14

THE ASHTABULA DISASTER.

high and just wide enough for the two tracksof the road. Flanking these were the lower andsmaller abutments of an older bridge, left stand-ing, but, for a long time, unused. The span ofthe bridge across this gorge, from abutmentto abutment, was the unusual length of onehundred and fifty feet. The bridge wasvery high, and loomed up in the distance, talland dark and gloomy.

Travelers by the wagon road, at a distance upthe river a mile away, would stop and look atthis structure, apparently built high in air, andwatch the cars as they passed in bold reliefagainst the sky, almost as if a spectre train weretraversing the blue vault above.

It was a dizzy height. There was somethingalmost fearful in the sight. The recklessnessof danger impressed the observer. As the fulloutline marked itself against the sky, the fasci-nation at times almost reached a sense of thesublime.

Here, then, was the bridge suspended high inair,lofty and tall and dark, a mysterious thing. Itwas not an arch lifting high its springing sides,