198

THE ASHTABULA DISASTER.

pair of braces were not put in till afterward; achange was made in the arrangement of theupper cords, which were shortened; after thesechanges Mr. Stone examined it without takingout the blocks, and pronounced it good; the falsework remained in position from October, 1805,to November, 1866.

Cross-examined—When the bridge was firstput up, it settled, and I made the remark thatif it kept on, it would go into the creek; per-haps I told it to half a dozen others; said itwas not Mr. Collins’ bridge, but Mr. Stone’s;said the bridge had cost a great deal of money,but don’t recollect saying it would cost the com-pany a great deal more; was discouraged becausethe bridge acted so, and that I couldn’t see howto remedy it; remember all this was before themodifications were made; Mr. Congdon was withMr. Stone when the bridge was examined; theplan of changing the braces was then adopted.

Mr. Albert Congdon, testified as follows: Atthe time of the construction of this bridge I wasemployed by the Lake Shore Load as mastermachinist; knew something about the construc-tion of this bridge, as I had charge of the workin making the bridge; found a lack of materialto fill the place for which it was designed; toldMr. Thompson about it, and he wanted to know