Cumberland River Bridge.
We copy from the Clarksville Jeffersonian the following description of a bridge recently erected over the Cumberland river at that place, by the McCallum Bridge Company of this city:
The Memphis, Clarksville and Louisville Railroad Company have just completed one of the finest bridges in the country. The bridge referred to crosses the Cumberland river at this place. Its extreme length is 692 feet, divided into two stationary and one draw span. It is built upon three massive piers and two abutments, and has besides two pieis up and down the river from the centre pier, upon which the ends of the draw span rest when the draw is open, making altogether five piers and two abutments. The river piers are 75 feet high, and the height from low water mark to the grade line of the road is 85 feet.
The span next to town is 108 feet in length. The span next to the other shore is 218 feet, and the draw span 276 span. Tho openings of the draw are 120 feet between the piers. There are two other spans of 40 feet each connecting the bridge with the embankment on the Clarksville side.
The plan of the bridge is that known as McCallum’s Inflexible Arch Tivss, which is regarded as one of the very best wooden bridges now known. The draw span is constructed upon an entirely new principle. It is self-sustaining and dispenses with the tower and hog chains usually employed, and is believed to be a very great improvement upon all other draw bridges. The plan is novel, and the draw of the bridge here is the first ever constructed upon this plan. Its success must be a source of great satisfaction to the inventor as well as to Mr. Fleece, the Engineer of our road, who, upon the exhibition of the plan, did not hesitate to adopt it as an improvement though yet entirely untried. The advantage of the self-sustaining draw over those in which the hog chains are employed is that the one is always in its true place, while the other is very materially influenced by the temperature of the atmosphere, which by expanding or contracting the chains either lower or elevates the ends of the draw, requiring constant watchfulness and labor in lengthening or shortening the chains to keep the bridge in correct position.