CHAPTER XXV.
THE CANTILEVER BRIDGE.
There is one more piece of work done by our society which yet remains to
be described, and that is the cantilever bridge. This we all voted to be
the greatest of our achievements on the island. To be sure, it was Uncle
Ed's design, but I think we justly deserve credit for the masterful way in
which it was erected. In our search for types of bridges before building
the king post bridge, we came across a simple cantilever bridge that
didn't look very difficult to construct. To be sure, none of us knew a
thing about stresses and strains, and ingenious though we were, Bill
realized that the task of designing a cantilever bridge was far beyond
him. Nevertheless, we were sure we could build one if only we had a good
set of plans. A letter was therefore mailed to Uncle Ed, asking him for
the required details. The answer came promptly from Western Australia,
asking us to send him the exact width of the water we wished to span, the
depth of the water, the distance from the top of one bank to the top of
the other, and the exact height of the banks above water level. We decided
we would build the bridge across the mouth of the lagoon. The distance
here between the two banks measured a little over 60 feet.
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