REPORT OF R. H. WALWORTH, Commissioner. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA vs. THE WHEELING AND BELMONT BRIDGE COMPANY, IN EQUITY. To the Honorable ROGER B. TANEY, Chief Justice, JOHN MCLEAN, JAMES M. WAYNE, JOHN CATRON, JOHN MCKINLEY, PETER V. DANIEL, SAMUEL NELSON, LEVI WOODBURY, and ROBERT C. GRIER, Associate Justices, of the Supreme Court of the United States: I, the undersigned Reuben H. Walworth, the special commissioner to whom, by the order made by the said court at the December term which commenced in 1849, and which order was entered on the 29th of May, 1850, it was referred to take further proofs, and to report, upon the questions, whether the suspension bridge, mentioned in the pleadings in this cause, erected over the Ohio river at the city of Wheeling, by the defendants, is or is not an obstruction to the free navigation of the Ohio river, at the place where such bridge is erected across the same, by vessels propelled by steam or sails, engaged, or which may be engaged, in the commerce or navigation of said river; and, if it is such an obstruction, what change, or alteration, if any, can be made, consistent with the continuance of the bridge across the said river, that will remove the obstruction to the free navigation by such vessels engaged in the commerce and navigation of such river; and also to report the proofs which should be produced before me by the respective parties; with power to appoint a clerk to assist in the execution of the order of reference; and also with power, if I should deem it necessary, to appoint a competent Engineer, whose duty it should be, under my directions and instructions, as such commissioner, to take the measurement of said bridge, its appendages and appurtenances, and the localities connected therewith, and make a report to me upon the same; do report as follows: When I was very unexpectedly informed of my appointment, as special commissioner to execute this order of reference, I was aware that the discharge of the important duty which had been assigned to me, must draw me from my residence for a very considerable length of time; and that it would therefore necessarily conflict very materially with the business of chamber counsel, in which I have been engaged since I left the bench. From my very limited knowledge of the subject of steam navigation, especially upon the waters of the Ohio and other western rivers, and of the principles of civil engineering generally, I also felt that I was not well qualified to decide the very interesting and important questions upon which the order of reference required me to report. It was also easy to foresee that the conclusions at which the commissioner might arrive upon these questions must necessarily conflict not only with the feelings and interests of one portion of the numerous individuals who are represented by the nominal parties to this suit, but also with the wishes and local interests of thousands of others, who might and would consider themselves indirectly affected by the settlement of principles involved in the decision of the questions referred to him for decision. For those principles not only apply to the manner of bridging the navigable waters of the Ohio, at Wheeling and other places, but also, to a certain extent, to the manner in which many other navigable streams in different parts of the United States, may be bridged; for ordinary transit, or for the passage of engines, and trains of railroad cars. Under such circumstances, I should perhaps have asked to be excused from discharging the important duties which had been so unexpectedly assigned to me by the court. But the manner in which the appointment had been made, and the knowledge that several members of the court had expressed a strong desire that I should accept the appointment and execute the order of reference, prevented me from declining from any considerations relating to myself merely. As soon as practicable, therefore, after the receipt of a certified copy of the order of reference, I took the usual oath of office, before one of the justices of this court, and informed the counsel of the parties, by letter, that I was ready to proceed with the executionof the order. After learning from the counsel for the respective parties that they desired to examine witnesses, at Wheeling, Pittsburgh and other places west of the Alleghanies, I made an order for the parties to appear before me, by their counsel, with their witnesses, at the United States Hotel in the city of Wheeling, on the 15th of July, 1850, to proceed with the reference in this cause; of which order both parties had notice. I appointed John M. Davison, Esquire, of Saratoga Springs, the late register of the court of chancery of the state of New-York, as clerk, to take down the testimony of the witnesses who should be examined; and to render me such other assistance as might be necessary in the execution of the order of the court. And in pursuance of the authority contained in that order I appointed Edwin F. Johnson, Esq. a distinguished engineer of the state of Connecticut, to make the measurements of the bridge, its appendages and localities, &c. After the engineer had entered upon the duties of his appointment, it was ascertained that he was related, by affinity, to one of the counsel of the state of Pennsylvania. And being objected to by the counsel of the adverse party, on that ground, I deemed it expedient to dispense with his further services. I thereupon appointed William I. Mc Alpine, Esquire, of Albany, formerly the chief engineer of the United States Dry Dock at Brooklyn, the engineer upon this reference. The counsel for both parties thereupon agreed, that such engineer should not only make the particular measurements specified in the order of reference, but also perform such other duties as engineer, and report upon such matters, as I should think proper to instruct him to perform and report upon; without any reservation as to the expression of opinions in his report, and without restraint in consequence of the limited terms of the order of reference in this respect. Under this arrangement and consent of the parties, by their counsel, I instructed the engineer not only to take measurements of the bridge, its appendages and appurtenances, and the localities connected therewith, but also to make certain inquiries and estimates in reference to various plans of altering the present bridge, which had been suggested by the counsel, upon the reference; and to report his opinions as to the practicability and the expense of altering the bridge according to such plans respectively. I also from time to time, instructed the engineer, to ascertain the dimensions and mode of construction of such of the larger classes of boats running upon the Ohio, as he should meet with, the dimensions of their furnaces, boilers, flues, engines, and chimneys and their apparatus for lowering, &c. the capacity and facilities of the Louisville canal for the passage of steamboats, the quantity and weight of coal usually sold and delivered, for a bushel, to the steamboats, to be used upon the Obio; and to make examinations as to various other matters which I considered it might be important to have known, for the decision of the questions before me. I also authorized the engineer, in his report, to express such opinions upon any of these subjects as he might deem proper; except upon the question whether the bridge as it now exists is an obstruction to the navigation. And after the testimony was closed, I suggested to him two different plans for altering the bridge; if it should be decided that an alteration was necessary. And I directed him to estimate the cost of such alterations respectively, and state his opinion in reference to the proposed alterations so far as he should think proper to do so. The report of the engineer upon these several matfers is hereto annexed. Upon the day appointed by me to proceed with the reference, I attended at the city of Wheeling, where both parties attended by their counsel; and I continued to take testimony there and at va rious other places, by adjournments from time to time, until the 11th day of December, 1850, when the proofs upon the reference were closed. The proofs so taken before me, and a statement of the several proceedings had before me upon the taking of the same are annexed to this my report. The proper investigation, or understanding of some of the questions submitted to me for decision in this case, required at least a general knowledge of statics, dynamics, hydrostatics, and hydrodynamics, including hydraulics. It also required a general knowledge as to the principles of the different kinds of steam engines used for the propulsion of boats, the proper construction of steamboats for the transportation of freight and the accommodation of passengers, the calorific properties of different kinds of fuel, and the quantities of oxygen necessary for combustion, the proper construction of furnaces, chimneys, flues and boilers, to burn the fuel and to communicate the necessary heat to the water in the boilers to generate steam, the strength of materials, and the different modes of constructing bridges over navigable streams for ordinary travel and transit, or for the passage of locomotives, with trains of railroad cars, proceeding with the usual velocities. And it also required a particular knowledge as to the commerce of the Ohio, and the peculiar regimen of that river in reference to its navigation by vessels propelled either by steam or by sails. In examining the case, therefore, I have not only considered the testimony taken before me on this reference, and the evidence which was before the court upon the hearing of the cause there, but I have availed myself of information, on matters of natural science, which was contained in authentic public documents, and in the published works of approved authors; so far as such documents and works were within my reach, and the limited time I had allowed myself to prepare this report, enabled me to do so. Before proceeding to examine the particular questions specified in the order of the court, it may not be improper, particularly in reference to the last of those questions, that I should make some remarks upon suspension bridges and their adaptation to the purposes of transit, across navigable streams, of ordinary vehicles and travel; or for the passage of rail road trains. Suspension bridges of iron, to a limited extent, have been in use in Europe for more than a century; and were orignally introduced as a means of transit for foot passengers only. A bridge of this kind was built across the Tees, as early as 1741, with a span of seventy feet, over a chasm 60 feet deep; for the use of the miners. It was suspended upon iron chains, stretched from rock to rock. And a little more than 30 years since such bridges began to be constructed for the passage of ordinary vehicles and common travel. The European suspension bridges are mostly sustained upon chains formed of wrought iron bars. But the Freibourg bridge, in Switzerland, erected over the valley of the Saane, by Mr. Chaley in 1834, which has the longest span of them all, and is the longest suspension bridge which has ever been constructed, except the Wheeling bridge. Like the last mentioned bridge, it is suspended upon cables of iron wire. The Freibourg bridge is used only for ordinary travel and transit; and the span of its catenary is 870 feet; its suspension cables are, in the aggregate, composed of 4224 iron wires, each twelve hundredths of an inch in diameter. The following are some of the principal suspension bridges which have been erected in Great Britain, or in this country, whose spans are over 300 feet; arranged in the order of the lengths of the spans of their respective catenaries: The bridge over the Niagara river, below the falls, constructed by Mr. Ellet, the distinguished engineer who afterwards planned and built the Wheeling bridge. It has a span of 759 feet. And I believe it is suspended upon 4 wire cables, containing in the aggregate 1767 strands of No. 10 iron wire. The Charing Cross bridge, over the Thames, is suspended upon 4 iron chains having an aggregate cross section of 296 square inches. And the span of its catenary is 676 feet, and the deflection is 50 feet. The bridge over the Menai Straits, erected by Mr. Tellford, was commenced in 1819 and finished in 1826. The span of its catenary is 570 feet, and the deflection is 43 feet. It is suspended upon 16 wrought iron chains, which are 1710 feet long, to the points at each end where they are anchored in the rocks. And they have an aggregate cross section of 260 square inches. This bridge leaves a clear headway of 100 feet for the passage of vessels; upon the top of the ordinary spring tides, which rise about 21 or 22 feet. But as the tide, at that place, sometimes rises to the height of 30 feet, the headway for vessels is at such times reduced to about 90 feet. The Union bridge, over the Tweed, about 5 miles from Berwick, was built in 1820. It is suspended upon six chains whose links are made of wrought iron bars 2 inches in diameter. The greatest deflection of the catenary is 30 feet, and its span is 449 feet; though the length of the bridge between the abutments is but 337 feet. The aggregate of the cross section of the chains is 38 square inches. The Kelso bridge, over the same river, farther up, was completed the same year. It has twelve iron suspension chains arranged in pairs. The span of its catenary is 437 feet. The Montrose bridge, over the Esk in Scotland, was built in 1829, and was partially destroyed by the wind in October, 1838. It is suspended upon four chains, with links made of wrought iron, 5 inches by one inch; and the aggregate cross section of the chains is 80 square inches. Its catenary has a span of 432 feet, and it deflects 42 feet. The Marlow bridge has a span of 426 feet; and the deflection of the catenary is 28 feet. The roadway is suspended upon four chains, and the cross section of the iron in all of the chains together is 64 inches. The Hammersmith bridge, connecting Hammersmith with the Surry side of the Thames, was completed in 1824. The span of its catenary is 4224 feet and the deflection 29 feet. The bridge is suspend |