As I passed over the old bridge into the market-place, where I
proposed to lunch (the sun was terrible - it was close upon eleven), I
saw them building parallel with that old bridge a new one to replace
it.
And the way they build a bridge in Belfort is so wonderfully
simple, and yet so new, that it is well worth telling.
In most places when a bridge has to be made, there is an infinite
pother and worry about building the piers, coffer-dams, and heaven
knows what else. Some swing their bridges to avoid this trouble, and
some try to throw an arch of one span from side to side. There are a
thousand different tricks. In Belfort they simply wait until the water
has run away. Then a great brigade of workmen run down into the dry
bed of the river and dig the foundations feverishly, and begin
building the piers in great haste. Soon the water comes back, but the
piers are already above it, and the rest of the work is done from
boats. This is absolutely true. Not only did I see the men in the bed
of the river, but a man whom I asked told me that it seemed to him the
most natural way to build bridges, and doubted if they were ever made
in any other fashion.
There is also in Belfort a great lion carved in rock to commemorate
the siege of 1870.
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