_-_photograph_-_page_158.jpg)
BRIDGE OVER THE INABON RIVER, ON THE ROAD BETWEEN PONCE AND SANTA ISABEL, P. R.
A strikingly beautiful example of a modern type of bridge-design, originating with the adaptation of reinforced concrete to bridge construction, is the bridge that carries the coast road on the south side of the island between Ponce and Santa Isabel across the Inabon river. In its effect of gracious lightness it economizes in the maximum the use of concrete while expressing the steel reinforcement that makes possible the delicacy in design conveyed in the airy spring of the arches. The Inabon river is celebrated in local history as the stream where the aboriginal people of Borinquen, as Porto Rico was originally called, put to the test the claim of the Spanish conquerors to divinity. The Spaniards were for a while held in awe by the natives, who were made to believe that the white men were gods. But the natives said among themselves: if they are gods they are immortal; they cannot die. So one day, when they came across a Spanish soldier alone near this river they took him to the stream and held him under water suffciently long for the drowning of a mortal being. And when they brought him to the surface, finding him dead, they realized that white men were not gods.
158
