The wire rope for the suspenders and stays was to be of the kind manufactured by Roebling at his Trenton works. It was to be made in the same way as ordinary hemp rope, that is, with hundreds of fine wires twisted to form a rope. The cables, however, would be made of wire about as thick as a lead pencil, with thousands of wires to a cable, all “laid up” straight, parallel to one another, and then wrapped with an outer skin of soft wire, the way the base strings of a piano are wrapped.
