 The shay is constructed from the very best of materials so that each part is as strong as every other part.In Holmes' humorous, yet "logical", twist, the shay endures for a hundred years (amazingly to the precise moment of the 100th anniversary of the Lisbon earthquake shock) then it "went to pieces all at once, and nothing first, — just as bubbles do when they burst".It was built in such a "logical way" that it ran for exactly one hundred years to the day.