OCR Text |
Show JAPS SILENT BRIDGE BUILDERS. Near the camp of the correspondents I matched the pioneer company erect a bridge some 250 feet long and seven feet above the water at the center. There was no apparent hurry or bustle, no shouting of orders, no wrangling, no noise. The battalion worked like a silent, well-oiled machine, and it took Just four days from the time the men entered the sacred pine . forest of deceased Chinese ancestors and began to fell the trees until the last plank was laid, the guard-rails placed, and the bridge ready for traffic. The largest timber tim-ber used was about eight Inches In diameter. diam-eter. Axes played very little part, and broad one-man Chinese saws and a linked or sectional folding crosscut saw took their place. The two-man folding saw is particularly Interesting, consisting as it does of six-inch lengths of thin spring steel, half an inch wide, linked or flexibly riveted end to end. The saw teeth are the same size and set as in the ordinary crosscut cross-cut saw. By girdling a tree with this saw and grasping a handle in each hand, one man can actually cut down a tree, but usually It is used by two men. In one day all the plies, cross timbers and brace ties were cut in this forest. William Dinwiddle's Din-widdle's Manchuria Letter to Leslie's Weekly. |