WHEN IT’S REALLY SWISS CHEESE

SCANDALS in the Swiss Cheese Family, the reformers sadly admit, have made it almost as notorious as the Swiss Family Robinson. It is not merely that a ring of cheese around a hole bigger than a silver dollar, and filled in with mustard, as the New York Evening World complains, has done duty for years as a Swiss cheese sandwich. Worse remains to tell. There are so many good imitations of Swiss cheese that nobody can tell whether he is eating holes imported from Switzerland or from Kamchatka, from Norway or Wisconsin, from Berne or Boise, Idaho. It is with intent to clean up this particular scandal, we are told, that the Swiss makers of Swiss cheese in Switzerland have adopted a method of self-defense, as a result of which, from now on, if you wish to eat real Swiss cheese with imported holes, you will have to eat the kind with “Switzerland Cheese” stamped on the rind, for that is henceforth to be its official name.

As this is a free country, the Louisville Times admits it has hitherto supposed that the word “Swiss” could be applied ad libitum to “any group of holes surrounded by a lacework of hard slick cheese.” The time for such liberties, however, is now gone. As the Boston Transcript explains so clearly, “Swiss cheese” from this time forth will be any kind but Swiss. Or, in the words of the St. Louis Times, the only genuine Swiss is “Switzerland.” It is a little confusing, but perhaps the following statement sent out from the office of the Consul General of Switzerland, in New York, will remove that dizzy feeling:

Swiss cheese made in Switzerland will hereafter be known as Switzerland cheese to distinguish it from the Swiss type of cheese imported from other European countries, and also made in America.

The change was made by the Switzerland Cheese Association, a cooperative society which comprises milk producers, cheese manufacturers and exporters in Switzerland, having the governmental right for the exportation of Swiss cheese. The new name has been recorded with the International Patent Union and the United States Patent Office, and will in future be stamped on the rind of the cheese.

The change of the name to Switzerland Cheese was made necessary because of increasing shipments to the United States of the Swiss type of cheese made in other European countries and sold as “imported Swiss cheese,” the public therefore being led to believe that such product was genuine Swiss. The new designation was chosen in order to protect the American consumer as well as the reputation of the cheese made in Switzerland.

These shipments last year amounted to 2,000,000 pounds; but as the name “Swiss cheese,” under which this particular type of product has become generally known, could not be copyrighted, the Switzerland Cheese Association was compelled to adopt a new name. The first shipment with the name Switzerland stamped on it arrived on September 1.

This development in the cheese world is interesting not Only to cheese-lovers but to all observers of sales methods, remarks the Chicago Journal of Commerce, continuing:

The Switzerland cheese industry was confronted by the fact that its product had gained such world-wide favor as to cause the manufacture of the same product in many other lands, all under the original Swiss name. Switzerland possest the cheese prestige but lacked much of the cheese business. How to turn its prestige into money was the problem.

And the problem was solved, probably by some bright advertising man who suggested a new name, which should be distinctively Swiss and yet should not be the word “Swiss,” and which should be protectable against infringement. Probably Switzerland’s cheese industry will make millions of dollars in the long run by the use of this simple sales idea.

Dairy communities throughout the United States are discussing the subject. One Wisconsin paper, the Mt. Horeb Times, cries in alarm that “the whole State of Wisconsin has been beaten to it!” It goes on to say:

The importance of this move can not be ignored by the State of Wisconsin if we want to remain the center of the cheese industry. The only way to do is to produce the finest quality cheese, then by judicious advertising convince the public that we can produce a better product, and so have the preference on the market. The power of an advertising campaign conducted along proper lines is a tremendous molder of public favor. We must get busy and hold the business at home.

Ohio, which has developed a consider-able industry in Swiss cheese making, takes the matter more philosophically. “Swiss cheese may be really Swiss only when abroad,” says the Columbus State Journal, “but the American Swiss has many friends, and doubtless will retain its popularity.” We read further:

Hereafter the imported cheese will bear the brand of Switzerland and be sold under that name, to mark more clearly the distinction between imported and home products. The foreign makers insist no one in this country can make real Swiss cheese. But the fact remains that for years men in America have been making it. The trade likes it, sales are increasing, and chemists find little real difference in the two products.

Source: The Literary Digest for October 15, 1927

A RIVAL TO PLATINUM

THIS TITLE IS BESTOWED on tantalum, one of the most important rare metals produced on a commercial scale, by a writer in The Engineering and Mining Journal (New York). Says this paper:

“Its unusual resistance to chemical corrosion makes it of much value to the chemical and allied industries as a material for equipment construction. In general appearance tantalum resembles steel, to some extent, and will take a polish. It can be given wonderful iridescent colors by special processes after the article made from it is fabricated. Recent discoveries in this line indicate great possibilities for its use as a semi-precious art metal.

“The working properties of tantalum are such that it can be worked cold, drawn, hammered, machined, polished, hardened, rolled, and punched. The pure metal is rather easily worked. Forms in which the metal can be readily obtained include wire from .001 inch diameter upward to heavy bar; sheet from .002 inch thickness upward; and tubing in special sizes.

“The most characteristic chemical property of tantalum is its unusual resistance to chemical corrosion. It is not attacked by hydrochloric or nitric acids or by aqua regia, either hot or cold. It is not attacked by dilute sulfuric acid at ordinary or more elevated temperatures, but appears to be slowly attacked by boiling, concentrated sulfuric acid. Solutions of caustic alkalies do not attack the metal easily. Hydrofluoric acid seems to be the only chemical agent which will attack it readily, and in the case of pure metal and pure hydrofluoric acid the action is very slow. A mixture of hydrofluoric and nitric acids will attack the metal with avidity, causing it to go into solution as tantalum fluorid.

“If tantalum is heated in the air, the surface becomes blue at a temperature of about 400 degrees C., and at a somewhat higher temperature, nearly black. Above a dull red heat the white oxid is produced and the metal gradually burns. This metal combines with avidity with hydrogen, oxygen, or nitrogen. It will take up 740 times its own volume of hydrogen, producing a very coarse-grained, brittle product.

“Tantalum containing dissolved gases will be harder than the pure metal, and if their quantity is appreciable the metal may even be brittle. All annealing or heating operations with tantalum must therefore be carried out in a vacuum. Solutions of chlorin or the gas itself are without any action on the metal. Tantalum is not affected by any of the chemicals or antiseptics used in dentistry or surgery.”

Source: The Literary Digest for October 1, 1927

DID DANIEL BOONE DISLIKE DOGS?

WHEN the career of that great Indian fighter, hunter, and frontiersman is considered “in the light of all that history, tradition, and border romance have had to say about him,” the question of his attitude toward dogs may be of small importance, remarks the New York Sun in an editorial which goes on to remark that the question nevertheless “has rent parts of North Carolina, especially around about Holmans Ford on the Yadkin, and it is interesting Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri.” As we read on:

Dr. Archibald Henderson, “hard-headed professor of mathematics” at the University of North Carolina, seems to have raised the issue and stirred up doubts, and the News and Observer of Raleigh says Dr. Henderson “ought to know better than to knock down legends of Daniel Boone.”

When a person leaves North Carolina, he has a reason. “If it hadn’t been for the barking of dogs Daniel Boone would have continued to live at Holmans Ford in Yadkin county.” But that is not the way “the hard-headed professor of mathematics” puts the matter. He declares that Boone was not a solitary nomad answering the lure of the wilderness and the call of the wild. On the contrary, he was “the skilled agent of a bold, creative mind, the employee of a group of North Carolina gentlemen organized in a colossal commercial enterprise for opening the way to the West and the colonization of the territory for speculative purposes.”

The doctor takes little stock in the story of Boone building on his own initiative the famous trail through the Cumberland Gap and into the Transylvania section of the mountain land. He says that Boone and thirty axmen were hired by the land company to widen and clearly mark an old Indian trail, and that this path came to be called “Boone’s Wilderness Trail.” What was known as Boone’s Fort was built by Boone and other pioneers for the land company. And then as if to pile Pelion on Ossa, he says that Boonesborough was not “even the first permanent settlement in Kentucky,” James Harrod and his party having founded Harrodsburg previously.

The legends of North Carolina and Kentucky say that long before Boone went with the land company he had roamed through the Kentucky wilderness, that he had hairbreadth escapes from Indians and that his one desire was to find a stopping-place where he could sleep at night in peace. But his troubles were not barking dogs alone but land squatters. Dr. Henderson gives to Boone his full measure of fame as an adventurer, pioneer, and Indian fighter, but he refuses to accept as trustworthy the fulsome so-called “autobiography” by John Filson.

Boone was ever seeking a place where he would not be disturbed. Every time he moved, however, he would hear the barking of a dog and he would know that some settler was not many miles away.

Source: The Literary Digest for October 15, 1927

TESTS FOR DRUNKENNESS

JUST HOW DRUNK must a man be to make him unsafe as a motorist? This is the problem that has been bothering British experts, as already noted in these columns.

The British Medical Journal (London) tells us that for several years public attention has been aroused by convictions of persons charged with drunkenness when driving a motor-car, and apprehension was caused by the fact that in some of these cases the decision of the magistrate was not sustained. In the autumn of 1925 the Association of Metropolitan Police Surgeons requested the British Medical Association, which is representative of all shades of professional opinion, to take the matter up, and a committee was appointed for the purpose, including two police magistrates. Says The Journal:

“It was well known that charges involving an allegation of drunkenness were made in the police courts in a large number of cases not connected with motor-cars. The Association was concerned in two aspects of the position which had arisen:

first, there was the diagnosis of drunkenness; secondly, the conflict of medical evidence. The committee had from the first to take into consideration the fact that the symptoms produced by alcohol, as by other toxic substances, vary in severity, according to the size of the dose, and, possibly, the susceptibility of the individual. The mere fact that it was proved, or admitted, that some alcoholic liquor had been taken a short time before the occurrence of the circumstances which led to the charge, was clearly insufficient.

“The committee studied the subject very thoroughly in all its aspects. It examined the tests in common use in this country to determine the fact that the accused person was ‘drunk,’ and came to the conclusion that there is no single symptom due to the consumption of alcohol which might not also be a sign of some other pathological condition. The committee attempted a definition of the word ‘drunk,’ which it considers ‘should always be taken to mean that the person concerned was so much under the influence of alcohol as to have lost control of his faculties to such an extent as to render him unable to execute safely the occupation on which he was engaged at the material time.’ The advice to the medical practitioner called in to such cases is that in the absence of any pathological condition a person may be declared to be definitely under the influence of alcohol if there is a smell of it in the breath, but only provided certain concomitant signs or symptoms are observed—namely, a dry furred tongue or excessive salivation, irregularities in behavior, suffusion to the conjunctiva, coupled with an abnormal condition of the pupil, loss or confusion of memory, particularly for recent events, and of appreciation of time, hesitancy and thickness in speech, and tremors and errors of coordination and orientation.

“An interesting clinical observation which has been made by many police surgeons is that when alcohol in toxic quantity has been consumed the pupil reflex to ordinary light is absent, but that to a bright light the pupil will contract and remain contracted for an abnormally long time, indicating delayed reaction. The committee was not able to recommend the estimation, by analysis of the blood, urine, or cerebro-spinal fluid, of the amount of alcohol consumed. This is also the opinion of the Danish Medico-Legal Society, after consultation with the police. Such examinations are not practicable in the circumstance in which an allegation of drunkenness is ordinarily made. A medical decision must be reached within a short time, and the committee recommends that in ordinary cases any person accused of drunkenness should be able to rely upon being seen by a doctor, if he so desires, within half an hour of the time at which he is charged.

“After studying the procedure of the police in Great Britain, of the Royal Navy, and of the Army, and also in New Zealand, France, and the United States of America, the committee arrived at the conclusion that in order to obtain uniformity in the method of testing drunkenness some such form of certificate as that drawn up by the Danish Medico-Legal Society might with advantage be adopted when examining persons in this country.”

The Literary Digest for April 16, 1927

THE BIGGEST VACUUM TUBE

A ONE-HUNDRED-KILOWATT VACUUM power-tube is now in use at station WGY, Schenectady, New York, operated by the General Electric Company. This, it is asserted by the company in a press bulletin, is the first practical use of a tube of this size by any broadcasting station. The tube takes the place of eight 20-kilowatt tubes in WGY’s transmitter, and is five feet tall, and with its water-jacket stands seven and one-half feet high, and weighs 100 pounds. We read:

“With such a tube available, radio engineers will be able to carry on their investigations in broadcasting on higher powers than have heretofore been possible. Up to the present time fifty kilowatts in the antenna has been known as ‘ super power,’ but with tubes of an output of 100 kilowatts at hand, investigations will be possible up to 500 kilowatts, or even more.

“The 100-kilowatt tube is used as a radio amplifier, fulfilling in the transmitter a use comparable with the radio-frequency stages in most radio receivers. In the receiver, a very weak, high-frequency oscillation is picked up by the antenna. This excites the radio-frequency-amplifier tube which amplifies the power or signal. In the transmitter, the output of one 20-kilowatt tube is amplified by the 100-kilowatt tube.

“In the development of the 100-kilowatt tube the vacuum-tube department and research-laboratory engineers had to devise an entirely new structural design to provide necessary strength and durability. Outside of its water-jacket the tube is five feet high, and two-thirds of this height consists of the copper envelop, four inches in diameter. The envelop serves a double purpose, for it not only contains the elements of the tube, but is, itself, the anode or plate of the tube.

“The upper third of the tube is made of glass, through which the filament-leads and the grid-lead find insulated entrance. The glass bulb is twenty-two inches long and four inches in diameter, and it is sealed to the spun-out end of the anode cylinder or copper envelop by a machine-process in such a way as to make the junction of glass and copper mechanically strong and vacuum-tight.

“The grid, within the copper envelop, is cylindrical and has an overall length of three feet five inches. The grid frame is a most ingenious structure of molybdenum and tungsten. Bracing, such as is common in steel-bridge and tower construction, is used in the design to provide maximum strength with a minimum of metal. Sufficient rigidity and strength are necessary in this construction to prevent short-circuiting from swaying or sagging.

“Uniform water-flow around the anode is necessary to prevent unequal heating, and for this purpose a new type of water-jacket has been designed. This consists of an ordinary jacket with an inner flexible jacket to direct the water by the anode.”

Source: The Literary Digest for April 16, 1927

Johnson Outboard Motors 1927

Joyful Hours of Relaxation are Yours when water-motoring with a Johnson

You who love the waters know the lure of wave-lapped shores—the joyful hours of relaxation that lie in peaceful pools—the thrill of spray-tossed bow and foaming wake —the joys of water-motoring.

This summer go water-motoring with a Johnson at the stern of your boat.

Four Johnson Outboard Boat Motors for 1927 offer advancements in design and construction so outstanding that Johnson again sets a new standard of water-motoring performance. Now, more than ever, is Johnson recognized as the leader in the outboard motor industry.

Ask your Johnson dealer to let you try one of the new Johnsons yourself. Four models offer speed ranges of 8, 13, 22 and 27 m.p.h. Ask him about the new Johnson Aquaflyer—a 17-ft. outboard motor boat for four persons.

Johnson motors are sold on easy payments and can be insured against fire and theft at little cost. Write for full information.

Johnson Outboard Motors, South Bend, Ind.

Source: Advert in The Literary Digest for April 16, 1927

JAZZ – THE GOOD NEWS FROM ROME

LABORERS IN THE VINEYARD should welcome, and do, the good news from the Vatican that the jazz age is passing, and that the flood of immorality which lapped every shore is receding. Civilization is returning to normalcy, custom is becoming sane, Governments are checking orgiastic vices, religion everywhere is remustering its depleted ranks. It is a most encouraging note, agree a number of our own observers, and as the Pittsburgh Chronicle Telegraph reminds us, “it is based on reports from trained observers. It should hearten all who are working in the cause of public decency and righteousness the world over.”

Not only is Christendom affected, it is announced in Vatican circles; but Turkey has taken steps against immoral dances, and Japan against the social evil. The Vatican does not proclaim a victory, but there is no doubt, a spokesman is quoted in dispatches as saying, that “all Governments, confronted with a general collapse of standards and wholesale confusion of ideas, are occupying themselves more and more with the task of checking immorality and seeking to destroy or, at least, limit its cause.” The Conte Della Torre, who is said usually to speak for the Pope, remarks that the sight was terrifying when the people whose eyes had gradually returned to normal focus saw the moral pit into which they had fallen after the war.” In consequence, it is said, the so-called modern ideas are in retreat all along the line. Belgium and Czechoslovakia have taken official steps against immorality posing as art. The United States, England, and Canada are showing signs of awakening to the danger of immorality on the stage, while Italy, Spain and other Mediterranean countries are cooperating with the Church in defense of the traditional ideas of sanctity of the family. Advocates of birth control and easy divorce are losing ground. Dress fashions and dance vogues are becoming less absurd and bizarre. Even the Bohemian colonies in the capitals of Europe, where the self-styled apostles of freedom and modernism daily proclaim the same old revolution, are losing their rhetoric and forgetting their causes.

It seems generally conceded that the moral let-down was a result of the war, when a sort of fatalism seized the people and they ate, drank and made merry because civilization might be dead on the morrow. “The most charitable thing to say of that period is that people were scarcely responsible for their actions, so shattered were their nerves, and so bitter the sorrows they had to bear,” comments the Providence News. Most deplorable was the physical destruction of youth in the war, “but even worse was the moral destruction that followed on the peace. It is to be hoped,” continues The News, “that this will be kept in mind by persons who take the pagan view that in some mysterious way war is a blessing because of the heroic qualities it brings forth on the battlefield.”

Source: The Literary Digest of April 16, 1927

TEXAS longhorns are nearly extinct.

The thundering herd has joined the buffalo, the six-shooter and the brass rail as a vanished part of the more or less wild life of the old West. A few specimens of “the most spectacular domesticated— or semi-domesticated—animal that America has produced” will be preserved by the Government in the Wichita National Forest, Oklahoma, says The Outlook, and we learn further from an editorial in the New York Evening Sun that:

The range set apart for the longhorn reserve herd is in what was the Indian Territory, where there are still thousands of authentic red Americans. Old-time cattlemen of the Southwest, familiar with the longhorn in its mightier day, will select the individuals to compose the herd and be a monument to a strain of taurine excellence to which the sturdy cattle upon a thousand hills give testimony.

It seems only yesterday that longhorns were so numerous as apparently to be able to defy extermination. It was not only their number, great as that was, which seemed to guarantee their endurance; their hardiness, their ability to care for them-selves on the range even when grass was sparse, their spirit, all combined to make superb animals of them. Survivors they were of many a long year of life in the rough country, and they seemed destined to outlast the centuries. No person who has ever seen a great herd of them thundering across a prairie, their fine horns flashing in the sunlight, would have dreamed that as a species they were destined to an end so near. Their throng seemed inexhaustible.

Descendants of cattle brought to America by the early Spanish colonists, they had developed qualities which enabled them. to flourish in a wild state. Their long and sharp horns equipped them to protect their calves from forays by wolves, panthers and other beasts of prey. Minimum requirements of food and water enabled them to thrive even in times of comparative drought and on pastures where cattle of less sturdy breeds would have starved. The very things which served them best in a wild state, however, served them ill in a state of domestication. After man had cleared the range of beasts of prey the long horns of the longhorns only caused them to injure one another, particularly. when they were stampeded. The better food they were ultimately able to get went to building up additional bone and muscle rather than fat and milk.

Curtailment of range and increased demand for heavy beef cattle caused breeders to experiment with various crosses, especially those of longhorn cows with shorthorn bulls. The result has been greatly improved stock, beasts which retain much of the hardiness of the old rovers of the prairies and exhibit the flesh-building qualities of their cousins.

Source: The Literary Digest of April 16, 1927

SUMMER SKIING IN SWITZERLAND

MIDSUMMER sports are seldom associated in the minds of vacationists with skiing, yet this. is one of the many events entered on the calendar of Switzerland this summer.

This is made possible by Switzerland’s sharp contrast of altitude. While the valleys and lower mountain slopes are flower-decked and the lakes fringed with rich foliage, one may quickly ascend to the snowy heights shimmering in the distance.

Summer ski festivals will be held on the ski courses of the Corvatsch Glacier, near St. Moritz, in July. St. Moritz, one of the capitals of winter sports in Switzerland, is in summer a floral paradise.

During the same month ski races are scheduled at Jungfraujoch, reached by cogwheel division of the Jungfrau railway. The trip itself is impressive.

“Jungfraujoch is situated in the glaciated ridge between the Jungfrau and the Monch,” says Frederick Dossenbach in his book entitled “How to See Switzerland.” “Flanked by these two great peaks, the station affords a combination of the advantages of the lower stations in the glorious panorama visible from here. To the north are seen the verdant central Alps and extensive plains; to the south, Europe’s greatest glacier, the Aletsch glacier, fifteen miles in length, framed by countless pinnacles of rock and ice.”

To those who would enjoy the delightful summer climate of Switzerland there are a variety of sports and other events, combining study and recreation, scheduled for the present season.

Beginning July 30 matches will be held for the challenge cup of the Engadine Golf Club at St. Moritz.

In August International Tennis Tournaments will take place at Grindelwald, Davos, Lucerne, Engelberg, Zermatt, and Interlaken.

This summer, from August 1 to 9 inclusive, a great pageant and festival, glorifying the bounties of nature and country life, held once every fifteen years, will be celebrated at Vevey, on Lake Geneva, with nearly 2,000 participants and an elaborate musical program. Zurich will be headquarters of the International Aviation Meeting from August 12 to 21.

The International Motor Race on the Klausenpass will take place August 13 and 14. An International Rifle Match will be held at Vulpera on the latter date.

In September the eighth assembly of the League of Nations will be held at Geneva.

Students desiring to study abroad are offered summer vacation courses at the University of Lausanne July 15 to August 25, and at the University of Neuchatel July 15 to August 7, August 10 to September 2.

Thus aside from matchless scenery and invigorating climate Switzerland offers a diversity of entertainment to her summer visitors.

Source: The Literary Digest for July 2, 1927

THE RETURN OF THE TOLL BRIDGE

A FEW years ago the toll bridge was thought to be on the verge of obsolescense, but the automobile is rapidly bringing it back. New and expensive toll bridges are being erected all over the country to handle automobile traffic and to be paid for by that traffic. So it is not surprizing to find toll-bridge securities the subject of an interesting study by Peabody, Houghteling and Company. This company points out that concerns with small operating costs in proportion to receipts have” naturally been favorites with investors. This is one reason for the favor in which bonds of hydroelectric corporations have been held. But Peabody, Houghteling and Company tell us that toll-bridge companies operate on a much smaller expense ratio than do the hydroelectrics.

In 1925, as The Wall Street Journal reproduces the findings of the investment house, net revenues of the toll bridges were 80 per cent. of gross while the hydroelectrics’ net was only 50 per cent. of gross. The year before, toll-bridge earnings were 79 per cent. of gross, while for hydroelectrics the percentage was 58 per cent. But attention is called to the fact that “the relatively poor showing made by the hydroelectric companies in 1925 was due to large expansion programs calling for the outlay of huge sums.” A comparison of toll-bridge and hydroelectric companies is not so far-fetched as might seem at first sight, we read on, since “bridges are constructed to meet a public need and must be classed as a public utility.” Further observations made by the Peabody, Houghteling report are reproduced as follows in The Wall Street Journal:

The charging of tolls for the use of roads and bridges dates back to about 2000 B. C. During the supremacy of the Roman Empire, most of the important roads and bridges in that part of the world were under the control of military authorities, with costs being met by the State. One of the first toll bridges in this country crossed the Newbury River at Rowley, Massachusetts, built about 1654. Some forty years later a toll bridge had been built across Spuyten Duyvil Creek at the northern end of Manhattan Island. By 1808 about twenty companies had been incorporated to build and operate toll bridges in New York State, and many others were operating in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. Only a few of these bridges earned adequate returns on the investment, however, and it was not until after 1910 that the increasing use of automobiles caused a big jump in the earning power of these bridge companies.

For instance, the Old Saybrook-Old Lyme bridge which spans the Connecticut River was opened for traffic in August, 1911, and cost $468,642. The bridge was operated on a toll basis up to December 31, 1924, during which time it showed net earnings of about $490,000 or more than enough to pay for itself. The Columbia River Interstate Bridge, connecting Portland, Oregon, with Vancouver, Washington, has shown average net income of 17 per cent. on capital cost for past nine-year period. Other toll bridges which are big earners include the Jacksonville-St. Johns River Bridge, the dark’s Ferry (Pa.) Bridge, the Gandy Bridge which connects Tampa and St. Petersburg, Florida, the Harrisburg (Pa.) Bridge, as well as the Bear Mountain Bridge and the Delaware River Bridge connecting Philadelphia and Camden.

The investor in bridge company securities runs some risk, however, the same as in any other business enterprise. Bridges are subject to destruction by fires and floods, as well as cyclones, etc. Most of the old wooden bridges have been replaced with modern stone structures, so that the fire menace is eliminated to a considerable degree. The permanency of many of the structures is attested by the fact that many bridges built more than a thousand years ago are still intact and in use.

Source: The Literary Digest for July 2, 1927