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Bible Encyclopedias
James Buchanan Eads
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
JAMES BUCHANAN EADS (1820-1887), American engineer, was born at Lawrenceburg, Indiana, on the 23rd of May 1820. His first engineering work of any importance was in raising sunken steamers. In 1845 he established glass works in St Louis. During the Civil War he constructed ironclad steamers and mortar boats for the Federal government. His next important engineering achievement was the construction of the great steel arch bridge across the Mississippi at St Louis (see Bridge, fig. 29), upon which he was engaged from 1867 till 1874. The work, however, upon which his reputation principally rests was his deepening and fixing the channel at the mouths of the Mississippi by means of jetties, whereby the narrowed stream was made to scour out its own channel and carry the sediment out to sea. Shortly before his death he projected a scheme for a ship railway across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, in lieu of an isthmian canal. He died at Nassau, in the Bahamas, on the 8th of March 1887.
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Chisholm, Hugh, General Editor. Entry for 'James Buchanan Eads'. 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica. https://www.studylight.org/​encyclopedias/​eng/​bri/​j/james-buchanan-eads.html. 1910.