3-077-772 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Forth Bridge: hydraulic riveting machine with which the last rivet was put in by the Prince of Wales, 1890. 'The hydraulic riveting-machine by which, using the silver key to set it working, the Prince of Wales drove in the last rivet is one of the inventions of Sir William Arrol, the contractor...The hydraulic riveter was swung from one of the booms, the pressure being supplied from an accumulator at Inchgarvie. Two men were placed on the boom below to manipulate the machine. The gilded rivet having been placed in the bolthole, and the silver key having been handed to his Royal Highness by Lord Tweeddale, the Prince, with Mr. Arrol's assistance, finished the work in a few seconds, amid cheers'. From "Illustrated London News", 1890.