"Suspension Bridge" not alone proved itself in point of service, but it demonstrated the soundness of Mr. Roebling's claims for the wire structure. The Ohio structure, which followed, outdid Suspension Bridges in length of span; in economy of material, in simplicity and charm of outline it clearly foreshadowed the still greater work, the designing of which was to be the crowning accomplishment of his life. He was working with a practiced hand now. The doubts, if he ever had any, were behind him. Behind him, also, was a producing plant tuned to turn out at speed the materials he needed, with certainty of their quality. He had proved that the making of big bridges with wire was feasible, and that it was simple, as most great things are after they have been done. There were only three basic parts to a suspension bridge after all--towers, cables and anchorage. Suspending the roadway, which to the average man seems the vital part of the creation, is, from the engineering standpoint, only an accessory work. John A. Roebling had concentrated his life's effort, not on mere methods of commercial production, but rather on the proving of his contentions. He needed the right kind of wire rope to prove them, so like a wise man he made it himself. * * * * * He came to the summit of his achievement with the acceptance of his plans for the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, and then, his faith vindicated, his theory, which he had fought so hard to sustain, endorsed by boards of noted engineers and acclaimed by the public, starting out on the realization of his long dream--the building of the Eighth Wonder of the World, a comparatively slight accident, the bungled docking of a ferryboat, which crushed his foot and brought on tetanus, put out the steady candle of his life. It was the very whimsy of fate. His work was done. He had created, out of imagination and energy, the finished designs for a wonder fabric, ready for the labor of an intenser age. He did not live to see the spider structures hung like wisps of gossamer above the restless waterways of New York, but his name is woven into the very steel of them. CHAPTER III THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE Early in the fifties, when the Niagara accomplishment was more or less the talk of two continents and communication under seas by cable had helped to emphasize the possibilities of wire, John A. Roebling, protagonist of the wire bridge idea, advanced a proposal to connect New York and Long Island by a suspension bridge and release the people of Brooklyn from a segregation which they had made a somewhat futile pretense of enjoying. Habit dies hard. The crust of custom becomes strangely indurated with long exposure, and Brooklyn residents had fought the East River in profitable, if archaic, ferryboats too long to be lured lightly into any liaison with iconoclastic Manhattan by way of a wire bridge.