3-077-769 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Forth Bridge: Sir Benjamin Baker, engineer, 1890. Portrait from a photograph by Mr. A. Bassano. 'His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, on Tuesday, March 4, performed the ceremonies of fixing the last rivet of this immense and ingenious structure, and formally opening the bridge for ordinary railway traffic...It is by the enterprise of the North British Railway Company, the Great Northern and the Midland Railway Companies, which provide, with the North-Eastern Railway, the facilities of travel from London to the north of Scotland on the eastern side of Great Britain, that the Forth Bridge has been constructed - a work of seven years - at a cost of two and a half millions sterling...The engineers, Sir John Fowler and Mr. Benjamin Baker, had to span two clear spaces of deep water, each space 1710 ft. wide from pier to pier, the channels on the north and south sides of the rocky islet. They have accomplished this, not by suspension bridges, but by "cantilevers," or brackets, jutting out towards each other 680 ft. at each side of the span, with a central girder, laid on their ends, over the intervening space of 350 ft'. From "Illustrated London News", 1890.