lasten zu befah-
rende eiserne Hohlzylinder Bogenkettenbrucke als vorteilhaftester
und sicherster Ersatz der Seguinischen Hiingeketten-und anderer
Brucken'
1829 Leipzig: Anton Peters
Schnirch, Friedrich (1 791 - 1868): 'Ober DachstUhle von
Schmiedeeisen nach dem Prinzip der hiingenden Kettenbrucken'
dated 8 Oct. 1824
Mittheilungen der k. k. miihrisch-schlesischen Gesellschaft zur Be-
forderung des Ackerbaues, der Natur- und Landeskunde v. BrOnn.
Brno: Dec. 1824-Jan. 1825
Schramm, Carl Christian: 'Historischer Schauplatz, in welchem
die denkwOrdigsten BrOcken aus allen 4 Theilen der Welt ... in
sauberen Prospekten, Miinzen & anderen Kupferstichen, vorge-
stellt & beschrieben werden; durch brauchbare Anm. & besondere
Urkunden erlCiutert; auch mit nothigen Register versehen; von
c.C.S .. :
1735 Leipzig: Breitkopf 3, xxx, 3, 264, 96, 13 pp., 75 pis. and
frontis
Schultz: 'Die Cilteste HCingebriicke Europas'
Der Stahlbau 3rd year nr. 12 June 13, 1930 pp. 143-144
Schwab, Fernand: '300 Jahre Drahtindustrie'. Festschrift zum
dreihundertjCihrigen Bestehen des Werkes Bozingen der Vereinig-
ten Drahtwerke AG Biel 1634-1934
1934 Solothurn: Vogt-Schild
Die Schweizerische Landesvermessung 1832-1864 Geschichte
der Dufourkarte. Herausgegeben vom Eidg. topograph. Bureau
1896 Bern. French title: 'Topographie de la Suisse 1832-1864.
Histoire de la Carte Dufour. Publie par Ie Bureau Topographique
federal'
Seaward, J.: 'On suspension bridges'
Mechanics' Magazine... London 1824 vol. 1, Jan. 22, pp.
339-340
Seguin, Jules: see also 'manuscripts'
Seguin, Jules (1796-1868): 'Pont suspendu en fil de fer construit
a Bry-sur-Marne (Departement de la Seine)'
APC 18321 e'sem. pp. 210-234, pis. 21-22
Seguin Marc: see also Descrizione, Marchal and 'manuscripts'
Seguin Marc (1786-1875): 'Des ponts en fil de fer par Seguin
Aiml d'Annonay'
1824 Paris: Bachelier XII, 104 pp., 5 pis. printed in 3000 copies
according to Marchal (p.34). Only two copies of this work have
been traced to date; 2nd ed. 1826 Paris: Bachelier 85 pp., 4 pis.
The second edition contains less material than the first.
Seguin Marc: book review of Des ponts suspend us ... 2nded. in
Annale universale di statistic a ... 1826 Milan
Senn, Walther: 'Le general Dufour, sa vie et ses travaux illustre
par Hebert Fils'
1884 Geneva/Lausanne: Chez tous les libraires 109 pp. ills.
Seidl: 'Der Drahtsteg iiber die Donau in Passau'
Zeitschrift des Bayerischen Architekten- und Ingenieurvereins 1871
pp.10-51, (10-12/30-33/45-48), pis. 1-3
Sganzin, Joseph MaHhieu (1750-1837): 'Programmes, ou
resumes des le«;ons d'un cours de construction avec des applica-
tions tirees specialement de I'art de l'ingenieur des ponts et chaus-
sees' (Ecole imp. polytechnique)
1807?; 2nded. 1809 Paris: Vve.Bernard 296pp. + pis.; 3rded.
1821 Paris: Vve. Courcier XII, 260 pp. + pis.; 4th ed. . .. enrichie
d'un atlas ... entierement refondue et ... augmentee avec les
notes et les papiers de I'auteur, avec ceux de M. de Lamblardie
fils ... par M. Reibell (Felix Jean Reibell 795-1867) n. d. Paris:
Carilian-Goeury et V. Dalmont 3 vols. + atlas; 5thed .... refait ...
1865
von Sicking en, Karl, Reichsgraf (1707-1787): 'Versuche iiber
die Platina mit zweien Kupfer Tafeln'
1782 Mannheim: Hof- und Akademische Buchdruckerei 1, 16,
324, 2, 1 table, 2 pis. This work had originally been written in
French and read to the Academie in Paris
Smeaton, John (1724-1792) : 'A Narrative of the building and a
description of the construction of the Edystone [sic] lighthouse
with stone: to which is subjoined an appendix, giving some
account of the lighthouse on the Spurn Point, built on a sand'
1791 London: G.Nichol; 2nded. 1793 London: G.Nichol; XIV,
198 pp., 23 pis., frontis.; 2nded. 2nd printing 1811. Elton (nr. 381)
gives a further printing in 1813
Smith, Denis: 'The use of models in nineteenth century British
suspension bridge design'
History of Technology. Second Annual Volume, A. Rupert Hall &
Norman A. F. Smith eds.: 1977 London: Mansell pp. 169- 213
Smith, John: 'A conjectural account of the erection of the Iron
Bridge'. Paper presented at the Ironbridge Gorge Museum on the
occasion of the bicentenary visit of the American Society of Civil
Engineers on Saturday, 11th August 1979 under the auspicies of
the Institution of Structural Engineers History Study Group
1979 London: North East London Polytechnic, Department of Civil
Engineering, Engineering History Section
Smithsonian Institution: see 'manuscripts'
Snow, Charles Percy: 'The Two Cultures and the Scientific
Revolution'. 1959
Solenthaler, C. & Mutz, A.: 'Ein 'einfacher' romischer Eisen-
haken'.
Mitteilungsblatt der Schweizerischen Gesellschaft fOr Ur- und
Friihgeschichte nr. 7 1976 pp. 13-16 ills.
Stein, Rolf Alfred: 'Recherches sur l'Epoppee et Ie Barde au
Tibet'.
Bibliotheque des hautes etudes chi noises vol. 13
1959 Paris: Presses universitaires de France (lmprimerie nationale)
XII, 647 pp. ills.
Steiner, Frances H.: 'Building with Iron: A Napoleonic Contro-
versy' Technology and Culture Oct. 1981 vol. 22 no. 4 pp. 700-724
ills.
Steinman, David Barnard (1886-1960) & Watson, Sarah Ruth:
Bridges and their builders
1957 New York: Dover Publications XVI, 401 pp. ills.
Stevenson, Robert (1772-1850): 'Description of Bridges of Sus-
pension' The Edinburgh Philosophical Journal vol. 5 nr. 10 Nov.
1821 pp. 337-356, plate 8. This article, dated July 19, 1821,
represents the first comprehensive report on the state of suspen-
sion bridge construction at the beginning of the nineteenth cen-
tury. The author was an eminent lighthouse and railway engineer,
and is not to be confused with Robert Stephenson, his contem-
porary. Stevenson's article was translated into German (see
Behrnauer) and into French (see next items), the same year:
Stevenson, Robert (1772-1850): 'Description of Bridges of Sus-
pension, etc. Description des ponts de suspension par R. Steven-
son, Ing€mieur civil; communiquee par I'auteur au Dr. Brewster,
Editeur de l'Edinburg Philosophical Journal Nr. X et XI (avec fig.)' 227
BU 1822 Sciences et Arts vol. 21 pp. 192-214 + pI. 3
 Stevenson, Robert (1772-1850): 'Description historique des
ponts suspend us'
Annales de I'industrie nationale et etrangere vol. 9 1823
pp. 113-153 ills.
Stevin, Simon (1548-1620): La pratique d'artihmetique 1585
Leyden
Stevin, Simon (1548-1620) De Beghinselen der Weegkonst s.
Statica 1586 Leyden: Christoffel Plantijn
Stewart, Elizabeth C.: 'Guide to the Roebling Collection at
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Rutgers University'
1983 Troy NY: RPI X, 136 pp. ills.
Stewart, William: 'Memoire raisonne sur les ponts suspendus et
observations comparatives entre Ie fer en barres et les fils de fer
appliques a la construction de ces ponts, avec une notice sur
quelques ponts de I'antiquite par W.S .. .'. Exposition Universelle
de 1855, Nr. 1932
1855 Paris: P. Dupont 128 pp. The author, although of British
origin, seems to have written exclusively in French.
Stirling, James (1692-1770): 'Liniae tertii ordinaris Newtonianae
sive illustratio tractatus Newtoni de enumeratione linearum tertii
ordinaris 1717 Oxford'
Strub, Marcel: La Ville de Fribourg I. Les Monuments d'Art et
d'histoire de la Suisse
1964 Basel: Birkhiiuser
Stiissi, Fritz: see also Baeschlin
Stiissi, Fritz (1901-1982): 'Un rapport inconnu de Navier'
Publications of the International Association of Bridge and Struc-
tural Engineering vol. 7 1943/1944 Zurich pp. 1-13
Tarbe: Rapport fait par M. Tarbe, au nom du Comite des arts
mecaniques, sur Ie pont suspendu que M. Benjamin Delessert a
fait construire dans une de ses proprietes, a Passy, pres Paris.
Bulletin de 10 societe d'encouragement pour I'industrie nationale.
Arts mecaniques nr. 248 vol. 24 Feb. 1825 pp. 33-39 + pI. 248.
German translation: 'Hm. Baron .. .'. Reprinted as 'Notice sur Ie
pont suspendu .. .'
Tarbe de Saint-Hardouin, Fransois Pierre H. (1813-?): 'Notices
Biographiques sur les ingenieurs des Ponts et Chaussees Depuis 10
creation du corps, en 1716, jusqu'a nos jours. Encyclopedie des
Travaux Publics fondee en 1884 par M[arc) C[lement) Lec-
halos .. .'
1884 Paris: Librairie polytechnique Baudry & Cie 276 pp.
Tardif, M.: Catastrophe du pont de 10 Basse-Chaine a Angers
1850/1852 Angers
Taylor, Charles: see Dupin: A supplement ...
Telford, Thomas (1757-1834): Life of Thomas Telford, civil engin-
eer, written by himself; containing a descriptive narrative of his
professional labours: with a folio atlas of copper plates. Edited by
Thomas Rickman, one of his executors; with a preface, supple-
ment, annotations, and index. 2 vols.
1838 London: James and Luke D. Hansard & Sons XXIV, 719,
(1) pp., 1 pl.l(4), 1 pp., 82 pis. The first edition of the text and the
228 only one of the plates, this book is one of the most beautiful tech-
nical publications in the field of building technology in the nine-
teenth century. Telford died in 1834, before the work appeared.
But he had made arrangements concerning paper, type and num-
ber of copies (Elton nr. 538). Rickman, who had persuaded Tel-
ford to undertake the work, finished it.
'Telford, Thomas und seine technische Wirksamkeit (biograph.
Notiz)'
ABZ Vienna 4th year 1839 pp. 263-270 ills.
'Temperature Variation in Eyebar Chain found slight'
Engineering News Record vol. 90 April 16, 1923 p. 740
de Thenard, Louis Jacques (1777-1875): 'Traite de Chimie
elementaire, theorique et pratique'
1813-1816; 2nded. 1818 in 4vols.; ... 5" edition, en cinq vo-
lumes, revue, corrigee et augmentee 5thed. 1827 Paris: Crochard
/ Bruxelles: Librairie medica Ie fran~aise 1: 625 pp.l2: 574 pp.l3:
745 pp.l4: 697 pp.l5: 480 pp., 33 pis. The erratum quoted in the
text from vol. 1 also appears in the 5th ed. which was therefore
probably a reprint of the 1sted. in spite of the claim in the title.
Timoshenko, Stephen Prokopovich (1878-1972): 'History of
Strength of Materials. With a brief account of the history of
theory of elasticity and theory of structures'
1953 New York/Toronto/London: McGraw Hill; 2nd ed. 1983 New
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Tissandier, Gaston (1843-1899): 'Le grand ballon captif de
M. Henry Giffard [1825-1882),. Cour des Tuilleries avec 39 illus-
trations dont plusieurs par Albert Tissandier
July 1878 Paris: G. Masson 68, 2 pp. ills.
Todhunter, Isaac (1820-1884): 'A history of the theory of elostic-
ity and of the strength of materials, from Galilei to the present
time. By the late Isaac Todhunter .. .' Edited and completed for
the syndics of the University Press by Karl Pearson [1857-1936]
1886-1893 Cambridge GB: University Press 2 vols. in 3. 1: Galilei
- Saint-Venant 1639-185012: Saint-Venant - Lord Kelvin; 2nd ed.
1960 2 vols. in 3
New York: Dover Publications
Tomlinson, Charles (1808-1897), ed.: Cyclopedia of useful arts,
mechanical and chemical manufactures, mining, and engineering.
n. d. (1852-1854) London: James S. Virtue 2 vols. 1: Abbatoir -
Hair-Pencils with an introductory essay on the Great Exhibition of
the Work of Industry of All Nations, 1851 cxli, 832 pp., title,
18 pls.l2: Hammer - Zirconium. The whole illustrated by fourty
steel engravings, and two thousand four hundred and seventy-
seven wood engravings 1052 pp., title, 24 pis. ills.; 2nd ed. 1866
London: James S. Virtue 3 vols.: (2), XIX, (1), 935, (1) pp., title,
16 pls.l(2), 956 pp., title, 20 pls.l(2), 740 pp., title, 28 pis. 'This is
one of the best of all encyclopedias on the great industries of the
19th century ... inspired by the Great Exhibition .. .' (Elton nr.
500)
Topographie de la Suisse: see Schweizerische Landesvermes-
sung
La Torre, Carlo: Tarchitettura del ferro aRoma tra illuminismo e
liberty'
Revista Finsider Rome a-xIv nr. 3/4 1979 pp. 31-32
Tredgold, Thomas (1788-1829): 'Practical Essay on the Strength
of Cast Iron, intended for the assistance of engineers, iron mas-
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in the construction of machines, buildings & c. Containing prac-
tical rules, tables, and examples; also an account of some new
experiments, with an extensive table of the properties of ma-
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1822 London: J. Taylor XVI, 175 pp., 4 pis. French ed. 1825 Paris;
2nd ed. substantially revised 1824 xx, 306 pp. ills. enlarging par-
ticularly the section devoted to cast iron which was largely foun-
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cast iron and other metals; containing practical rules, tables and
examples, founded on a series of experiments; with an extensive
table of the properties of materials 1842 London: John Weale
XXVIII, 303, 1 pp., 4 pis., edited by Eaton Hodgkinson who added
copious notes to Tredgold's text. In connection with this publica-
tion, Hodgkinson published his own 'Experimental researches on
the strength and other properties of cast iron. Forming a second
part to the fourth edition of Tredgold's Practical essay .. .' 1846
London: J. Weale VII, 13, 308-504 (= 197) pp., 5 pis.; 5th ed.
1860-1861 London: J. Weale IX, 223 pp. ills., tables, pis. Variant:
x, 224, III-VIII, 225-384 pp., 32 + 9 engr., ills.
Tripet, Micheline: 'Cavour et sa famille genevoise a travers six
lettres inedites de I'homme d'Etat piemontais'
Revue Suisse d'histoire vol. 28 nr. 4 1978
Turnbull, William: 'Dredge's suspension bridge explained upon
the principles of the lever by W. T. To which are added, a specif-
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1841 London: John Weale VIII, 621 pp., pis. ills. See also: Wea/e
Turner, Samuel (c. 1749-1802): 'An Account of an Embassy to
the Court of the Teshoo Lama in Thibet; containing a Narrative of
a Journey through Bootan and part of Thibet', by Captain S. T. To
which are added, views taken on the spot, by Lieutenant Samuel
Davis; and observations botanical, mineralogical and medical, by
Mr. Robert Saunders
1800 London; 2nded. 1806 London: G.&w. Nichol XXVIII,
473 pp., 12 pis., map
Tyrrell, Henry Grattan (1867-1948): 'History of Bridge Engineer-
ing' 1911 Chicago: author 1, 479 pp. ills. Suspension bridge mat-
erial on pp. 202-256. Appears to be 2nded. of: Bridge engineer-
ing; a brief history of this construction art from the earliest times
to the present day; a practical book of data and costs for engin-
eers, architects, designers, contractors, superintendants and stud-
ents. First ed. up to at least 4 issues 1911 (Evanston?) IL 479 pp.
ills.
'Ueber die Drahtseilbriicke zu Freiburg (Schweiz) uber die
Sarine. Erbaut von dem franzosischen Ingenieur Herrn Chaley'
ABZ Vienna 1st year 1836 pp. 341-373, pis. 75-77
'Ueber die Hangebriicke von Eisendraht zu Conflans-Saint-
Honorine und ein dabei angewendetes eigenthiimliches Pfeiler-
system, ausgefuhrt von den Briidern Seguin'
ABZ Vienna 1st year 1836 pp. 321-324/334-337, 2 pis.
de Valliere, Louis & Simon, Albert: 'Die Zohringerbrucke.
Studie uber die Brucken von Fribourg ausgearbeitet auf Gesuch
des Komitees uber die Brucken zur Wahrung der Interessen des
mittleren Stadtteiles'
1905 Fribourg: Gebruder Fragniere 24 pp., 1 pl., 1 ill
Varignon, Pierre (1654-1722): 'Nouvelle mecanique ou statique
dont Ie pro jet fut donne en M. DC. LXXXVII ouvrage posthume de
M.V .. .' 2 vols.
1725 Paris: C. Jombert 1: XXVI, 387 pp., portraitl2: 478 pp.,
65 pis. This book was based on the next:
Varignon, Pierre (1654-1722): Projet d'une nouvelle mecanique,
avec un examen de I'opinion de M. Borelli sur les proprietes des
poids suspendus par des cordes.
1687 Paris: Chez la Vv. d'Edme Martin, Jean Boudrot & Estienne
Martin 134 pp., errate, 13 pis.
de Vauban, Sebastien Le Prestre, Marquis (1637-1707): 'Essai
sur les fortifications'
1739 Paris: Valleyre 108 pp.
Verantius, Faustus (1551-1617): 'Machinae novae Fausti Veran-
tii siceni, cum declaratione latina, italica, hispanica, gallica et ger-
manica'
2nd ed. 1615 or 1616 Venice title, 19, 18, 20, 19, 20 pp., 49 pis.
The first ed. had appeared the same year with only latin and
italian text printed in Florence; facsimilie ed. 1965 Munich: Heinz
Moser Verlag with commentary by Friedrich Klemm and A. Wiss-
ner.
Verhandlungen zur Beforderung des Gewerbefleisses in
Preussen. 1822-? Berlin
Vicat, Louis Joseph (1786-1861): 'Description du pont suspendu
construit sur la Dordogne a Argentat, Departement de la Cornhe,
aux frais de M. Ie Comte Alexis de Noilles, suivie de I'expose
des divers procedes employes pour la confection des cables en fil
de fer, pour Ie levage de ces cables et du tablier, et terminee par
une note sur quelques prix de main-d'oeuvre'
1830: Paris: Carilian-Goeury 48 pp., 5 pis.
Vicat, Louis Joseph (1786-1861): 'Pants suspendus en fil de fer
sur Ie Rhone. Rapport au Conseiller d'Etat, directeur general des
ponts et Chaussees'
APC 1831 1·' sem. pp. 93-145, pI. 3
Vicat, Louis Joseph (1786-1861): 'Influence du mode d'attache
des chaines sur la resistance des piliers des ponts suspend us'
APC 1832 1er sem. pp. 394-397, 1 pI.
Vicat, Louis Joseph (1786-1861): 'Extra it d'une note de M. Vicat
sur la chute du pont suspendu de Longues'
APC 1833 1·' sem. pp. 106-108
Vicat, Louis Joseph (1786-1861): 'Note sur I'allongement pro-
gressif du fil de fer soumis a diverses tensions'
APC 1834 2" sem. pp. 41-44, and Annales de chimie et de phy-
sique vol. 54 1833 pp. 35-40
Vicat, Louis Joseph (1786-1861): 'Nouvelle maniere de confec-
tionner les cables en fil de fer'
APC 1834 2· pp. 129-142, pI. 77, 1 ill.
Vicat, Louis Joseph (1786-1861): 'Observations sur un memoire
de M. E[milel Martin, touchant les ponts suspend us'
229
 APC 1834 2" sem. pp. 169-172, and: Annales des Mines vol. 5
1834 pp. 587-591
Vicat, Louis Joseph (1786-1861): 'Observations diverses sur la
force et la duree des cables en fil de fer'
APC 1836 1·' sem. pp. 207-213
Vicat, Louis Joseph (1786-1861): 'Sur I'oxidation des fers dans
les constructions, sur I'inefficacite des enduits ou vernis et sur la
puissance preservatrice de la chaux et des mortiers'
APC 1853 1·' sem. pp.335-342. German translation in ABZ
Vienna Notizblatt May 1854 vol. 3 nr. 3/July 1854 vol. 3 nr. 4.
see answer by Dupuit APC 1854
Vicat, Louis Joseph, inspecteur general honoraire des Ponts et
chaussees, Createur de l'lndustrie des Liants Hydrauliques
1962 Paris: Imprimerie Nationale 65 pp. ills.
'Le Vieux Pont de la Caille' Journal de Geneve June 11, 1939
Vignoles, Olinthus J. (1819-?): Life of Charles Blacker Vig-
noles ... Soldier and civil engineer ... A reminiscence of early rail-
way history, by his son ...
1889 London: Longmans, Green, and Co. xx, (2), 407, 24 pp., ills.,
frontis.
Vince, Samuel (1749-1821): 'On the motion of bodies affected
by friction by the Rev. S. V., A. M. communicated by Anthony Shep-
ard, DDFRS, Plumian Professor of Astronomy and experimental
Philosophy at Cambridge' read 25 Nov. 1784 nr. 10, p. 165-189
+ pI. 7 Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London,
vol. 75 for the year 1785. 1785 London: sold by Lockyer, Davis,
and Peter Elmsly, Printers to the Royal Society VII, (1), 505, 20 pis.,
tables.
Vogel, Robert M.: Roebling's Delaware & Hudson Canal Aque-
ducts.
Smithsonian Studies in History and Technology no. 10
1971 Washington D. C: Smithsonian Institution Press
Wadell, Lawrence Austine (1854-?): 'Lhasa and its mysteries;
with 0 record of the expedition of 1903-1904 .. .' with 155 illus-
trations and maps
1905 London; 3rd ed. 1906 E. P. Dutton & Co. xx, 530 pp. ills.
Wagner, Rosemarie & Egermann, Ralph: Die ersten Draht-
Kabelbrucken. Beispiele Konstruktiver Ingenieurstatigkeit in der
Entwicklung des Bauingenieurs zum eigenstandigen Berufsstand
Sonderforschungsbereich 64 Weit gespannte Flachentragwerke
Universitat Stuttgart. 1987 Dusseldorf: Werder Verlag 251 pp. ills.
An internalist study of Navier, Seguin and Dufour organized by
Knut Gabriel
Walter, Caspar (1701-1768): 'Brucken-Bau, oder Anweisung, wie
allerley Arten von Brucken, sowohl von Holz als Steinen, nach den
besten Regeln der Zimmerkunst dauerhaft anzulegen sind. In zwei
Theilen jungen und unerfahrenen Zimmerleuten zum unterrichte
abgehandelt von C. w., Zimmer- und Stadt-Brunnen auch Bau-
geschworenen Wasserwerk-Meister in der lobI. Reichs-Stadt Augs-
burg'
1766 Augsburg: Gebruder Veith, pis. ills.
Weale, John ed. (1791-1862): 'Theory, Practise and Architecture
230 of Bridges of Stone, Iron, Timber and Wire; with examples on the
principle of suspension. Illustrated by one hundred and thirty-eight
engravings and ninety-two woodcuts'
1843 London: J. Weale 4 vols. in 3; 2nded. reissue with some
emendations 1855-1856 5 vols. in 4 (supplement vol. 1852- 1853)
London: J. Weale 1 & 2: XVI, 80, 88, 72, 140, IXIC, 248, CCXXIV pp.,
ills., frontis.!3: 69 pis., frontis.!4: 67 pis., IV, 144 pp., 30 pis., 56,
73 pp., 23 pis., frontis.
Werner, Ernst: 'Die ersten Ketten-" und Drahtseilbrucken. Technik-
geschichte in Einzeldarstellungen.' Verein Deutscher Ingenieure
nr.28
1973 Dusseldorf: VDI-Verlag
Werner, Ernst: 'Die Giesshalle der Sayner HUtte'
Zentralblatt fUr Industriebau 6, 1973 pp. 254-263, ills.
Westhofen, William: 'The Forth Bridge'. Reprinted from 'Engin-
eering', February 28, 1890
1890 London: Offices of 'Engineering' 4, 71 pp., 19 pis., ills.
Whitfoht, Hans: 'Triumpf der Spannweite'
1971; 2nd ed. English ed. Building Bridges. History, Technology,
Construction
1984 Dusseldorf: Beton-Verlag 327 pp. ills.
von Wiebeking, Karl Friedrich, Ritter (1762-1842): Beitrage zur
Wasser-, Brucken- und Strassenbaukunde
1809 Mannheim
von Wiebeking, Karl Friedrich, Ritter (1762-1842): Beitrage zur
Bruckenbaukunde der Bau und die Construction der eisernen
Brucken betreffend, von C. F. W ...
1809 Tubingen; 2nded. 1812 Munich: for the author XII, 39 pp.,
1 pI.
von Wiebeking, Karl Friedrich, Ritter (1762-1842): 'Memoire
sur des ponts suspend us en chaines de fer etc'.
1832 Munich. The most commonly found version of this is the ital-
ian translation: Memoria sui ponti sospesi a catene di ferro cos-
trutti in questi ultimi tempi nel'lnghilterra e nella Russia, del caval-
iere di W ... prima versione italiana di Basileo Soresina
1834 Mantua: Giosafatte e Fratelli Negretti 34 pp., 9 pis.
Zeitschrift fur Bauwesen. Berlin
Manuscripts
The Ecole nationale des ponts et chaussees in Paris owns a num-
ber of mss. concerning the early history of suspension bridge con-
struction. Some of these were used by Amouroux & Lemoine for
their study, notably: Belu 1807/Bruyere 1810 ms.233, vol. 24;
Pro ny, Navier, Brisson (on Bernard Poyet) 1821, ms.2116;
ms. 2438 and Cavenne ms.368. Several mss. by Thomas Telford
on his wire experiments are in the possession of the Iron bridge
Gorge Museum Trust. They are cited by Paxton. Further early
wire cable material, used by Gillespie, is to be found in the Seg-
uin archives, apparently at Annonay.
1: Analix, S.Ai Geneva: Bulletin d'analyse: anneau de chaine,
14 janvier 1970
2: Brocher, Ceard, Colla don, Dufour, Maurice, etc.: Enquete
sur Ie Pont des Bergues en 1834. 161 pp. ills.
Travaux E 13, State Archives, Geneva
3: Departements de Charente inferieure & Vienne: Travaux
d'art. 1815-1839. Manuscript record book of the Pants et Chaus-
sees with 6 wire cable and 1 chain bridge in Vienne. 208 pp. +
many blanks, 25 ink drawings and 10 large and folding drawings,
7 with water color
Centre Canadien d'Architecture, Montreal
Chaley see also nr. 6122123124/30
4: Chaley Joseph: A single plan for a suspension bridge over the
Aar River at Aarau, Switzerland, dated 1843 and signed 'Joseph
Chaley', is to be found in an uncatalogued collection of
mid-nineteenth century bridge proposals by many authors, stored
in a drawer in the Bauamt Aarau.
5: Commerce D 2 State Archives, Geneva
6: Construction et consolidation des Ponts suspendus de
Fribourg
1916 Departement des Pants et Chaussees, Fribourg
Cavour: see nr. 12
7: Culmann, Carl (1821-1881): 'Notes of a trip to Great Britain
and the United States 1849-1850' and ms copy of text of article
subsequently published in ABZ. Hauptbibliothek ETH Zurich
8: Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Pont des Tranchees
1822'
4 pp. + letter from Marc Seguin (1786-1875) to Marc Auguste
Pictet (1752-1825) 21 Aug., 1822 3 pp. + cost estimate by Se-
guin of the same date 11 pp. + 1 sketch by Seguin + 3 detail
sketches by Dufour
9: Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Projet de pont sus-
pendu en fil de fer a construire sur Ie Drac 1824'. 10 pp. + 1 plan
Travaux E 16, State Archives, Geneva
10: Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Pont des Paquis
execute en 1825'. 13 pp. + 2 sketches
Travaux E 16, State Archives, Geneva
11: Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Projet de Pont Sus-
pendu pour Frybourg'. Novembre 1825. 13 pp. + 2 sketches +
report by Navier: 'Rapport sur Ie projet de pont suspendu a con-
struire sur 10 Sarine a Fribourg'. 20 May, 1825. 17 pp. with sket-
ches + Dufour's answer: 'Observations sur Ie Rapport de M. Na-
vier' 4 pp.
Travaux E 16, State Archives, Geneva
12: Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Notebook of tests
on natural hydraulic lime. 9 May 1825-14 July 1826'. Travaux
E 16. State Archives, Geneva
13: Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Projet de Pont Sus-
pendu pour Ie Valentin sur Ie Po an 1826'. 20 pp. + letter from
Marchese Michele Antonio Benso de Cavour (1781-1850), to
Dufour, 30 April, 1826 5 pp. + 1 detail plan
Travaux E 16, State Archives, Geneva
14: Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Pont suspendu sur Ie
Rhone a 10 Coulouvreniere 1825'. 11 pp. + 1 sketch
Travaux E 16, State Archives, Geneva
15: Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Arrangement des
Bards du Rhone. Fevrier 1828'. Travaux E 16. State Archives,
Geneva
16: Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Devis et Calculs du
Pont en Cintres de fer fondu an 1830.' 17 pp. + 1 plan + several
notes. 2 pp. + 13 pp. Travaux E 16, State Archives, Geneva
17: Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Projet de Pont en
arches cintrees et en charpente pout etablir la Communication
entre les Quais de Rhone et des Bergues an 1830'. 42 pp. +
2 sketches + 1 letter written to Dufour from Paris 15 May, 1836,
2 pp. + letter from Navier to an unnamed Conseiller d'Etat, no
date, 4 pp.
Travaux E 16, State Archives, Geneva
18: Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Pont suspendu de
I'lie aux Barques execute en 1833'. 12 pp.
Travaux E 16, State Archives, Geneva
19: Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Note explicative du
nouveau Projet de Pont a etablir de la Fusterie aux 8ergues No-
vembre 1832'. 3 pp. + notes 2 pp. + 16 pp. + 15 pp. (1833) +
1 sketch + 14 pp. epreuves 1833-1834 + 4 pp. epreuves 1833
Travaux E 16, State Archives, Geneva
20: Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Pont de 10 Coulou-
vreniere (Fosse) execute en 1836'. Systeme nouveau. 12 pp. +
notes 2 pp. + 6 sketches + 5 pp. cost estimate
Travaux E 16, State Archives, Geneva
21: Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Pont de St.-Jean
1842'. 4 pp. + 1 plan. However, in fact, this plan belongs to the
earlier project for a bridge over the Rhone at la Coulouvreniere
of 1825.
Travaux E 16, State Archives, Geneva
22: Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): 'Devis descriptif et
estimatif d'un Pont suspendu a construire sur l'Arve entre Sierne et
Vilette. Janvier 1844.' 14 pp.
Travaux E 16, State Archives, Geneva
23: Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875): Lettre de Mr. Ie Co-
lonel Dufour, dat. Geneve 15 Avril 1844. Examen des deux Projets
de Pont Suspendu. (Examen des Projets de pont suspendu pre-
sentes par MM Lecrone et Chaley). 3 pp. + 24 pp.
Bauakten U 11, State Archives, Basel
Duleau see nr. 16
Ellet see nr. 25
24: Gremaud, Amadee (1841-1912): 'Notice sur Ie Pont de Cor-
bieres'. no date,
Departement des Pants et Chaussees, Fribourg
25: Hofer, Eduard: 'Der Beitrag des Kantons Fribourg zur Ge-
schichte des frGhen Hongebruckenbaus'. Unpublished diploma
thesis at the Architecture Department of the ETH Zurich 1979
(Prof. Dr. H. von Gunten)
26: Howard, Needles, Tammen & Bergendorf: 'Wheeling Sus-
231
 pension Bridge. Report on Bridge Condition, Stress Analysis and
Load Rating. May 1979'. Report to Commissioner Charles L. Miller.
West Virginia Department of Highways
27: Memorial du genie militaire nr. 10. State Archives, Geneva
28: Memorial des seances du Conseil representatif. 18231
1825/1832
State Archives, Geneva
29: Michel, Jean: 'Les annales des ponts et chaussees'. Typescript
19. Nov. 1981
30: Muller, Clotilde: 'Thomas Telford und seine EisenbrOcken'.
Unpublished diploma thesis at the Architecture Department of the
ETH Zurich 1979 (Prof. Dr. H. von Gunten)
31: Naegele, Reinhard: 'Erste DrahtkabelbrOcken 1822-1830'.
Unpublished diploma thesis at the Architecture Department of the
ETH Zurich 1979 (Prof. Dr. H. von Gunten)
Navier, see nr. 10 & nr. 16
32: Navier, Claude Louis Marie Henri (1785-1836): 'Rapport
sur Ie projet de pont suspendu a construire sur la Sarine a Fri-
bourg'. Part of nr. 8. This manuscript was written by a copist and is
not in Navier's hand as has been suggested by Stussi
33: Peters, Tom F. & Hauri Hans H.: 'The Development of Sus-
pension Bridge Construction from the earliest attempts to the be-
ginnings of wire cable suspension bridges'. Unpublished confer-
ence contribution to the Boston Convention of the American So-
ciety of Civil Engineers, April 2-6. 1979 (Preprint nr. 3590: Hauri &
Peters)
Pictet see nr. 7
34: Rapport memoire de la commission etablie pour la construc-
tion du Grand Pont sur la Sarine 1829.
State Archives, Fribourg
35: Registre du Conseil d'Etat 1B22 {2 e sem)/1823 {2 e sem)1
232
1825 {2 e sem)/1828 {l e' sem)/1289 (1 e, sem). State Archives,
Geneva
35a: Seguin brothers: Letter to the Prussian Ambassador in Paris,
Baron de Werther 10. April 1835
Hauptstaatsarchiv DOsseldorf
Seguin, Jules: see nr. 3
Seguin, Marc: see Dufour nr. 7 letter to M.A. Pictet, cost esti-
mate, sketch for Saint Antoine Bridge
36: Schadlich, Christian: 'Das Eisen in der Architektur des
19. Jahrhunderts. Beitrag zur Geschichte eines neuen Baustoffs'.
Habilitationsschrift zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades
Dr.-Ing. habil. Angenommen von der Fakultiit Architektur der Hoch-
schule fOr Architektur und Bauwesen Weimar 1, XI, 381, 10 pp. +
many unnumbered plates
37: Smithsonian Institution: Information abstracted from a file of
correspondance loaned to Llewellyn N. Edwards, U.S. Bureau of
Public Roads, Washington D. c., by Prof. Richard S. Kirby, School
of Engineering, Yale University, New Haven, Conn., which relates
to James Finley, Esq., inventor of the American chain suspension
bridge, patented June 17, 1808. Copy dated 26 May, 1937 in the
possession of Robert M. Vogel, Smithsonian Institution, Washing-
ton D.C.
38: Tang, Huan-Cheng: Collection of letters to Tom F. Peters on
the history of suspension bridge construction in China
Telford see nr. 27129/39/39
39: TravauxA 10/11/13/14/17/19121122123125/58/68 State
Archives, Geneva
40: Travaux AA 21127/33 State Archives, Geneva
41: Tribunal de Commerce, jur.civ. CCm nr. 3 Docu 28 Avril
18281 nr. 5 Extraits d'actes de Societe de 1841 a 1845, vol. 4.
State Archives, Geneva
Index
Persons
Adam, W. Bridges 168
Albenga, Giuseppe 212
Albert, Wilhelm August Julius (1787-1846) 169, 220
d'Alembert, Jean Le Rond (1717-1783) French philosopher,
encyclopedist, mathematician 44, 50
Alexander the Great of Macedonia (356-323 BC)
Macedonian king and conqueror 16
Ammann, Othmar Hermann (1879-1965) Swiss-American
bridge engineer 94, 201 f
Amontons, Guillaume (1663-1705) French physicist,
mechanic 135
Amouroux, Dominique 212
Amouroux, Pierre. French historian of engineering 144, 173,
230
Anderson, John. Scots bridge builder, beginning 19th cent. 37,
38,180,212
Apollodrus 176
Archimedes (c. 287-212 BC) Greek philosopher,
mathematician 50, 77, 78
d'Argenson, Comte 43
Aris, Michael. British Tibetologist 212
Aristoteles 21
Arnodin, Ferdinand (1845-1924) French industrialist, bridge
builder, heir to the Seguin bridge firm 134, 155, 161, 168,
171,212
Aubry, Charles Louis (1746-?) French Inspecteur-general des
turcies et levees from 1787-1791 57
Baeschlin, Carl Fridolin (1881-?) Swiss professor 62, 213, 216,
228
Baker, Benjamin 20
Bannister, Turpin C. United States architectural historian 213
Bardeschi, Marco D. 119, 213
Barlow, Peter (1776-1862) British material technologist,
professor 34, 56, 85 f, 144, 213
Barre de Saint-Vena nt, Adhemar Jean Claude (1797-1886)
French engineer, professor 53, 224
Baudraud, Etienne Franc;ois Henri (1774-1848) French general
de 10 Baume, Pierre, see La Baume 61, 63
Bayard de la Vingtrie, perhaps Ferdinand Marie (1768-after
1836) French officer, traveller 156
Beaudemoulin, Louis Alexis (1790-1875) French Ingenieur en
chef des Ponts et Chaussees 169, 213
Becker, Gerard 21,213
Becker, Max 164, 213
Becquey, Louis (1760-1849) French Directeur des ponts et
Chaussees 42, 66, 70, 146f, 223, 226
Becquey-Beaupre, Joseph Marie Stanislas (1751-1834) French
professor of mechanics at Ecole des Ponts et Chaussees in
1776 190
Behrnauer 42, 213, 227
Bellandollngenieur en chef des ponts et Chaussees 185
Belidor, Bernard Forrest (or Forest) (1697-1761)
Catalan/French engineer 43f, 51 f, 213
Belin (1800-?) 175
Bellet, Daniel 218
Belu 173, 179, 230
Bender, Charles Balthasar. German-American engineer 28,
164, 173f, 213
Benso de Cavour see: Cavour
Berg, C. F. W. German writer on bridges, beginning
19th cent. 37, 119, 213
Bergier, Jean Franc;ois. Swiss historian, professor 24, 213
Bernard, Honore Gabriel (1789-1866) French naval engineer,
educator 221,227
Bernoulli, Daniel (1700-1782) Swiss mathematician, physicist,
son of Johann 58
Bernoulli, Jakob (1654-1705) Swiss mathematician, physicist,
professor in Basel, brother of Johann, father of
Niklaus 50,51,52, 55, 58, 213
Bernoulli, Johann (1667-1748) Swiss mathematician, professor
in Groeningen and Basel, brother of Jakob and father of
Daniel and Niklaus II 50,51,58,75,213
Bernoulli, Niklaus (1687-1759) Swiss mathematician, lawyer,
philosopher, professor in Padua and Basel, son of Jakob,
or Niklaus II (1695-1726) lawyer, mathematician,
professor in Berne, son of Johann 58
Berthollet, Comte Claude Louis (1748-1822) French physician,
chemist, professor Ecole polytechnique 56, 86, 213
Billington, David Peter. American engineer, professor in
Princeton 85, 101, 213
Birch, Thomas, American painter 29
Bischoffsberger Swiss bridge builder mid-19th cent. 208
Biucchi, B. M. historian 40, 213
Blenkinsop, John (1783-1831) British engineer 135
Blondel 221
Bodmer, Johann Georg (John George) (1786-1864): Zurich
engineer, early 19th cent. 41
Bodmer, Johann Jakob (1698-1783) Zurich historian, poet 58
Bodson de Noirfontaine, Alphonse. French engineer 214
Bogardus, James (1800-1874) American engineer,
contractor 167 f, 213
du Bois-Reymond, R. 215
Bolliger, Jakob. Swiss historian 214
Bonaparte, Louis Napoleon = Napoleon III (1808-1873)
French emperor 58, 64, 65
Bonaparte, (Bonaparte) Napoleone = Napoleon I
(1769-1821) French emperor 33,47,49,55,60,62,191
Bonaparte, Paulette 119
Bordillion French engineer, contractor 169
Borghese, Principe Camillo Filippo Lodovico (1775-1832)
husband of Paulina Bonaparte 119 233
 Boscovich, Ruggiero Giuseppe (1711-1789) jesuit mathema-
tician, astronomer, professor of mathematics and
philosophy 50, 221
Bossut, Charles (1730-1814) abbe, jesuit mathematician,
professor at Mezieres, examinateur at the Ecole polytech-
nique 44, 47, 51
de Boulogne French engineer, 2nd half 19th cent. 109, 110,
134, 161, 171,214
Boutton 39
Bourgeois, Pierre. Swiss National Librarian 213, 216f
Bourgnion, Alphonse see: Duleau
Bridge, Antoine 114
Brissaud, E. 214
Brisson, Barnabe (1777-1828) professor of construction at
Evole des Ponts et Chaussees, editor of Monge's works,
husband of Monge's niece 56, 57, 223
Brocher either: Jacques Etienne (1802-1880) Genevan poli-
tician, Jacques Louis (1808-1884) Genevan architect, or
Charles Antoine (1811-1884) Genevan lawyer,
professor 202, 214, 230
Brock, Georg 167
Brown, Sir Samuel (1776-1852) Captain, British engineer 32,
75, 85, 95, 105, 115 f, 169
Brunei, Isambard Kingdom (1806-1859) British engineer, son
of Sir Marc
Brunei, Sir Marc Isambard (1769-1849) French/US/British
engineer, father of Isambard 28, 75, 87, 105, 109, 110,
132, 198, 200, 225
Brunton, Robert (1796-1852) British engineer 135
Bruyere, Louis (1758-1831) Inspecteur general des Ponts et
Chaussees, member, governing council of Ponts et
Chaussees, educator 197, 230
Buchs, Viktor 214
Buffington, Leroy S. 168
de Buffon, Comte Georges Louis Leclerc (1707-1788) French
naturalist, writer 44, 55, 164, 214
Calvin, (Cauvin) Jean (1509-1564) French/Genevan religious
reformer 40
Caminada, Leo 20,21
Camus, Charles Etienne Louis (1699-1768) French
educator 44, 51
de Candolle, Augustin Pyramus (1778-1841) Genevan
botanist, professor Geneva/Montpellier 66, 71, 93
Canta Lupi, Antonio 214
Capo d'istria, Conte Giovanni Antonio (1776-1831) Italian/
GenevanlVaudois diplomat 39
Carlo Alberto King of Sardinia 65
Carriere de Baudin-Chateauneuf, Robert. French engineer 214
Carteret, Genevan industrialist 88
Cassini de Thury, Cesar Franc;ois (1714-1784) French cartog-
rapher 64
Cauchy, Baron Augustin Louis (1789-1857) French mathema-
tician 49, 52, 223
di Cavour, Conte Camillo Benso di Cavour (1810-1861)
Italian statesman 65, 137
di Cavour, Marchese Michele Antonio Benso di Cavour
234
(1781-1850) Savoyard/Sardinian statesman 65, 137, 141,
229,231
Ceard Robert Louis Astolphe (1781-1860) Genevan
politician 190, 194, 197, 202, 206, 230
de Cessart, Louis Alexandre 189
Chaley, Joseph (1795-1861) French physician and suspension
bridge engineer 67, 82, 93, 100, 141, 142, 149, 152-167,
169,170,176, 178f, 214, 218, 229, 231
Chaponniere. Genevan pastor in Annonay 66
Chaptal, Jean Antoine, Comte de Chanteloup (1756-1832)
French chemist, organizer of Ecole polytechnique,
statesman 47
Chapuisat, Edouard (1874-?) Swiss historian 141, 214 f
Charles X, Bourbon, King of France 63
Charlton, Edouard 54,214
de Chastillon, Nicolas (?-1765) military governor of
Mezieres 44
Chaumont de la Milliere. Directeur Corps des Ponts et
Chaussees 45
de Chezy, Antoine (1718-1798) French hydraulic engineer
and educator, Directeur Ecole des Ponts et chaussees 45f,
51
Cherab-Oeser see Thang-stong rGyal-po
Chrimes, Mike. Librarian Institution of Civil Engineers,
London 93,214,224
Chu-Hsien-Yuan Chinese 17th cent. technologist 23
Clairault, Alexis Claude (1713-1765) French
mathematician 50
Clark, William Tierney. British engineer 180
Cochard 214
Cog nard, J. D. 208
Colbert, Jean Baptiste (1619-1683) French statesman 42
Coligny. French admiral 25
Colladon, Jean Daniel (1801-1893) Genevan Lawyer,
engineer, professor Ecole des Arts et Metiers 58, 62, 142,
202,214,230
Condorcet, Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de
Condorcet (1743-1794) French statesman, philosopher,
economist 44
Corboz, Andre 24
Cordier, Joseph Louis Etienne (1775-1849) French
engineer 31, 34, 35, 36, 42, 69, 214
de Coriolis, (Gustave) Gaspard (1792-1843) French mathe-
matician, engineer, educator 49,50,214
Corson, David 212
Coulomb, M. 222
Coulomb, Charles Augustin (1736-1806) French engineer,
physicist 51, 52, 53, 86, 123, 135, 214f
Couplet des Tartreux, Pierre (?-1744) French
mathematician 215
von Crell, Lorenz Florenz Friedrich (1744-1816) German
chemist 215
Cremona 54
Ie Creuzot 193
Crozet, Louis Joseph Mathias (1784-1853) 68, 120, 145
Culmann, Carl (1821-1881) German/Swiss engineer, theoret-
ician, educator 49,54, 224, 231
Cumming, T. G. British engineering writer, early 19th cent. 27,
29,48,215
Danysi, (Danyzy) Augustin Auguste Hyacinthe (1698-1777)
French mathematician 215
Darby, Abraham III 188
Darmstaedter, Ludwig (1846-1927) German encyclopedist of
history of technology 169, 215
Darrier. workman Geneva mid-19th cent. 197
Daumas, Maurice (?-1984) French historian 67, 68, 79, 126,
215
Davila, Enrico Caterino (1578-1631) Italian historian 215
Delessert, (Jules Paul) Benjamin (1773-1849) French/Genevan
banker, industrialist 115-117, 123, 126, 134, 156, 220,
228
Des Arts, Ami Jean (1798-1866) Genevan lawyer 208
Descartes, Rene (1596-1650) French philosopher, encyclope-
diste 44
Deschamps, Claude (1765-1843) French engineer 56, 185,
192, 195
Deuel, Leo 13, 215
Diderot, Denis (1713-1784) French philosopher 44
de Diesbach 215
Dietlein, J. F. 166, 223
Dingler 215
Dizerans 208
Dodd, Ralph (1756-1822) British engineer 37, 220
Doret 208
Douglass. British engineer, erstwhile assistant to Telford 189f,
196
Dredge, James. British suspension bridge engineer
mid-19th cent.76, 164, 171, 229
Drewry, Charles Stewart (1805-1881) British engineering
writer 31,34,90,111,123,146,161,173,180,181,215
Dufour, Benedict. Genevan watchmaker, father of G. H.
Dufour 58f
Dufour, Guillaume Henri (1787-1875) Swiss engineer,
statesman, politician, general 12, 35, 57-66, 70, 72, 73,
78-97,100-128,130-145,146,147, 149f, 156-159, 164,
166f, 171-181, 183-188, 190, 191-194, 196-209, 213,
215ff, 224, 226f, 230-232
Duhamel du Monceau, Henri Louis (1700-1784) 35, 217
Duleau, alias for Bourgnion, Alphonse Jean Claude
(1789-1832) French engineer, eductor 51, 56f, 60, 78, 85,
86,93, 122, 185, 187,217, 231
Dulk, G. German engineering wirter 114, 203, 217
Dupin, Baron (Pierre) Charles (Franc;:ois) (1784-1873) French
engineer, mathematician, economist, educator 42,50f,
55, 61, 83, 94, 194, 216f, 228
Duprez. French master carpenter under architect Hittorff 167
Dupthop Than Tong Gyelpo see: Thong Stong rGyal-po
Dupuit, Arsime Jules Emile Juvenal (1804-1866) French
engineer 170, 217 f
Duret. Physician, friend of the Seguins at Annonay 69
Duroverey. Genevan industrialist 88
Dutens, Joseph Michel (1765-1848) French engineer 42, 87,
218,224
Duval. either: Jacob Louis (1797 -?) Genevan politician; Jacob
David (1768-1844) Genevan politician; Louis Etienne Jean
Franc;:ois (1782-?) Genevan politician 192
von Dyck, Walther. German historian 218, 226
Egermann, Ralph. German engineer 48, 67, 75, 230
Eiffel, (Alexandre) Gustave (1832-1923) French engineer 49,
54,161,205
Eisenmann, Armand Joseph (1758-1838) German/French
engineer, professor Ecole des Ponts et Chaussees 52
Ellet, Charles Jr. (1811-1862) United States officer,
engineer 31,36,68,82,95, 155, 164, 166, 208, 218, 231
Elton, Julia. British historian of engineering, antiquarian book
dealer 110, 119, 155, 161, 187, 191, 192,212, 217f, 221,
228
Emmery, Henri Charles (1789-1842) French engineer 218
Emy, Armand Rose (1771-1851) French engineer, officer 56,
184
Endres, Ernest (1814-?) French engineer, assistant to
Chaley 162, 163, 166, 214, 218
Epprecht, Willfried. Swiss engineer, metallurgist, educator 21,
218
Esterer, Maximilian. German eng., writer on suspension
bridges in China, early 20th cent. 15, 17, 218
Euler, Johann Albert (1734-1800) Swiss/Russian
mathematician, son of Leonhard 58
Euler, Leonhard (1707-1783) Swiss mathematician, student of
Johann Bernoulli 28,44,50,51,53,58,75,218
Eustache, Franc;:ois Jonas (1778-1839) French engineer 185
Eytelwein, Johann Albert (1764-1848) Prussian engineer,
educator 48,52, 118, 218
Fairbairn, Sir William, Baronet (1789-1874) British engineer,
industrialist 56, 192, 218
Fangui. Chinese general, Han dynasty 17
Fatio, Antoine Guillaume Henri (1775-1840) Genevan
politician 71, 126, 136, 195
Favre, R. Swiss engineer 218
Fazy, Jean Jacob (called 'James') (1794-1840) Genevan
politician 142
Fazy, Marc Antoine (called UFazy-PasteurU) (1778-1857)
Genevan industrialist, politician 70
Feline Romany, (1806-1878) French engineer 218
Figuier, (Guillaume) Louis (1819-1894) French scientist,
popular science writer 38, 66, 218
Finch, James Kip. United States historian 218
Finley, James (1762-1828) United States judge, politician,
engineer 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 69, 124, 173, 180, 197,
218, 224, 232
Fischer, Georg. Schaffhausen (Swiss) industrialist, eng. early
19th cent. 41
Fischer von Erlach, Johann Bernhard (1656-1723) Austrian
engineer, architect 23, 24, 219
Flachat, Eugene (1801-1873) French engineer 16lf, 163,219
Fleur, widow. French industrialist, wire manufacturer in
Besanc;:on 91
Fol, Jacques Daniel (1763-1837) Genevan watchmaker, poli- 235
tician 59
 Forstner, Ludwig Christ. Friedr. 212
Fortier, Bruno. historian of engineering 219
de Fourcroy, Comte Antoine Frans;ois (1755-1809) French
chemist, statesman, education reformer 46, 47
Fourcy (Gouchin), Ambroise 219
Fox, Sir Charles (1810-1874) British engineering
contractor 184
Frazer, James Bailie (1783-1856) British traveller 13, 219
Fresnel, Augustin Jean (1788-1827) French physicist 61
Fresnel, Leonor Franc;ois (1790-1869) engineer, Secr. Gen.
Ponts et Chaussees, Director of Lighthouses 61
Frezier, Amadee Franc;:ois (1682-1773) French military
engineer, traveller 44, 219
Fugl-Meyer, Helge. Danish engineer in China, early
20th cent. 13,15, 16, 17,22,219
von Fuss, Niklaus (1755-1826) Swiss/Russian mathematician,
student and famulus of L. Euler 28,58, 75f
Gabriel, Jacques II (1667-1742) first Premier Ingenieur des
Ponts et Chaussees 43
Gabriel, Knut 230
Galatin. Genevan officer 208
Galilei, Galileo (1564-1642) Italian physicist 55, 228
Gallatin, Albert Abraham Alphonse (1761-1848) Genevan/
United States statesman 34f, 40, 214, 219
Garbett, E. L. British inventor 168, 219
de la Garenne. French engineer 185
Gauthey, Emiland Marie (1732-1806) French engineer,
professor Ecole des Ponts et Chaussees, Navier's uncle
and mentor 52, 56, 86, 183, 191, 219
Gautier, Emile 218
Gautier, Hubert (166'0-1737) French engineer 219,221
Gellibert des Seguins, Nicolas Prosper (1788- 1861) French
officer 61
George II, English king 40
von Gerstner, Ritter Franz Joseph (1756-1832) Austrian
engineer, founder and professor Prague Polytechnic
Institute, father of Franz Anton 47,75,86, 93, 219, 223
·von Gerstner, Ritter Franz Anton (1793-1840) Austrian
engineer, son of Franz Joseph 145, 219
Gibb, Sir Alexander (1872-1958) British engineer, Telford
biographer 34, 48, 195, 219
Giese, E. German builder, mid 19th cent. 168
Giffard, Henri (1825-1882) French inventor 67, 228
Gilbert, Davies (1767-1839) British mathematician 48, 219
Gillespie, Charles Coulston. United States historian 51,54, 70,
75,219,230
Gillmor, Charles Stewart. United States historian 42, 219
Girard, Pierre Simon (1765-1836) French engineer,
educator 42, 55, 70, 84, 93, 219
Gonin 214
Gordon, James Edward (b. 1913) British material
technologist 86, 169, 180, 219
Gorman, James F. 0' 168
Graefe, Reiner. German engineering historian 166, 167, 168,
236 219
Graham, colonel 181
Gras 214
Gregory, David (1661-1708) British mathematician 75, 219
Gremaud, Amadee (1841-1912) Swiss engineer, Cantonal
Engineer Fribourg 111, 156, 178, 220, 231
Gremier, J. E. 33
Grezet, J. D. Sr. 208
Gross, Johann 183, 220
Grubenmann, Hans Ulrich (1709-1783) Swiss master
carpenter, bridge builder 180, 181, 183, 185
Gubler, Jacques. Swiss historian 220
Guermente, G. French engineering writer 69, 212, 220f
Guyonneau see: de Pambour
Hachette, Jean Nicolas Pierre (1769-1834) French mathema-
tician, educator 60f, 223
von Haller, Albrecht (1708-1777) Bernese physician, botanist,
mathematician, poet, student of Johann Bernoulli,
educator 58
Harrison 24
Hartung, Giselher. German industrial archaeologist,
architect 220
d'Haussez, Baron Charles Lemercier de Longpre (1778-1854)
French politician 119
Hauri, Hans Heinrich. Swiss engineer, educator 10, 74, 83, 94,
183,220,232
Hawks, William. British engineer, early 19th cent. 33
Hay, Sir John, baronet. client of early Scottish suspension
bridge 1817 36
Hazard, Erskine. United States businessman, early
19th cent. 34, 36, 37, 68, 179
Healy, John F. historian of metallurgy 220
Hedin, Sven Anders (1865-1952) Swedish traveller 220
Henderson. British contractor mid-19th cent. 184
Herodotus (c. 484-424 BC) Greek historian 25
Heyer, Jean (1773-1859) Genevan pastor, pedagogue 71,
112
Heyman, Jacques. British engineer, educator 51,214,220
Hildenbrand, Wilhelm. engineer end 19th cent 220
Hittorff, Jean Ignace (1792-1867) French architect 167 f, 220
Hodgkinson, Eaton (1789-1861) British engineering theore-
tician, educator 48, 56, 144, 220, 229
Hofer, Eduard. Swiss architect 156, 178,220,231
Hoppe, O. 169,220
Hortense, queen 64
Hoskin 191
Howard, Needles, Tammen & Bergendoff. United States
engineering firm 231
Howe 124
Hruban, Ivo B. Czech engineering historian 25, 166,220
Huebsch, Heinrich. German engineer, early 19th cent. 167,
220
Hug. German engineer in Geneva, mid-19th cent. 142, 143,
148,149
von Humboldt, Graf (Friedrich Wilhelm Henrich) Alexander
(1769-1859) Prussian naturalist, traveller 40
Hume, John R. historian of engineering 38, 220
Hupeau (?-1763) Premier Ingenieur des Ponts et
Chaussees 43
Hutchinson, William 220, 27 eyron, director of Ponts et Chaussees in St. Petersburg,
Huygheng, Christian 75 educator 221
Lan-Jin 27
d'ivernois, Fran<;ois (Sir Francis) (1757 -1842) Genevan de Laplace, Pierre Simon, Marquis (1749-1827) French
revolutionary 59 astronomer, engineering educator 46, 61
Lorch 82
Jacquier, Fran<;ois (1711-1788) French jesuit Laur-Belart, Rudolf. Swiss historian 24, 25, 221
mathematician 50, 221 Lavater, Johann Kaspar (17 41-1801) Zurich pastor, writer 58
Jakkula, Arne Arthur (l904-1955) Finnish/United States Leather 191
engineer, educator, bibliographer of suspension Leblanc, P. French engineer 163, 169, 221
bridges 144,220 Lecointe, Alfred. French engineering writer 167, 221, 226
James, John G. British engineer, engineering historian 37, 189, Leconte 161
220 Lecrone 231
Janin, (Alexandre) Fran<;ois. Genevan politician Lee, Richard. Scottish cloth manufacturer, client early Scottish
19th cent. 142 suspension bridge 1816 36
Jeanrenaud, Fran<;ois. Neuchatelois (Swiss) suspension bridge Legrand, Baptiste Alexis Victor (1791-1848) French engineer,
builder 149 educator, director Ponts et Chaussees, co-student of
Jekel, Franz Joseph (?-1809) Austrian master carpenter, Dufour at Ecole polytechnique 60 f, 61
bridge builder 85, 183, 220 Le Haitre, P. L. French engineer 177
Jenney, William Le Boron (1832-1907) United States, Lehaitre. perhaps the some? 168
architect, engineer, officer 49 von Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Freiherr (1646-1716) German
Jezeler, Christof (1734-1791) Swiss mathematician, physicist, mathematician, philosopher 44, 135
building inspector, student of Leonhard Euler 85, 94, 221 Leinekugl Le Cocq, G. French engineer 221
Jollois, Jean Baptiste Prosper (l77 6-1842) French Lemoine, Bertrand. French engineering historian 230
engineer 171 Lemoine 144, 173
Jordon, James 191 Le Moyne, Nicolas Rene Desire (1796-1875) 221
Jourawski, D.J. (1821-1891) Russian engineering Lesage, Pierre Charles (17 40-1810). French engineer,
theoretician 54 Vice-director of Ecole des Ponts et Chaussees 41, 45, 212,
Jourdan. French engineer 68, 120, 145 221
Julien, French engineer 185 Le Sage, Georges Louis (1724-1803) Genevan scientist 40
Junod. Genevan mason, 1830 s 197 Le Seur (Sueur), Thomas (1703-1770) Jesuit
mathematician 50, 221, 225
Kaeser. Swiss bridge builder 157 de Lesseps, Ferdinand 209
Kemp, Emory L. United States engineer, engineering historian, Leupold, Jacob (1674-1727) German mechanic, compiler of
educator 27,33,37, 146,221 Theatrum Mechanorum, Counciller of Mines,
Kerisel, Jean Luhueron 221 correspondant of Berlin Academy 10
Killer, Josef. Swiss engineer, historian 179, 189,221 Lewenton, G. 221
Kircher, Athansius (l602-1680) German jesuit, philosopher, Lewis, Gene D. 164, 166, 218, 221
mathematician, oriental linguist, popular science writer, de Liancourt, Due. education reformer 45
educator 22, 23, 26, 27, 221 Li Bing. Chinese Governor of Sichuan in Qin Dynasty 14
Kollros, H. L. 213 Libusha. Legendary Slavic princess of the Middle Ages 25
Kuschelbauer 221 Lindenthal, Gustav (1850-1935) Austrian/United States bridge
Kutschera, J. G. 223 engineer 169
Kuzmanovic, Bogodan O. 75, 221 Locart, E. French engineer 222
Louis XIV. Bourbon. King of France 43
Louis XVI. Bourbon. King of France 40
de La Baume, Pierre (l477 -1544) Savoyard/Genevan Prince Louis Philippe, Bourbon. King of France 63
Bishop 40 Lythall, Richard 222
Labeley, Charles (?-1770) Swiss/British engineer 44
Lacuee, Geard Jean, Comte de Cessac (1752-1841) Military Machault. French Comptroller General 43
Governor of Ecole poly technique 60 Mohon, see: Stanhope, Charles
Lafeniere 87 Malberg. German engineer, engineering writer 222
Lagrange, Joseph Louis, Comte (1736-1813) French Mollet, Robert 137, 222
mathematician, educator 46 Mansard, Hardouin. French architect 43
Lamonde, Mande Corneille (1776-1837) French engineer 190 Moo, Dsedong (1893-1976) Chinese revolutionary, statesman,
Lamblardie, Jacques Elie (17 47 -1797) French politicion, Chairman of Communist Party of Chino 17, 224
educator 45, 46, 52 Marcellis, Ch. 192
Lome, Gabriel (1795-1870) French engineer, friend of Clap- Marchal, P. E. 66, 67, 69, 70, 124, 222, 227 237
 Marchetti, Alessandro (1632-1714) Italian mathematician 55,
222
Mariotte, Edme (1620-1684) French abbe, physicist 44, 55
Marshal, John. British engineering history encyclopedist 222
Martin, (Fran<;ois Marie) Emile (1794-1871). French metallur-
gist, father of Pierre Emile 222
Martin, Paul Edmond. Swiss historian 114, 222
Martin, Pierre Dominique. French engineer 222
Martin, Pierre Emile (1824-1915), inventor of Siemens-Martin
steel manufacturing process, son of Fran<;ois Marie
Emile 161
Martini, Martino (1614-1661) Italian jesuit cartographer,
sinologist 222
Mary, Louis Charles (1791-1870) French editor of Annales des
Ponts et Chaussees, educator 49, 93, 131, 222
Maude,lJ. 222
Maudsley, Henry 206
Massuet, Pierre (1698-1776) French naturalist, historian 86,
223
Maurice, Frederic Guillaume (1750-1826) Genevan lawyer,
botanist, politician, mayor, co-founder of Bibliotheque
Britannique 41,216
Maurice, (Louis Frederic) Paul Emile (1805-1854) Genevan
military engineer 193 f, 195, 197, 202, 206, 230
Maxwell, James Clerk. British physicist 54
Mayniel, K. French engineering theoretician 222
McAdam, John Loudon. British road engineer 42
von Mechel, Christian (1737-1817). Balois printer 179, 185,
222
Mehrtens, Georg Christoph (1843-1917) German engineer,
educator, engineering historian 25, 70, 133, 163, 164,
190,191,222
Mellet 222
Menn, Christian. Swiss engineer, educator 156
Mersenne, Marin (1588-1648) French philosopher,
musician 86
Messina, Claudio. Italian historian of engineering 155, 161,
222
Mezieres 44
Michel, Jean. Archivist Ecole nationale des Ponts et
Chaussees 42,44, 191, 212, 222, 232
Mills, A. P. United States engineer 32, 222
von Mitis, Ferdinand Edler v. M. (1791-1856) Austrian
engineer, brother of Ignaz 117-119, 124, 156,223
von Mitis, Ignaz Edler v. M. (1771-1842) Austrian engineer,
brother of Ferdinand 117
Mohr, Otto. German eng. theoretician 54
Moisieff, Leon Solomon (1872-1943) RussianlUnited States
engineer, theoretician 96
Molard, Claude Pierre (1758-1837) French engineer; or:
Fran<;ois Emmanuel (1774-1829) French professor of
mechanics 69,70, 78, 93, 126, 179
de Monceau, Duhamel 55, 226
Mondesir. French engineer 168
Monge, Gaspard, Comte de Peluze (1746-1818) French math-
ematician, educator, metallurgist, statesman 44, 46f,
50-52, 54f, 60f, 76, B6, 213, 217, 223
238
de Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, Baron (1689-1755)
French historian, lawyer 59
Ie Montgolfier, Joseph Michel (17 40-1Bl 0) balloonist, Director
of Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, brother of Jacques
Etienne 66f, 91, 219
de Montgolfier Jacques Etienne (1745-1799) balloonist,
brother of Joseph Michel 66, 219
de Montplaisir, Hericart. French engineer 69, 223
Montrand, Margot 223
Morf, Ulrich. Swiss engineer 21,34
Morin, Arthur Jules (1795-1880) French mathematician,
officer, educator 135, 223
Morton, Eleanor United States historian 34, 36, 223
Mueller, Clotilde, Swiss architect 223, 232
Muetzenberg, Gabriel. Swiss historian 39,58, 70r, 79, 16B,
223
Muheim, Hans. Urner (Swiss) politician 25, 223
van Musschenbroek, Pieter (1692-1761) Dutch physicist 55,
86,93,233
Mutz, A. Swiss metallurgist 227
Nabokov, N. Russian engineer end of 19th cent. 167 f
Nagele, Reinhard. German architect 112, 139, 223, 232
Napoleon lilli, see: Bonaparte
Nash, John 191
Navier, Claude Louis Marie Henri (1785-1836) French
engineer, theoretician, educator 21, 35-37,42, 4B-54,
56f, 60-62, 69f,7 4,79, B7 f, 94-96, 104, 109, l1lf, 119,
121-124,132,137,139,145-147,153,156,166,173,
177, 17B-180, lB3, lB5-1B7, 190, 193f, 19Bf, 208, 213,
215f,21Bf,223-225,228,230-232
Necker, Jacques (1732-1 B04) GenevanlFrench banker,
Finance Minister, Father of de Stael. 40
Needham, Joseph. British historian, sinologist, biologist 14,
17, lB, 22, 224
Negrelli 214
Neuman, Aubrey. British historian 40, 242
Newail. Scottish inventor 169
Newton, Sir Isaac (1643-1727) British physicist,
philosopher 50
Nicoletti, Rinaldo 217
Nieumeijer 110
Noble, James. British architect. drew plans of Paquis
Bridge 131
de Noilles, Alexis 229
de Norbeck, Texier 57
Noyon. French engineer 224
Odier-Beaulacre 20B
O'Gorman, James F. US architectural historian 224
Ordish, Roland Mason. British engineer 76, 11 0, 162, 171
Orlandi, Giulio Lensi 119,224
d'Orieans, Duc 115
Ostenfeld, Christian. Danish engineer, educator, engineering
historian 66, 144, 223 f
Paine, Thomas (1737 -lB09) United States revolutionary,
engineer 189
Paine, T. biographer of Mao 77, 244
de Pambour, Comte Fran<,:ois Marie Guyonneau (1795-?)
French engineer, theoretician 136, 224
Panuzio, Giovanni 224
Paolini, Leonardo. Italian historian of engineering 222
Parent, Antoine (1666-1716) French physicist,
mathematician 55, 224
Parsons, William Barclay (l859-1932) British engineering
historian 86, 224
Pasley, Sir Charles William (1780-1861) British engineer,
officer, educator, material technologist 57, 144
Passy, 116
von Pauli, Friedrich August German engineer,
educator 205-206
Paxton, Richard. British engineering historian 34, 88, 224, 230
Pearson, Karl (1857-1936). British engineering historian 55,
228
Pelaz, J. F. 208
Pelletier 214
Penfold, Alastair. British engineering historian 790, 224
Pepignon, J. P. 208
Perronet, Jean Rodolphe (1708-1794) French/Neuchatelois
(Swiss) engineer, educator, Premier Ingenieur des Ponts et
Chaussees 43,44, 45, 46, 48, 49, 51, 52, 56, 86
Pestalozzi, (Johann) Heinrich (1746-1827) Zurichois
pedagogue 58
Peters, Bernhard (b. 1910), Danish physicist 728
Petiet, Jules Alexandre (1813-1871) French engineer, director
Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures 161, 162, 163,
219
Peyer, Hans Konrad 25
Phillips, John A. 214, 225
Phillorme, Bernard 156
Pichard 214
Pictet ('de Rochemont'), Charles (1755-1824) Genevan
diplomat, politician, reformer, co-founder of Bibliotheque
Britannique, brother of Marc Auguste 41, 58, 70
Pictet, Marc Auguste (1752-1825) Genevan lawyer,
philosopher, physicist, educator, co-founder of
Bibliotheque Britannique, brother of Charles 41, 58, 59,
66,68,70,71,72,73,79,85,86,115,173,177,215,225,
23lf
de Plagniol. French Ing. en chef Dept. Ardeche 69, 70, 78, 93,
126,152,179
de Plaisance, Due 115
Plinius, Caius Secundus ('Pliny the Elder') (23-79) 16, 25, 225
Poccobelli, Giulio (1766-1843) Tieino politician, engineer 157,
160
Poggendorff, J. C. German encyclopedist of science and
technology 224, 225
Poleni, Giovanni, Marchese (1683-1761) Italian physicist,
mathematician 56, 86, 221, 225
Poletti, Luigi (1792-1869) Italian educator 119, 225
Polo, Marco (1250/54-1323124) Italian traveller,
tradesman 74,225
Polonceau, Antoine Remi (1778-1847) French engineer,
agronomist 49, 191
Poncelet, Jean Victor (1788-1867) French mathematician,
officer, student of Monge, co-student of Dufour at Ecole
polytechnique 61
Pope, Thomas. United States landscape architect, writer on
bridges. 29,31, 33, 69, 189, 225
della Porta, Giacomo (c. 1537-1603) Italian architect 180
Porter Goff, R. F. D. 225
Portet. French engineer 225
Po yet, Bernard (l742-1824) French architect, engineer 37,
184,191,225,230
Prieur de la Cote d'Or (Prieur-Duvernois, Claude Antoine)
(l763-1832) French mathematician 46
de Prony, Baron Gaspard Clair Fran<;ois Marie Riche
(1755-1839) French engineer, mathematician, educator,
Directeur des Ponts et Chaussees 41,45,46,50,51,52,
57,61,70,145,225,230
Provis, William Alexander (1792-1870) British engineer,
assistant to Telford 34, 213, 34, 120, 169, 225
Pugsley, Sir Alfred Grenville (1903-). British engineer 75, 225
Puissant, Louis (1769-1843) French mathematician, officer,
cartographer 64
Quenot, J. P. French engineer 93, 156, 161, 225
Quesnay, Fran<;ois (1694-1774) French physician, political
economist 44
Rankine, William John MacQuorn (1820-1872) British eng.,
theoretician 54
Re, Luciano. Italian historian 141, 226
de Reaumur, Rene Antoine Ferchault (1683-1757) French
physicist, naturalist 55, 226
Redpath & Brown British suspension bridge constructors 36,
37
Redpath Dorman Long Ltd. British contractors, heirs to
Redpath & Brown 36
Reeves, Clarke and Co 169
Regnier 169
Reibell, Felix Jean Baptiste (1795-1867) French engineer,
edited Sganzin's lectures 167, 226f
von Reichenbach, Georg (1771-1826) German engineer 191,
226
Reid, Henry. British officer, material technologist 57, 144
Rendell, James Meadows (1799-1856) British engineer 226
Rennell, James (1742-1830) British traveller, geographer,
historian 24, 226
Rennie, George 135
Rennie, George Jr. (1791-1866) British engineer 57, 86, 193,
226
Rennie, John (1761-1866) British engineer 189
Reverdin, Olivier 64
Richardson, Henry Hobson (1838-1886) United States
architect 168
Riche de Prony, see: Prony
von Richthofen, Friedrich, Freiherr German traveller 24, 226
Rickmann, Thomas 2, 226, 228
Rickman, John. Telford's executor and biographer 177
Riggenbach, Niklaus (1817-1899) Swiss engineer 192
239
 Ritter, August. German eng. theoretician 54
Ritter, Kaspar Josef. worked as engineer in Lucerne
1782-1798 179,183
Ritter, (Karl) Wilhelm (1847-1906) Swiss engineering
educator 54, 224
de la Rochefoucauld, Duc French amateur suspension bridge
client/builder 115, 116, 134, 226
Roebling, Johann August (John Augustus) (1806-1869)
German/ United States engineer, father of
Washington 36, 82, 95, 149, 153, 164, 166, 170 f, 208,
228
Roebling, Washington Augustus (1837-1926) United States
engineer, son of John 134, 149, 166, 228
Rohn, Artur. Swiss engineering educator 226
Rolt, L. T. C. British writer and industrial archaeologist 226
Rondelet, Jean Baptiste (1743-1829) French architect 56, 86,
226
Rousseau, Jean Jacques (1712-1778) Genevan philosopher,
pedagogue 44,58,59,62,183
Runcom 34
Ruskin, John (1819-1900) British architecture theoretician 168,
226
Sainte-Beuve, Charles Augustin (1804-1869) French literary
critic 39
de Saint-Simon, Comte Claude Henry de Rouvray
(1760-1825) French economist and mystic 49
de Saussure, Horace Benedict (1740-1799) Genevan
physician, geologist, philosopher, natural scientist,
educator 58, 71
Sayous, Edouard (1842-1898) Swiss historian 60, 70, 71, 215,
226
Schaedlich, Christian. German engineering historian 167 f,
226,232
Schaefer, D. C. 215
Scharf, J. Thomas. United States historian 34, 36, 226
Schmiedbauer, Joseph. German engineering wirter, early
19th cent. 191, 226
Schnirch, Friedrich (1791-1868) Czech/Austrian bridge
engineer 119, 166f, 179, 226
Schramm, Carl Christian. German illustrator, compiler of
"Historischer Schauplatz ... " 23, 24, 227
Schuck 208
Schulthess, Monika 17, 19,20
Schultz 227
Schwab, Fernand. Swiss historian 227
Schwedler, Johann Wilhelm August. German eng.
theoretician 54
Seaward, J. British writer on suspension bridges, early
19th cent. 227
Seguin, Camille (1793-1852) second of the Seguin
brothers 66-70,82,87, 91f, 108-110, 116, 118f,
123-125, 128, 144-146, 150, 154, 156f, 173, 185
Seguin, Charles (1798-1856) fifth of the Seguin brothers 66,
68-70, 78, 82, 87, 91 f, 108-110, 116, 118, 123-125, 128,
240 144-146, 150, 154, 156f, 173, 185
Seguin, Ferdinand. son of Camille 66f, 222
Seguin, Jules (1796-1868) third of the Seguin brothers 66-70,
82, 87, 9lf, 108-11 0, 116, 118, 123-125, 128, 144-146,
150, 152, 154, 156f, 173, 179, 185,227, 232
Seguin, Laurent 222
Seguin, Marc (1786-1875) oldest of the Seguin brothers 34,
66-80, 82f,85-89,91-93,97, 100, 103-105, 111-112,
114,116,118-126,128, 134f, 137, 144-147, 149-157,
160,164,173, 178f, 185,209,213, 215f, 222, 227,
229-231
Seguin, Marc Franc;ois (1757-1832) father of the Seguin
brothers 66
Seguin, Paul (1797-1875) fourth of the Seguin
brothers 66-70, 82, 87, 91 f, 108-110, 116, 118,
123-125, 128, 144-146, 150, 154, 156f, 173, 185
Seidl. City Engineer in Passau, Bavaria, mid-19th cent. 164,
227
de Sellon, Adelaide Suzanne (1778-1840) Genevan wife of
Michele Benso de Cavour 137
Senn, Franc;ois Louis (1799-1873) Genevan surgeor,
politician 71
Senn, Walther. Swiss historian, end of 19th cent. 215, 227
Sestine, Valerio. Italian engineering historian 222
Sganzin, Joseph Matthieu (1750-1837) French engineer,
theoretician, educator, physicist 41, 50, 61, 167, 226f
Shuchov, V. G. Russian engineer 168
von Sickingen, Reichsgraf Karl (1707-1787) politician,
chemist 76, 85f, 89, 93, 227
Simon, Albert. Swiss historian 229
Sismonde de Sismondi, Jean Charles Leonard (1772-1842)
Genevan economist, historian, philosopher, historian,
educator, friend of de Stael 39
Skempton, A. W. 190
Smeaton, John (1724-1792) British engineer 56 f, 126, 227
Smith, Denis. British historian of engineering 227
Smith, James (of Doune) Scottish suspension bridge
builder 181
Smith, John. British engineer, historian of engineering 169,
227
Smith, John. builder of Dryburgh Abbey Bridge, brother of
William 37,181
Smith, William. builder of Dryborgh Abbey Bridge, brother of
John 37, 181
Snow, Charles Percy 9, 227
Solenthaler, C. Swiss metallurgist 227
Soufflot, Jacques Germain (1713-1780) French architect 56,
86
Stadler, August. Zurichois architect 157
de Stael-Holstein, (Anne Louise) Germaine (1766-1817),
Genevan/French society hostess, daughter of Necker 40
Stanhope, Charles, 4th earl (1753-1816) British
mathematician, physicist, second son of Phillip 40, 224
St. Didier 214
Stanhope, Phillip, 2nd earl (1714-1786) 40, 224
Stein, Rolf Alfred. French tibetologist 21, 227
Steiner, Frances H. United States engineering historian 41, 56,
190,227
Steinman, David Barnard (1886-1960) United States bridge
engineer 22, 33, 171, 227
Stephenson, George Robert (1819- 1905) nephew of
George 110
Stephenson, Robert (1803-1859) British engineer, son of
George 110
Stevenson, Robert (1772-1850) Scottish engineer 36,37,66,
n
69, 85, 109, 119, 172-174, 179,208,213, 227f
Stevin, Simon (1548-1620) Dutch physicist 50, 76, 228
Stewart, Elizabeth C. United States archivist, historian 228
Stewart, William. French/British writer on engineering,
mid-19th cent. 166, 228
Stirling, James (1692-1770) Scottish mathematician 75, 228
Strub, Marcel. Swiss historian 178, 228
Sturm 221
StUssi, Fritz (1901-1982) Swiss engineer, educator,
theoretician 180, 213, 228, 232
de Talleyrand, Due Charles Maurice (1754-1838) French
statesman, politician 39
Tang-Dong Gan Bu see: Thong-Stong rGyal-po 18
Tang, Huon-Cheng. Chinese engineer 13, 1{ IS, 16, 17, 18,
21,22,232
Tarbe. French engineer, early 19th cent. 115 f
Tarbe de Saint-Hardouin, Fran<;ois Pierre H. (1813-?) French
engineer 34, 42, 43, 45, 52, 55, 228
Tardif M. French engineer, mid- 19th cent. 228
Targe. Genevan ironworker on Bergues Bridge 197, 204
Tartaglia, Niccol6 (1500-1557) Italian scientist,
technologist 55
Taylor, Charles. British writer on technology, early
19th cent. 110, 189, 228
Telford, Thomas (1757-1834) British engineer 33,34,35,37,
48,56, 66, 75, 85, 88,90, 101, 105, 119, 120, 123, 129,
177,179, 188f, 190, 193f. 195f, 197,213,219,222,224,
226,228,230,232
Templeman, John. United states bridge builder, early
19th cent. Finley licencee 31 f
Thong-Stong rGyal-Po (1385-1464) Tibetain Boddhisattva,
religious reformer, monk, suspension bridge builder 17-20
de Thenard, Louis Jacques (1777-1857) French chemist 76,
86,93,228
Timoshenko, Stephen Prokopovich (1878-1972)
Russian/United States engineering theoretician,
educator 55, 86, 228
Tissandier, Albert 67
Tissandier, Gaston (1843-1899) French popular scientist,
technologist 67, 228
Todhunter, Isaac (1820-1884) British engineering historian 55,
228
Tomlinson, Charles (1808-1897) British encyclopedist 228
La Torre, Carlo 228
Trajan, Emperor 105A.D. 176
Tredgold, Thomas (1788-1829) British engineer 56, 144, 220,
229
Trevithick, Richard (1771-1833) British engineer 187
Tripet, Micheline. Swiss historian, archivist 229
Trolliet 214
Trudaine, Daniel Charles (1703-1769) Intendant des Finances,
father of Philibert T. d. M. 43 f
Trudaine, de Montigny, Philibert (1733-1777) Directeur des
Ponts et Chaussees, son of Daniel T. 44f
Turgot, Anne Robert Jacques, Baron de l'Aulne (1727-1781)
historian, philospher, statesman 44f
Turnbull, William. British writer on suspension bridges
mid-19th cent. 229
Turner, Samuel (1749?-1802) British diplomat, traveller 18, 19,
22,24,229
Tyrrell, Henry Grattan (1867-1948) United States engineering
historian 27, 29, 31, 32, 164, 191, 229
de Valliere, Louis. Swiss historian 229
Vandermonde, Charles Auguste (1735-1796) French
geometre, metallurgist 55, 86, 213
Varignon, Pierre (1654-1722) French mathematician 44, 55,
101,229
de Vauban, Sebastien Le Prestre, Marquis (1633-1707) French
military engineer 42, 229
Verantius, Faustus (1551-1617). Italian compiler of
technology 25, 26, 27, 28, 32, 69, 191, 229
de Verges, Fortune. French suspension bridge engineer 145,
161
Vicat, Louis Joseph (1786-1861) French engineer, material
technologist 49,51,57, 60, 80, 85, 88, 89, 90, 92, 93,
102, 103, 104, 120, 125, 126, 145-158, 160-162, 166f,
170f, 179, 180, 185,198,204,209,229f,
Vicat, M. 218
Vierendeel (1852-?) 187, 190, 192
Vignoles, Charles Blacker (1793-1875) British engineer 230
Vignoles, Olinthus J. (1819-?) biographer of his father,
Charles Blacker V. 48, 230
Vince, Samuel (1749-1821) British astronomer, physicist,
educator 135, 230
de Vinci, Leonardo (1452-1519) Italian universal genius 55,
86,135,191
Vogel, Robert M. engineering curator Smithsonian
Institution 166, 170, 230
Volta, Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio, Conte
(1745-1827) Italian physicist 40
Voltaire pseudonym for Arouet, Fran<;ois Marie (1694-1778)
French philosopher, writer 44, 58f, 59
Wade II, Lawrence Austine (1854-?) British traveller 20,230
Wagner, Rosemarie. German engineer 48, 67, 230
Walter, Caspar (1701-1768) Municipal Hydraulic Engineer,
Augsburg 85, 183, 230
Watson, Sora Ruth. United States historian 22, 227
Watt 39
Weale, John (1791-1862) British engineering publisher 56,
128,129, 130, 131, 162, 163, 164,168, 1n 173,191,
213,219,229f
Weng-Cheng princess Tong Dynasty, Chino 17
Werner, Ernst. German engineer 230
Wernwag, Lewis. United States/German bridge builder early
19th cent. 31
v. Werther, Baron 67
Wescott, Thompson. United States historian 36, 226 241
Westhofen, William. British engineer 20, 38, 230
 Whipple, Squire 54, 184
White, Josiah. United States inventor 34, 36, 37, 68, 179
Whitfoht, Hans. German engineer 230
Widtmer. Schaffhausen (Swiss) architect 157
Wilson, Thomas (c. 1750-c. 1820) British eng. 189, 220
von Wiebeking, Ritter Karl Friedrich (1762-1842) Bavarian
engineer 41, 167, 176f, 183, 184, 186, 191, 230
Wolfschberger, J. P. Genevan 206
Wren, Sir Christopher (1632-1723). British surgeon, architect,
astronomer, educator 180
242
Wurm. Austrian inventor 169
Wurstemberger. Swiss Quartermaster General 63
Xerxes. Persian king 13
Xiuxiake, 17th cent. Chinese traveller 22
Young, Thomas (1773-1829) British physicist 57, 229
Zurbuchen, Dr. Walter 181
Zurlinden. Genevan carpenter on Bergues Bridge. 197
Acknowledgements
A book of trans-disciplinary character, such as this
one, could not be written without a great deal of
specialized help from many people and institu-
tions, to whom I would like to record my gratitude
here.
In the course of the preparatory work for an ex-
hibition on the development of long span bridge
building in 1978, a large body of manuscript ma-
terial by Guillaume Henri Dufour came unex-
pectedly to light in the files of the State Archives
in Geneva. From the outset, this material appeared
to throw light on the origins and early develop-
ment of modern engineering and particularly the
wire cable bridge. This subject had never be-
fore been treated in any comprehensive manner,
although several mentions of the material had
been made as I later discovered, and brief exerpts
had even appeared in print (see 'Baeschlin',
'Gubler' and 'StLissi'). As the material was
obviously important for the history of engineering,
the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH)
Zurich furnished a grant, sponsored by Professor
Hans Heinrich Hauri, which permitted the research
work for this book to be undertaken in the years
1979-1981. Hauri's thoughts on the pre-19th cen-
tury understanding of structures and his ideas on
the role of the catenary in engineering research,
made me think. So did later discussions with Pro-
fessor Urie Bronfenbrenner of Cornell University
on the phenomenon of cultural and professional
border-crossing and with Clotilde Peters whose
critique always helped clarify my thoughts.
Professor Olivier Reverdin, Dufour's descendant
and the present scion of the family, supported this
study with material from his collection and with
valuable information. The Musee d'art et d'his-
toire, Section Vieux-Geneve, (M. Dehanne), the
Bibliotheque publique et universitaire and the
State Archives of Basle all provided further mate-
rial and information. Dr. Walter Zurbuchen, then
State Archivist in Geneva, gave detailed help and
criticism and facilitated the photographing of all
necessary documents. This work was carried out
by the Institut fUr Kommunikationstechnik at the
ETH Zurich. The problems involved were occasion-
ally complex, and Professor Franz Tomamichel
and Elizabeth Rossmann were very helpful in solv-
ing them. Thus the documents could be secured
against possible loss of the originals and at the
same time I was provided with a readily accessible
working archive.
The study was encouraged by Professor Jean
Franc;ois Bergier of the ETH Zurich and by Profes-
sor David Peter Billington of Princeton University.
After the manuscript was roughed out in the orig-
inal German and French, Professor Andre Corboz
of the ETH Zurich, Rosemary Wagner, Knut Ga-
briel and Ralph Egermann of the Institut fur Mas-
sivbau at Stuttgart University and Julia Elton of
London communicated much additional informa-
tion, both pictorial and written, and contributed to
a much more correct and detailed analysis of
several aspects. Mike Chrimes, Librarian of the In-
stitution of Civil Engineers in London, pointed out
some articles I had overlooked. Mr. Niewmeijer of
Delft provided information on British engineers
working in the Netherlands. John James of Lon-
don and Dr. Roland Paxton of Edinburgh gave me
the benefit of their opinions on several historical
questions which I value highly.
In particular, the enthusiasm and trust of Professor
Corboz were a great help to me whenever I
seemed to be foundering in a morass of un-
digested, apparently unrelated material.
Advice and help in individual technical specialities
were given by Dr. Andreas Rufenacht, then Assis-
tant at the Institut fur Hochbautechnik, for the
analysis of the statics; Ulrich Morf, Head of the
Division for Metal Technology at the Swiss Federal
Institute for Testing Materials (EMPA) in Dubendorf
for metallurgical questions; Tang Huan-Cheng,
Senior Design Engineer at the Bureau of Bridge
Construction in Wuhan, China, for the history of
cable, rope and chain structures in China; Leo 243
 Caminada, formerly Chief Forester of the Royal
Bhutanese Government, Monika von Schulthess of
Cham and Fernand Oltramare of Vandreuvres,
Switzerland, for information on the chain bridges
of Bhutan; and Dr. Michael Aris of Oxford Univer-
sity enlightened me on the life and works of
Thang-stong rGyal-po. Dr. David Corson, Olin-
and History of Science Librarian at Cornell Uni-
versity, gave me valuable help in bibliographical
matters.
244
Eduard Hofer and Reinhard Nagele helped, while
still architecture students, to collect and scan the
many articles in the 'Bibliotheque Universelle' and
the 'Annales des Ponts et Chaussees'. The person-
nel of the Geneva State Archives, was very helpful
and patient in tracing materia" and Josef Kalin of
the ETH Zurich drew the diagrams.
All these people helped to make this work com-
plex, richer and more correct. However, needless
to say, I alone am responsible for mistakes and
lacunae.