Part 3, Chapter 19 Summary and Analysis

"The Gigantic Spinning Machine" is a Brooklyn Eagle description of the cabling of the Bridge described in Chapter 19. Farrington races cold weather to secure a temporary footbridge for workers, which reporters find disheartening. Four-feet wide and angles down from the tower at 35°, it has handrails at hip level but nothing to prevent slipping through and spaces between the slats to improve stability in the wind. Five cradles hang at right angles, allowing men to position the wires and bind them into strands. The anchorages bristle with activity. Wire coils are galvanized, dried, dipped in linseed oil, and spliced together onto drums that will play out like fishing line across the river. Every splice has to be as strong and weather-tight as the wire itself. Full drums contain 10 miles of wire, but the cable-making machinery consumes four drums a...