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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1932-11-17, Page 7THURSDAY, :NIOVEIMIBE7R 17, 1932 THE SEAFORTH NEWS. PAGE SEVEN, DAREDEVILS. (There it stand's, a long, steel giant a single span of 3,500 feet, with on (dot in '1710th Street, New Yorlc, th •other in Fort (Lee, tNew (Jersey—a bridge of unprecedented dimensi'dns capacity and cost. Men have been .building suspen's'ion bridges ever since (1!810—but never 'before with such •a great span, All leredit for the achieve- ment ,(belon'gs to the :engineer, they say; but where world the engineer be without the man ..in the rubber boots? Or 'without the "roughneck" —the bri'dgenian-who strides a'cros's narrow beaim,s so 'high that from. the s'tree't he seems to be 'walking invis- ible. (wires !Every line on the engin cer's blue pi+in'ts •means )labour for .many )men working hundreds of feet above the water. It is one thing for the bridge ar- chitect, the structural engineers and the fabricating draftsmen to design' elle steel members efa structure so they fit precisely into 'their s'lo'ts in the actual frame. And it is another thing 'to •pttt them there, St involves the manipulationof clumsy steel bur- den's capable . Of des'tssoyinrg every- thing if .they fall, by men poised 'on sIender scaffoldings at 'heights to inake the tigbtt-rape walker cringe, with nothing between them 'and eter- nity except their. incredible 'skill, their nerve and their 'fine sense of balance. Those of us who cann'ot walk a log across a five-foot stream without shivers and trepidations have some- thing to o'ongure with here. "The finest ,gam's of bridgemen on •one structure built the neiw George Washington 'bridge and, built it in record quick time,". (staid an engineer of the Port. "The engineer would b'e (powerless without d'arin'g, fearless workers." ' Wlho are these .bridgemen? 'W'he'nce do they come? And )kow do they ac- quire their skill—particularly their in- R difference to height and•that uncanny knack 'with their feet? "Lots of aviators '.haven't got it, , said an engineer of one company. ".A e news'reel ph'o'tograp'her cameou't her e to get ictures, 'He said he had ofte photographed from the air, had eve , crawled out on the wings of the plane But when it came to 'walking (the thi steel skeleton structure tli'ree hun Bred' feet' above the river, he said: ".I'm no co'w'ard, brit • I'm (too young to die.' (Workmen lei! him out there by hand,'Athletes can't always stand it. Among the 'would -'be en- gineers given six months' training on the bridge as part of a college con- tract course was a track star, a slim young giant with grasshopper legs Jeff IReyno'lds, ,one of our 'foremen pot him to checking bolts 'at a point 'where the :apertures were so small he coudn't fall through. The first month all that 'lad could do was clutch a girder and shake like a le'af—just from watching the other fellows. On the other hand, among those green c'o'llege boys was a studious chap who looked like a grind, 'but who ran a round the scaffo'ldin'g like a cat until Jeff called him down for 'taking.ch'an- ces, (Some men never' learn it; others take to it like ducks to wafter." IBM college is by no means•p'art of the 'bridgem'an's training. 'The col- lege boy goes out on the bridge for. en'gineerin'g exfpee'ience. The moat dangerous work 'he is given is that of inspector. The brid'geman's • sch'ool ing usually stops with the eighth grade, .Most f them begin very young -before they are:(Olid enough to, know datager—and 'once" they have caught the fascination of trying to 'beat the steel game they keep - on going until the lfo'ot slips. George 13'owers, for instance—the 'Old' 'Man, 'he is called, for he is one of the deans of bridgemen. IHe has been at 'it :for fifty years and is still going strong. On this ndw bridge he was one of Ro'eb'1'intg's 'foremen in :cable work. Tradition has it that he worked on the Brooklyn IBrid'ge, but Bowers, being honest, denies this. "Na," 'he says, ,with soft, broad accent of the Pennsylvania Dutchman. "I missed the Brooklyn Bridge, but I haven't missed many since. As a kid• of eight or ten i got a job as water boy on a bridge being built near my home. in Pennsylvania. When the bridge company left` I ram away from Mame with them. They put me to heating rivets—a kid's job in those days, though nolw•they 'give it 'to a man. By the time 2 was twenty I was foreman. Since then I've' worked in forty-four states' and done everything to be done on a bridge, from 'connecting to adz- ing out ties. In the old days you were expected to. do everything. To- day if a man can drive a rivet he calls e Himself a fel'(-fledged bridge'man.. n Bridges are longer and heavier note,, n bin the men's work is softer," • iblr. Bowers,aftdi u o gh close to rev-' o enty, is a great, .powerful man,. w'ith.. _ the muscles of a bulldog and a good- natured grin on his face. Ile has two daredevil sons, young men in their' thirties, who are al's'o bridgemen "I wanted college for those boys, but d'ya think I could .keep 'em in school? ln' their 'teens "they were running a- cross eight -inch planks 150 'feet up: I had to put 'e'm to work to keep 'ern from killing themselves, IMy first big job," continued the Old Man, "was at !Harrisburg: We wrecked an old railroad bridge and built a new one. When the trains carie rushing by we. stepped out on the cording and then leaned bac!.ward to miss 'em. Nat six inches to s'p'are. IS'oane of the men would scbuat down on the tie's and lean forward, to save 'their backs, but I always felt my chances were as good on my !feet as on my haunches, 4l:any's the time I've stood there while the old bridge creaked' and groaned under a freight racing over it and pinked thespot in the river where I'd dive, thinking my chances were better to leap off voluntarily than to go down with the wreck. !Birt no- thing ever h'ap'pened, and we built 'em a swell new bridge, "Once. we were wreckingan old bridge on the (Iron Mountain Road in .1VI:issouri. We had taken out fourteen consecutive ties, and that night I was awakened by a freight tearing across. S got 'out of !bed and went to the win- dow thinking, 'That's one bridge I won't have to Wreck!'iI saw a long streak of Ifi're, heard. the shriek of grinding (brake's, and. that old train tore right over it. All that saved it was that 'lit went so fast." "Elver been scared?" he was asked, "Na," said the O'l'd Man scorn'fully. I never cou'l'd understand this being scared' at !looking down from high places. But if you want to feel queer, Took upwards and see the clbuds floating by. Unconsciously your eye follows them—there, you go tipping •baciewardvs. a'Y'ou can lose your bal- ance doing ,that, even on the sidewalk. O'n'ce I was building a s'mokesta'ck, 210 feet high. It 'liras a fine„ sunny day, with the ,pret'tie'st white clouds you. ever saw in the sky. I' was gaz- ing heavenwards when suddenly the world 'began whirbinig. 1 could fee( the Whole s'mokestack tip'p'ing back- wards. T, leaned forward and hugged that structure like a polar bear. Then my ,senses came back and 'I ••had to D. H. Mclnnes chiropractor Of Wingham, will he at the Commercial Hotel, Seaforth Monday, Wednesday and Friday Afternoons D'cea=es of all kinds success-. tully treated. Electricity used. LCI Painful . Pile Go Quick—No Cutting -No Salves- Itching, bleeding or protrudingpiles go quickly 'and don't come back, if you reallyremove the:. -cause,. Bad blood circulation in the lower bowel and hemorrhoidal veins causes piles 'by making the affected parts weak, flabby, almost dead. Salves and sup- positories fail because only an internal medicine that stimulates the 'circula- tion and drives out the impure blood can actually correct the cause of piles. Dr. J. S. Leooardt discovered a real internal 'Pile remedy, After prescrib- ing it for 1,000 patients with success in over 900 cases, he named it lEIE.M-' RJOIIID: Ohas, Aberhart and druggists, everywhere sell HtEIi'FJRJOi'D Tablets. with guarantee they will end your Pile misery or money back, laugh. Iit was only an optical il- lusion." 'F'e'w A'merieaii . bridges, whether over railroads or rivers, have gene up in. the 'last half century in w'hic'h Mr, Bowens has :not had a 'hand; yet his, !first accident occurred in 1925 on the 'bridge ibetween Detroit and Windsor, "We were building the cables," says Mr. (Blowers. "I Was walking the side span foot'b'ridge from the tower clown 't'o'ward the an'c'horage—so steep you pick your way from.. cleat to' cleat, I had just !stooped over to pick up a bolt when something went wrong with the hauling cable—the big steel chain that brings the steel forward.. It snapped in two, •and a big steel block with ,a five -ton strain shot down' an'd' hit me ors the shoulder. Fortunately it was a glanc- ing blow. I'f I'd been standing up it would • have finished 'me. Even so, I was smashed up as tho'ro'ughly as if Babe Ruth had mistaken me for the ball. . They took me 'to Ford's hospital and tied up the splinters with silver wire. !It will never be as good as the other shoulder, but it hasn't stopped me :from working." The Old Man's uncanny, luck—'or. skill—has been passed down to 'his sons, !George jr. and Jim. Hair-raising exploits of both these young men had been told me by a 'bridge engineer before I had a'ctu'ally met the 'Bow- ers family. We quote the en'gineer's version, for the engineer never, exag- gerates: "We were spinning, wire on bh'e ,Delaware River tbridge around 1926. The wire gang stands on the tem- poraryfootbridge that follows the sag of the c'albles-300 feet up, 'maybe higher... The spinning wheel passes over, dropping the l:otose wire oti the floor—live wire, we call it, but alive with motion, not electric current. One BAR The Seaforth News Special Offer -New and Renewal Yearly Subscriptions T o Subscribers New or Old For the next few weeks the subscription to The Seaforth News is 50c a year, new or renewal. • No matter when your subscription expires, subscribers will save by re- newing now. jSOcaYear! lisstememissimme he Seaforth A PROFIT-SHARING OFFER. The Seaforth News takes pleasure in making this very special offer of 50c a year. Rather than spend large sums of .money in other ways, such as premiums or contests, The Seaforth News is giving every subscriber who is a citizen of Huron or Perth, this cash advan- tage.a This offer is good for the next few weeks only. SNOWDON BROS. Publishers. Nova 5, 1932. ws of the young spinners stooped ov to pick up the wire, and in ,doing s got astride of it. Just then a puff wind sent it surging in the air, 'wi the man on top of it -!fifteen, sig teen feet high, Mind you, this wi is cold drawn steel. One length o it is strong enough•to lift a seven ton truck froin the street, The m'an' weight was:like a feather. "The rest of us held our breaths but he stuck on like broncho bust er. The wire' came down—eventual ly; :but before lie could get'off it, u it :weak for e second trip. This tiara when it came down he got free; then coolly -'and !without a Word he lit cigarette and went back: to his job of spinning. Sm'okin'g on the foo bridge is forbidden because of the great fire hazard, but no one repri- manded that •man. His name? Tha was young George Bowers.". 'Now, take the !Delaware river bridge," 'continued the engineer. "That was.just half the size of this one and only half the man power was used.:Yet thirteen workmen plunged off that ,bridge to the river 145 feet below. Only three ever carne to the .surface, and two of these have been killed since. The third `would. have swum to shore and gone 'back on the job without ever changing his 'clobh'es—if we had 'let him, Ilk name? He's Jim 'Bowers, George (Bower's younger sort." Jim Bowers is a natural born dare- devil, the pride and stilt the despair of every fo're'man and superintendent he ever worked for. They ,can't beat icaution into Jim. IHe takes chances for which men are sometimes fired- yet they don't ,seem like chances to him. (Easy—a snap! And he always makes it. Yet his historic dive into the Delaware River was not caused by taking (chances at all. It was an unavoidable accident. J'im himself explained it when I called on the 'Bowers family in their apartment "I was climbing the scaffolding to the Main decking. I grabbed a bolt and the bolt was loose.'It was still in my hand when'( came to the sur- face. When I Sound myself going, I tried to twist my body into a straight dive and hit on my head. That saved my life—you know, no thought, no feeling But my shirt and pants were cut by the water as though they'd been slashed by a razor, and there wasn't much skin left on my left side. I thought I'd never come to the sur- face." er IGuerchais' criufit , yvl 11 'both receive o the compressed air from single super - of. olrangcis. Qn rhe Farman pl'ane, a'' fh )battery of tFree smlaller o'oese will go h- 'into ac'ti o one after the ol'her as the re machine ascends. The first will begin' if 'work at 20,,000 feet, the second at '- 30,000 feet, and the fast at 48,000 feet. s All three will be turning 25;000 revo- lutions a minute as the plane passes , the 50,000 -(foot 'levet, iIn a test tank at the• Farman plant i Pant, the motor developed 300 horsepower p when the air :pressure and oxygen e content were reduced. to- aplproxlinaalbe- , ly�th'oes found at an altitude " of '62,- a 000 feet. The perfection of new super ch'a'ngers is .eaipected to lift the ceiling t- for thin -air planes to between 60,000 and 80,000 feet; .Not I:oitg ago, the Italian engineer, t Italo RatSaeli, announced he liar designed a steam turbine that will as tua'11y give more power as it ascends, thus making it ideal for use on the high-altitude air, lines of the future. His engine weighs nine p'ouncds per horsepower and uses nap'htha. for fuel. Another suggestion for adding to the power of a plane at high levels las just been advanced by a German Scientist, Since the drop fn pressure., !between the exhaust ga'ses and the surroun'd'ing air wo'ul'd be very great n the stratos'ph'ere, he points out, the engine might carry an exhaust -gas turbine to give extra power .during Itch flights, (Long distance raids by strato- sphere (planes are visioned as a fea- ure of the nett wta'r.' Mi'li'tary auth- orities, as wdh- as air transport op- erators, are watching closely the tests under way. 'Construction of the three planes now b'ein'g groomed for the sp'ectaou- ar race to reach .the str'atosphere was 'begun soon after the Swiss scien- tis't, Auguste Pi'ccard,..and a eoln:pan- , on, "i'n isIay, 19311', soared to a height taf 51)775 feet in an aliratight alumin- um ball slang beneath a balloon in- flated with half a million cubic feet of lifting gas. Data collected' by this 'Columb'us of the upper air aided de- signers in their work. The hli'gh'es!t point in the sky at 'which any record has been made is something over twenty miles, reached by small sounding balloons e -f the 'Weather 'Bu'r'eau. The record for. air- planes -13,11616 feet, s.'t in 1931 by Lieut. App'oal'o Scucek 'cf the USS. INiavy--rfallis more than a mile short of the lower fringes of the 'strato- sphere, HIGH FLYING. 'In the Junlcers craft, the comlpressor. is driven by ag windmill outside the ship. T'h'us, independent of the engine, it continues Ifunotioning even if fbhe mabor stops. Another feature of this machine is a special appartu.s that draws off' carbon dlioxide from the so'aled cabin dur'in'g a flight, All 'fhe stratosphere ships will carry reserve tanks of oxygen that can be turned on in an emergency if the compress- ors fail. Thrantgh'out the journey, the (pressure and oxygen content of the air inside will be kept .constant. Td prevent air leads, the moving.control wires will leave the cabin through rubber openings and'boxes of oil, !Because in'terna'l pressure will be far greater than external, at ,the peak of the climb, the cabins are. specially reinforced to prevent then .from -exploding outward as a deep- sea fish bursts when boug'h't to the surface. (For every mile a plane climbs into the air, until its reaches the strato- sphere the temperature drops about fifteen degrees. Throughout the stra- tosphere, the temperature is b'el'ieved to remain constant at about seventy- five degrees below zero; Fa'hrenhei't. Finding new alloys to st'an,d'th'is bit- ter cold was another 'proib'let the 'en- gineers ,had to solve. Ordinary hard tnetals become brittle and. fragile at aw temperatures aad so' are unsuited' tfor use in the vital paths of a stra'bo slplhere slhi•p, !Providi'n'g (h'ealt for the cabins, how - ver, automatically take's' care of itts- s•dlf. The com'pres'sors tern at such needs that the friction of the blades n the air heat it w'h'ile it is being riven inside. At some altitudes, the ir roaring from the compressors is scpe'cted to be too hot and special ad'iatois are provided . to cool it. All three of the machines will use our -bladed propellers of huge dia- 'verter to,: grip the thin' air.' The 4(3'0- onsepo'wer inverted` "'V engine on he sixty -one -foot IPanniln ,plane will! urn a fifteen foot fol gecl steel pro - teller with blades' of variable pitch. s the machine mmounts, the p'il'ot can urn the blades to a greater angle an ley will grip, anor•e air ,,Supplying oxygen to the motors is truest as important as supplying it o the cabins Four the power (level ped depends upon it Suoerchai err, arcing air into the cylinders tinder' igh pressure, will keep up the effi ieincy of the stratosphere en'gine's in he rarefied atr'osphere in which they operate.. The. 8800-horse-power iviten on' ,the low -wing si ty-foo" tinkers monoplane, and 'the eig'h'teen- y'lin'der, . 700 -horsepower engine of A tAiririg your troublles will not mnitb'i- :g'a'te 'them. Frozen Goods. (In Buenos Ayres electrical refrig- erators are sold by many different kinds of stores, one being a store which deals in haberdashery 'and. men's Plowing Match A Success The windup of the !In'ternationa'l Dowing Match at Ottawa took the formof a banquet at which interest - ng addresses were heard. D. A. Molntyre of lAlvinston,' past presi- dent, made the pre's'entation of a silver platter to J, Leckie 'Wilson, man- aging director of ` the Ontario Plow- meufs Ass'n. for the past twenty years, and a leading factor in the success of the organization. The As- sociation now has over. Seventy branches .in ad'di'tion to the central or- ganization 'and' comprises a total inembeoship of over 7,000 scattered over the whole province '^These members," said Mr. M•dlutyre, "are carrying back to .their various cotm- munities the doctrine and practice of better 'plowing, better cultivation of the soil, better seed and 'better live stock. I`believe 'that to their influence and exam'pl'e may be •credited in large m'e'asure the c'om'paratively secure position 'of the Ontario farmer at the pres'ent time." Persian B 'lm'-fhe one toilet requi- site for the dainty 'woman. Delightful to use. ,Leaves no stickiness Siwi'£bfy absorbed by the 'tissues: !Delicately fragdaivt. 'Im'iparts'a velvety' loveliaes:s 'to the'complexion, Tones tip the skin, 'Soothes and 'banishes 'a'll un- pleasant roughness or chiafing c'aus'ed by . !wind and 'w eathe.r 'cond'i'tions. Makes 'h'a'nds spit 'and white. Creates an elu'si've, essentially feminine 'charm. Persian 'Balm is indispensable to women lot refinement. New Lease of Life for Gordon So full of :life and good spirits was Gordon, while a student at col- lege,that he thought he could never outrun his store of vitality. However, siieh things happen and after a winter of hard study and plenty of sport, the gripping effects of a deep-seated cough made them- selves drastically felt one 'day, and from a fainting spell Gordon was sent hurriedly to the M'uslcolca Hos- pital for Consumptives. It has taken nearly two years to rebuild his health and strength, but the enperrenced medical attention, the careful nursing the rest and regularity of life at the hospital are havingtheir usual Happy results, and Gordon expects soon, to return to take up his -chosen life. work,:' Helping the sufferers_ from con- sumption bark to health and useful- ness is a great work, but it Is never finished, nor could it be car-. ried on at all without the'generoub: help of many friends. will you.. please lend your aid by sending a contribution for the cause to G. A. Reid, 223 College St:, Toronto 2. ..