Such a record would be the property of the State, always accessible to any one, and would be handed down, so that the knowledge of one person would not expire with his term of office. No bridge should be erected in any State without first submitting the plans to the inspector, and receiving his approval, and depositing with him a complete set of the plans and computations for the work. By this approval is not meant that the inspector is merely to give a favorable opinion as to the plan, but that he is to find, as a matter of fact, whether the proposed dimensions and proportions are such as will make a safe bridge—and just what a safe bridge is, can be plainly defined by law, as it is in Europe, and as it has been proposed by the American Society of Civil Engineers. For example, if the law says that an iron railway bridge of 100 feet span shall be proportioned to carry a load of 3,000 pounds per lineal foot besides its own weight, and that, with such a load, no part shall be strained by more than 10,000 pounds per inch, all the inspector has to do is to go over the figures, and see that the dimensions given on the plan are such as will enable the bridge to carry the load without exceeding the specified strains. When the work is erected, the inspection must show that the plan has been exactly carried out, that the details are good, and proper evidence of the quality of the material used should also be given. Such inspection as this would at once prevent the erection of bridges like those at Ashtabula and Tariffville, and would save the public from such traps as those that fell at Dixon and at Groveland. Perhaps the most difficult thing to do will be to get satisfactory evidence in regard to the bridges that have been for a considerable time in use, and of which we do not know the history. This will be especially true in regard to the wooden bridges, of which there are so many about the country. Not only is it very difficult to be sure of the exact condition of the timber, but it is equally hard to tell any thing about the iron. The Tariffville bridge fell on account of defective iron, and the defect was of such a nature as to defy any ordinary inspection. What do we know to-day of the quality of the iron rods in any wooden bridge in Massachusetts? It is very doubtful if the best inspection we have in the United States at the present time would have found any defect so evident in the Tariffville bridge as to condemn it as unfit for the passage of trains. There are hundreds of exactly such bridges all over New England, as far as we can tell by the best inspection we now have, made on the same plan, with no more material, and of which we know just as little of the quality of the iron as we did in the Tariffville bridge.
Of course we cannot expect to get a perfect system all at once. Any plan which might be proposed would, no doubt, be found more or less defective at first. We can hardly get a system worse than the one we now have, which allows forty bridges to break down every year. We may get a better one. To make the public see the need of such a system is the first step to be taken.