folding of the plates
Exhibit 124, 11.
(cropped from border and page)
“Shows the folding of the plates of the shell containing the anchor eye-bars on the anchor pier. The folds in this instance resemble in every way the action of heavy felt under similar treatment.”
ex Quebec Bridge Inquiry 1907, Vol. 11. Minutes of Proceedings and Printed Exhibits (Ottawa, 1908)
University of Michigan copy, digitized Feb 10, 2006
NYPL copy here
—
“I sometimes wonder what sort of chap I’d have been if I had n’t been this sort; I want to go and live out his potentialities, too.”
Willa Cather, Alexander’s Bridge (1912) : 12
This detour prompted by current return to Cather for some re-reads and, in the case of this neglected first novel, a first read. The story borrows from the Quebec Bridge collapse of 1907. Bridge designer/engineer Bartley Alexander struggles with that project, as he does with his present and parallel path-not-taken lives.
tags:
failure; Quebec Bridge collapse; the unlived life
Willa Cather