Science: Canals, Bridges, Dams

The six greatest engineering feats of modern times, picked by Ralph Modjeski, famed Polish civil engineer, and son of Helena Modjeska, the tragedienne (Popular Science Monthly, June), include two canals, two bridges, and two dams:

1) The Suez Canal (1869).

2) The Firth of Forth Bridge, Scotland (1889).

3) The Assuan Dam, Egypt (1902).

4) The Panama Canal (1914).

5) The Roosevelt Dam, Arizona (1911).

6) The Quebec Bridge, St. Lawrence River (1917). Some of these achievements have since been surpassed in the progress of engineering, but the obstacles surmounted and the state of science in their day make them supreme.

Some of the engineering feats of the near future, according to Modjeski:

A sea-level canal at Panama, (TIME, Jan. 28, CABINET).

An Anglo-French tunnel or bridge across the Straits of Dover.

The Hudson River Bridge, New York, and the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco (both projected).

Dr. Modjeski was born in Poland in 1861. He has just been awarded one of the annual John Scott medals by the American Philosophical Society. He designed and built the Columbia and Willamette River bridges, Ore.; the McKinley bridge, St. Louis; was one of the associated engineers of the Quebec bridge; and is now chief engineer of the Delaware River bridge, Philadelphia, which will have the longest single span in the U. S.