A (Not-so) Gigantic Bridge?

While sifting through the Boing-boing website for new and interesting things I came across this post for the Project Gutenberg; more specifically the Scientific American Journals published on this splendid website. Some of the content in the Journals is less than boring as there are no pictures to keep me from drifting off but some of the information is pretty interesting. I liked this article (from Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867) with it's brief downplay of the Brooklyn Bridge, then referred to as the “proposed Roebling Bridge”:

A GIGANTIC BRIDGE.--A suspension bridge is to be erected by M. Oudry, engineer, over the Straits of Messina, Sicily, from Point Pezzo, on the Calabrian Coast. It is to consist of four spans of 3,281 feet each, elevated about 150 feet above high-water level, so that the largest ships may pass under. The proposed Roebling bridge over the East River, between New York and Brooklyn, is to have a single span of 1,600 feet.

So if the Messina Bridge is a “Gigantic Bridge”, does that make the Brooklyn Bridge a “Not-So Gigantic Bridge”? The paragraph below this one in the Journal is an announcement about (I assume) the Pony Express, “…mails to the West now go in iron-bound boxes instead of leathern bags. Each box, tightly packed, contains about eight hundred letters.”

Thanks to Flickr for the pic!

UPDATE:

While searching through Wikipedia for relevant information it seems that the Straits of Messina Bridge* was NEVER built due to, "concerns about the role of the local mafia.” Maybe Scientific American will THINK TWICE before declaring just any rogue bridge a “Gigantic Bridge?”

*also, the Journal missed the length of the Messina Bridge by just a few feet. They said it would be 3300 feet long when in reality it would be 3300 meters!