Piers of Bridges, [114], [200], [264], [316], [338], [341], [342], [353], [354]. There are other references also, but the reader will be able to follow the history of piers from the natural bridge of stepping-stones through the many changes and defects mentioned in the text. To-day, with the rapid improvements in airships and aeroplanes, new armoured piers will have to be designed, strong enough to bear the great weight of a roofed superstructure of armour-plate steel, yet not thick enough to obstruct rivers. Now that bridges are as vulnerable as Zeppelin sheds, engineers have an excellent chance to serve their countries well by inventing new and powerful bridges. How to protect piers—at least as much as possible—from direct artillery fire is one very difficult problem; how to protect them from falling shells and bombs is another. When London is fitted adequately with new defensive bridges her river will be as impressive as a fleet of super-Dreadnoughts. See also [“Abutment Piers.”]
- Piers, Criss-cross, Gaulish, [70];
- in Kashmír, [71-3];
- in North Russia, [73].
- Piers, Founding, [99], [197], [251-2], [341-2].
- Pigs, in China, sacrificed to rivers when bridges are in danger from floods, [69 footnote], [248].
- Pingeron, M., his remarks on Loyang Bridge, [127].
- Piranesi, Giambattista, 1720-78, [193], [197].
Pisa, her chapelled bridge, [209]. The late Mr. S. Wayland Kershaw wrote as follows in 1882: “The most remarkable bridge chapel abroad is the one dedicated to Santa Maria del’ Epina on the side of the bridge over the Arno at Pisa, erected about 1230. Built of the rich stone and marble of the district, it is ornamented with niches and figures, and, though renovated and repaired, still presents a graceful appearance.”
- Pointed Arches and Vaults, in Nature, [6 footnote];
- in Egypt of the Fourth Dynasty, [155-6];
- in Babylonian work, [275 footnote];
- at Arpino, [156];
- in early French bridges, [6 footnote], [86-93].
- Poitou, in its relation to ribbed arches in bridges, [95].
- Polo, Marco, [128], [210], [310], [313].
- Pons Ælius, [194-5].
- Pons Æmilius, [193 footnote].
- Pons Aurelius, [197].
- Pons Cestius, [196-7].
- Pons Fabricius, [195-6].
- Pons Gratianus, [196].
- Pons Lapideus, [140].
- Pons Milvius, [197].
- Pons Neronianus, [197].
- Pons Palatinus or Senatorius, [192-3].
- Pons Salarus, [191].
- Pons Selmis, [178].
- Pons Sublicius, [41], [64], [136], [140].
- Pons Triumphalis, [197].
- Pons Vaticanus, [197].
- Pont au Change, a Paris bridge, [224].
- Pont aux Meuniers, a Paris bridge, [224].
- Pont d’Arc, a Nature-made bridge, [6].
- Pont d’Ambroise, a Roman bridge, [82].
- Pont de Broel, a Flemish war-bridge, [290].
- Pont d’Espagne, a modern French bridge, [278].
- Pont des Consuls, a mediæval bridge at Montauban, [27], [254-6].
- Pont de Vernay at Airvault, see the plate facing page [96].
- Pont du Gard, Roman bridge-aqueduct, [83], [167-75].
- Pont Flavien at Saint-Chamas, Roman bridge, [176-7].
- Pont Napoléon, a great modern bridge, [278].
- Pont Neuf, Paris, [321-2], and the [illustration].
- Pont Notre Dame, Paris, [225].
- Pont St. Bénézet at Avignon, [frontispiece], [81-4], [217], [236-9], [262], [297].
- Pont St. Cloud, [296].
- Pont St. Esprit, [92], [126], [296] et seq.
- Pont St. Michel at Paris, [225].
- Pont Valentré at Cahors, [263-4], [282-5].
- Pont-y-Mynach, the Devil’s Bridge near Aberystwyth, [67] et seq.
- Pont-y-Pant, [131].
- Pont-y-Prydd, [28 footnote].
- Ponte Augustus at Rimini, [199].
- Ponte Cartaro at Ascoli-Piceno, [201].
- Ponte Cecco at Ascoli-Piceno, [201].
- Ponte della Trinità at Florence, [222], [316].
- Ponte di Porta Cappucina at Ascoli-Piceno, [201].
- Ponte Maggiore at Ascoli-Piceno, [200].
- Ponte Molle, [197].
- Ponte Nomentano, [298-9];
- also the picture facing page [296].
- Ponte Quattro Capi, [196].
- Ponte Rotto, [23], [192].
- Ponte S. Bartolommeo, [196].
- Ponte Salaro, [191].
- Ponte Sant’ Angelo, [194-5], [324].
- Ponte Sisto, [197], [265].
- Ponte Vecchio, [210], [222].
- Pontism, the historical study of bridges.
- Pontist, a devotee of bridges and their history.
Pontist Brothers or Friars, or Frères Pontifes, [83], [90], [91], [92], [296], [297], [342]. St. Bénézet was one of the leaders in this religious brotherhood of good craftsmen.
- Porta dell’ Arco at Arpino, celebrated in the history of pointed arches, [156-7].
- Portage Bridge, Great, on the Genesee River, [353-4].
- Porter, Simon, bailiff at Old Shoreham in the year 1318;
- his official defence of the neglected timber bridge, [41-2].
- Postbridge, Dartmoor, its famous clapper bridge, [104].
- Pratt, Godfrey, nefarious guardian of Old Bow Bridge, [98-9].
- Prehistoric Bridges, and their descent from Nature’s models, see Chapters [I] and [II].
- Preston Bridge, [250 footnote].
- Prior Park, Palladian Bridge, [343].
- Progress in Human Societies, its terrible slowness, [39], and section iii, Chapter I, “Custom and Convention,” [53-84];
- see also 110, [333].
- Puente de San Martin at Toledo, [287-8].
- Puente la Reina, [27 footnote].
- Puente Nuevo at Ronda, [280], and [footnote].
- Puente Trajan over the Tagus at Alcántara, [6], [153], [183], [186], [212], [321].
- Pul-i-Kaisar at Shushter in Persia, [202-4].
- Pul-i-Kâredj in Persia, [265-6].
- Pul-i-Khaju at Isfahan, [212-16].
- Pul-i-Marnun at Isfahan, [212];
- see also [“Persian Bridges”] and [“Ali Verdi Khan.”]
- Pulisangan, China, [310-12].
- Pulteney, William, his bridge at Bath, [221].
- Puritans, their enmity to chapelled bridges and to wayside shrines, [230], [233] et seq.
- Pyrenees, French, great bridges there, [278-80].
- Quakers, their attitude to the strife that bridges and roads circulate, [35-6].
- Qualities of a Great Bridge, [320].
- Quicksands of Cheapness, [48].
- Rabot, the, at Ghent, a fortified bridge and lock, [289], [291].
- Railway Bridges, often detestable, [5], [77], [78];
- conventional arguments which have governed their structure, [77];
- the High Level Bridge at Newcastle, [79-81];
- the Tay Bridge and its disaster, [339-42];
- the Forth Bridge, [350];
- the Illinois and St. Louis Bridge over the Mississippi, [352-3];
- the Great Portage Bridge over the Genesee River, [353-4].
Many railway bridges over strategical rivers can be displaced by tunnels, but many others must be armoured with cone-shaped roofs as a protection against overhead wars from airships and aeroplanes, [358]. See Albi Railway Bridge, the plate facing page [8], and Cannon Street Railway Bridge, the plate facing page [48].
Rameses II, Temple of, at Abydos, has a primitive vault built with horizontal courses of stone, showing its descent from the rock archways made by Nature, [155].
- Refinement, a quality often overdone in British art, [168].
- Reichenau, John Grubenmann’s Bridge at, [142].
Relief Bays for Flood Water, they were introduced by the Romans, 284, and were copied by mediæval bridgemen; witness the Pont des Consuls at Montauban, [255], [256], and the Pont St. Esprit, [293], [297]. Pontists should note both the difference of shape in flood-water bays and the variation of their position in the architecture. At Mérida, for example, in the great squat Roman bridge, they are long and round-headed, and rise from the low and bold cutwaters, which are overgrown with grey-green mosses and grass. On the other hand, a Moorish bridge of four arches near Tangier has much smaller relief bays with round heads, and they are pierced high up through the spandrils. They look like three little windows that give light and air to a work of sun-bleached antiquity. Moreover, their shape is repeated in about a dozen little holes cut through the base of the parapet, perhaps to help in the drainage of the roadway, perhaps to be useful in military defence. This Moorish bridge has semicircular arches, and the road is inclined over each abutment, just like the Roman bridge at Rimini. But the technical sentiment is less virile than the Roman.