VYVYAN.
STUPENDOUS BRIDGE IN SPAIN.
Bridges are amongst the noblest, if not the most ancient, triumphs of human art. Many of the specimens of former ages are admired for their massive solidity, as well as for the beauty of their architectural decoration. The present bridge, a fabric of the last century, has neither of these attractions, though it is constructed upon the best principle of modern bridge-building—that of having one single arch. Péronnet and De Chezi, two celebrated engineers, who are regarded as the founders of a new school of bridge architecture in France, made it their study to render the piers as light, and the arches as extended and lofty as possible; and the above bridge is a handsome structure of this class. It has been objected that the modern French bridges have not that character of strength and solidity which the ancient bridges possessed, and that in the latter, the eye is generally less astonished, but the mind more satisfied, than in the former. To these objections the Spanish bridge is by no means liable, as we shall proceed to show from its details.
The present bridge extends across the river, Guadiaro, in the South of Spain, and connects the romantic city of Ronda with its suburbs. The situation of the city, encircled by Guadiaro, is described by Mr. Jacob, [5] as follows:—
"It is placed on a rock, with cliffs, either perpendicular and abrupt towards the river, or with broken craggs, whose jutting prominences, having a little soil, have been planted with orange and fig trees. A fissure in this rock, of great depth, surrounds the city on three sides, and at the bottom of the fissure the river rushes along with impetuous rapidity. Two bridges are constructed over the fissure; the first is a single arch, resting on the rocks on the two sides, the height of which from the water is one hundred and twenty feet. The river descends from this to the second bridge, whilst the rocks on each side as rapidly increase in height; so that from this second bridge to the water, there is the astonishing height of two hundred and eighty feet. The highest tower in Spain, the Giralda, in Seville, or the Monument, near London Bridge, if they were placed on the water, might stand under this stupendous arch, without their tops reaching to it."
"The mode of constructing this bridge is no less surprising than the situation in which it is placed, and its extraordinary elevation; it is a single arch of one hundred and ten feet in diameter; it is supported by solid pillars of masonry, built from the bottom of the river, about fifteen feet in thickness, which are fixed into the solid rock on both sides, and on which the ends of the arch rest; other pillars are built to support these principal ones, which are connected with them by other small arches. But as it is difficult to describe such an edifice, I must refer to the sketch I have made of it." (See the Cut.)
"A bridge was built on this spot in 1735, but the key-stone not having been properly secured, it fell down in 1741, by which fifty persons were killed. The present bridge was finished in 1774, by Don Joseph Martin Aldeheula, a celebrated architect of Malaga; and appears so well constructed as to bid defiance almost to time itself."