The evidence taken before the Court of Inquiry into the
Tay-Bridge disaster has brought out nothing of any import- ance, except the fact that one of the officials on the south side of the bridge noticed sparks issuing from the train throughout nearly the whole distance between the south side of the bridge and the high girders. These sparks appear to have been due to the great pressure of the wind grinding the train against the rails on the eastern side of the bridge. One of the guards gave evidence to having witnessed the same thing on a previous occasion, when a very strong west wind was blowing, and to its having so alarmed him that, thinking an axle was broken, he put on the brake. At the point, too, where the cata- srophe occurred, the rails were broken out on the eastern side, as though torn up by the excessive pressure of the train from their place. For the rest, nothing has been discovered, nor is now likely tube discovered, as to the character of the disaster, except that one witness, living to the west of the bridge, but above it, declared that he saw a girder give way and fall into the river before the train came up. The night, however, was very dark. The witness in question, though higher than the bridge, was on the wrong side of it for seeing anything, and all evidence on subjects of this exciting kind is very apt to be, in fact, affected by interpre- tations, unconsciously put upon somewhat ambiguous percep- tions, after the event.
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