Chapter V

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EXCEPTIONAL BRIDGES, 302, 305-6, 307, 308-10, 316.

EXTRA-DOSSED ARCHES, Roman and Mediæval, 282-3.

FABRICIUS, PONS, at Rome, 195, 196.

FACT DIFFERS FROM TRUTH, 10, 11.

FEATS OF ENGINEERING, 323, 327, 341, 356.

FERNWORTHY BRIDGE, Dartmoor, 60.

FINANCE, as a phase of permanent war, 35, 36, 361.

“FINDS” IN RESEARCH, 6.

FIRE, its discovery, 58.

FIREARMS, 332-3.

FIRES ON OLD LONDON BRIDGE, 218-19.

FLAMBARD, BISHOP, before the year 1128, is said to have built Framwellgate Bridge at Durham, using ribbed arches. If so, then the ribbed arches in this bridge are about as old as those of the Pont de Vernay at Airvault: see the illustration facing page 96.

FLAMINIAN WAY and the Pons Milvius, 197, and the bridge at Narni, 23.

FLAVIEN, PONT, a Roman bridge with two triumphal arches at Saint-Chamas, 176-7.

FLEMISH TOWNS and their defensive bridges, 289-91.

FLINT TOOLS AND WEAPONS prove the terrible slowness of human progress, 57; the earliest bridges of handicraft considered in their relation to the earliest hand-made tools and weapons, 56-7, 109, 110, 119, 120, 121, 122.

FLODDEN FIELD and Twizel Bridge, 94, 355.

FLOOD-WATER BAYS cut through the piers of bridges, 284, as in the great military Roman bridge at Mérida, 181-2; the Pons Fabricius another Roman example, 196; later specimens, the Three-arched Bridge at Venice, colour plate facing page 224, the Pont des Consuls at Montauban, colour plate facing page 256, and the Pont St. Esprit over the Rhône, 293.

FLORENCE, the Ponte Vecchio, 211, 222; the Ponte della Trinità, Ammanati’s masterpiece, 316.

FO-CHEU, PONT DE, a Chinese bridge described by Gauthey, 314-15.

FOOTPATHS, the earliest were made by quadrupeds, 3; human footpaths, their number, and what it has cost to make them, 17; they belong not to the illusion called peace but to the reality named strife, 17.

FOOTWAYS OVER MEDIÆVAL BRIDGES, usually they were narrow, very often they were steep, and sometimes, as in the Pont St. Esprit and the Pont St. Bénézet, they formed an elbow with the angle pointing up-stream. The Coa Bridge in Portugal, near Almeida, the scene of Crawfurd’s action in the Peninsular War, is also angular on plan; but its elbow points down-stream, and its line seems to have been dictated by the position of the rocks on which the piers are built. For other bridges of this angular sort see page 238. Narrow footways over bridges suggested the safety recesses for foot-passengers, which modern engineers have copied in many of their wide bridges, 258. Steep footways are dealt with under “Gabled Bridges,” and in Appendices I and II.

FOOTWAYS OVER ROMAN BRIDGES, 82, 183, 199, 367-8.

FORDS, 207-8, 250-1.

FORESTS, in their relation to Roman bridges, 139, to English bridges, 207, 208.

FORTH BRIDGE, 336, 344, 350-1. Add to the text the fact that in one of our naval manœuvres the Forth Bridge was “destroyed” by the small attacking fleet.

FORTIFIED TOWERS AND GATEWAYS ON BRIDGES, Roman, at Mérida, 182; at Alcantarilla, 367; at Saint-Chamas, 176-7; mediæval, 254-5, 261, 276-301; See also the Lists of Illustrations; Nearly all the old attributes of defensive bridge-building have been copied by modern engineers in their defenceless bridges--an absurd affectation of learned research introduced by Telford in his cast-iron bridge at Craigellachie, 349; Even dummy machicolations have been used on make-believe towers guarding industrial bridges from the fresh air, 275; Every civilized country has bridges of this foolish sort. Surely medals ought to be granted to fools, and their public display ought to be enforced by law; then engineers and others would become ashamed of their bad public work.

FOUNDING PIERS, 99, 197, 251-2, 341-2; See also “Cofferdams,” 253 _footnote_.

FOUNTAINS ABBEY, YORKSHIRE, BRIDGES AT, 96, 305.

FRAMWELLGATE BRIDGE, Durham, 96-7.

FRANCE, her administration of roads and bridges, 43, 44, 356; rich in remains of Roman bridges and aqueducts, 168-75, 176-81; her bridges are superior to the British examples, 9, 256-8, 294-5.

FRANCIS STONE, his book of “Norfolk Bridges,” 135.

FRASER, G. M., on Scotch bridges, 94.

FREAKISH BRIDGES, over the Tavignano in Corsica, 238; at Laroque, 300; at Bâle, 306.

FRÉJUS, REMAINS OF A ROMAN AQUEDUCT AT, 176.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH BRIDGES contrasted, 256, 281, 294-5.

FRENCH ANGULAR BRIDGES, 237-8, 297.

FRENCH GENIUS, often more masculine than the English genius, 294-5.

FRENCH MILL BRIDGES, 223-4; see also the colour plate facing page 352.

FRÈRES PONTIFES, or Pontist Brothers, 296, and _footnote_. St. Bénézet was one of the leaders of this order. It is worth noting that some lay brotherhoods in England, animated by the religious spirit, repaired roads and bridges, like the Gild of the Holy Cross in Birmingham, which was founded under Richard the Second. There were similar gilds at Rochester and Bristol and Ludlow, etc. For information on “English Gilds,” see Toulmin Smith.

FROGGALL BRIDGE, its angular recesses for the safety of foot-passengers, 258 _footnote_.

FUENTES DE OÑORO, its slab-bridges akin to our Dartmoor “Clappers,” 104-5.

GABLED BRIDGES, 27, 28, and _footnote_; Chinese, 248, 312, 365-6.

GABRIEL, a French engineer, tried to revive the Roman and mediæval use of abutment piers, 339 _footnote_.

GADDI, TADDEO, the reputed designer of the Ponte Vecchio at Florence, 222.

GALLERIES, COVERED, in Persian Bridges, 214, 215, 270.

GAOL, the chapel on the bridge at Bradford-on-Avon became a gaol, 232; also the one on Bedford Bridge, 231; a gaol stood at the east side of the Ouse Bridge at York, 243, and _footnote_.

GARD, PONT DU, the famous Roman aqueduct, 83, 167-75, 321.

GARDENS, SOME, on Old London Bridge, 219.

GARIBALDI, when he marched to Rome the Ponte Salaro was blown up, 192.

GARSTANG BRIDGE, a steep Lancashire bridge built in 1490, 250 _footnote_.

GATEHOUSE, on the defensive bridge at Sospel, 276; on the thirteenth-century bridge at Narni, 277.

GATEWAYS, DEFENSIVE, 208, 315.

GATEWAY TOWERS, 97, 272, 278, 280, 286, 289, 323; see also the Lists of Illustrations.

GAULISH BRIDGES, 70, 71.

GAUTHEY, EMILAND, historian of bridges, 126-7, 191, 197, 199, 314, 322.

GEBEL BARKEL, TWO PYRAMIDS AT, have arched porticoes built with voussoirs, 160.

GENIUS, the motive-power of progress, 56, 59; her work usually weakened by the opposition of custom and convention, 59; she is a single creative agent with a double sex, 58; ordinary men have been of but little worth until genius has taken control of them, 239; her warfare against the stupidity of mankind, 110 _et seq._; see also “Mother-Ideas.”

GENIUS, THE ENGLISH, is often inferior to the French genius in architecture, 294-5.

GENIUS, THE ROMAN, 167-204.

GERMANY, some of her old bridges, 259, 260; her creed of aggressive war, 33 _footnote_, 350, 359, 360, 361.

GERONA, FAMOUS GABLED BRIDGE AT, 28, 29.

GHENT, THE RABOT AT, a fortified bridge and lock, 289, 290, 291.

GIGNAC, PONT DE, famous bridge of the 18th century, 310.

GIPSY’S CARAVAN, how it stuck fast under the low tower at the entrance of Warkworth Bridge, 261, 262.

GIRDERS, there are three types or classes of bridge: the girder, the arched, and the suspended. Girders may be of various materials; wrought iron, cast iron, and wood are chiefly used. Professor Fleeming Jenkin describes with apt brevity the essential difference between the three classes of bridge. “In all forms of the suspension bridge the supporting structure is _extended_ by the stress due to the load; in all forms of the arch the supporting structure (i.e. the ring of voussoirs) is _compressed_ by the stress due to the load; and in all forms of the beam or girder the material is partly extended and partly compressed by the flexure which it undergoes as it bends under the load. Thus when a beam of wood carrying a load bends, the upper side of the beam is thereby shortened and the fibres compressed, while the lower side of the beam is lengthened and the fibres extended.” So, too, in a girder of metal. In some bridges, as in the High Level Bridge at Newcastle, the girder principle is united to bowstring arches of metal, but a true girder is less expensive and lighter, 80.

GIZEH, AT, in the Great Pyramid of Menkaura, there is a very early pointed arch, 155-6.

GLACIERS, in their relation to rock-basins and rock-bridges, 152.

GLANVILLE, GILBERT DE, Bishop of Rochester, 1185-1215, built a small chapel at the Strood end of Rochester Bridge, 245.

GLASTONBURY, its lake-village a good example of prehistoric bridge-building, 21, 137 _et seq._

GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE, her genius described, 152-3.

GRANDISON, Bishop of Exeter, granted indulgences to those who helped in the building of Bideford Bridge, Devon, 305 _footnote_; See also “Indulgences.”

GRATIANUS, PONS, another name for the Pons Cestius, 196.

GRAY, WALTER DE, Archbishop of York, between 1215 and 1256, rebuilt the Ouse Bridge, preserving some portions of the Norman Chapel, 242.

HADRIAN, destroyed Trajan’s Bridge over the Danube, 129; and built the Pons Ælius at Rome, 194.

HALL, LADY JANE, in 1566, contributed a hundred pounds to repair the Ouse Bridge at York, 242.

HAMBURG MERCHANTS, THE YORK SOCIETY OF, after the Reformation, used the chapel on the Ouse Bridge as an exchange, 242.

HAND-GUNS, 333.

HANDICRAFT, the first public school, 118; has never had a standard of uniform merit, 121; its indebtedness to Nature’s models, 3, 4, 6, and