Page:Final Report - The Columbia River Interstate Bridge.pdf/36

 the concrete protection has been carried up to an elevation of 30 ft. above low water at the ends of the embankment where the high water of 1916 indicated erosion would occur, and at the buried piers has been carried up the full height of the embankment. The area on the slopes not covered by the slabs has been heavily fertilized and sown to grass, and it is expected that compact sod will be secured which will prevent local erosion. Great numbers of evergreen blackberries, a hardy indigenous shrub, have also been set out on the slopes to help in the prevention of erosion. The railing along each side of the embankment is of timber throughout of ample strength and rigidity for the prevention of serious accidents, as has already been proved.

The embankment across Hayden Island is more exposed than the other embankment and the Engineers of the War Department required that the slope protection extend entirely over both sides up to an elevation 30 ft. above low water or 5 ft. above normal high water. Owing to the exposed position of the Vancouver embankment, the slope protection there was similarly carried up to an elevation 30 ft. above low water.

On the Derby Street approach the high water of 1916 indicated that there was no serious danger of erosion from current except at the ends of the embankment. The Union Avenue approach serves as a protection to the major part of the upstream slope of this embankment, so that the concrete slope protection was provided only at its ends.

At each end of the main river bridge there are two entrance columns or pylons of concrete. These are of concrete rather than cut stone or marble because they more ﬁtly represent the simple, straightforward construction of the bridge. They hear bronze tablets which give not only the names of the Commissioners, of the Engineers and of the Contractors, but also certain inscriptions which seemed to your Engineers to represent something of the thought and purpose and ideals of those responsible for the bridge. The inscription from Macaulay seems fitly to represent the purpose of the bridge; the inscription from Ruskin may fairly give the spirit of the builders, your Contractors and your Engineers; that from Carl Schurz is an appeal for remembrance of old ideals of patriotism and of service not unsymbolized by the bridge; and the last from the pen of Richard W. Montague and your Engineers is believed truly to indicate the origin and purpose of the whole endeavor.

By permission of the Commission. the Washington chapters of D. A. R. and S. A. R. have erected at the Vancouver end