Island. Reddy's Cantilever Bridge.



[Illustration: Map of Willow Clump Island and Vicinity.]




THE SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN BOY.



CHAPTER I.

"BILL."

"Bill," he was it, the Scientific American Boy, I mean. Of course, we were
all American boys and pretty scientific chaps too, if I do say it myself,
but Bill, well he was the whole show. What he didn't know wasn't worth
knowing, so we all thought, and even to this day I sometimes wonder how he
managed to contrive and execute so many remarkable plans. At the same time
he was not a conceited sort of a chap and didn't seem to realize that he
was head and shoulders above the rest of us in ingenuity. But, of course,
we didn't all have an uncle like Bill did. Bill's Uncle Ed was one of
those rare men who take a great interest in boys and their affairs, a man
who took time to answer every question put to him, explaining everything
completely and yet so clearly that you caught on at once. Uncle Ed (we all
called him that) was a civil engineer of very high standing in his
profession, which had taken him pretty much all over the world, and his