Highlanders Near Forth Bridge, Queensferry, Scotland
About five miles up the Forth above Edinburgh, the Firth is crossed by the great bridge you see here. This type of bridge is known as the cantilever or bracket bridge. Each cantilever is made up of two brackets so that they support each other. The cantilevers rest upon great piers of masonry built on a solid underlay 50 to 90 feet below the water level. These piers are about 70 feet in diameter at the bottom and 60 feet at the top. The main cantilever piers consist of steel tubes each of which is 12 feet in diameter. These reach to a height of 370 feet. In the construction of this bridge there was used about 50,000 tons of steel, including 8,000,000 rivets. The surface of the metal is equal to 25 acres, and it takes over 200 tons of paint and more than 30,000 gallons of oil to paint it. It is about one and one-fifth miles long, and the claim is made that it is the highest bridge in the world. From base to tip it is 450 feet. It took 7 years to construct it. It was finished in 1890. It was built by four railroad companies, the North British, the Midland, the Northwestern, and the Great Northern. To build it and connect the railway lines meant an outlay of $17,500,000. This great railway bridge was constructed in order to save some twenty miles of distance in getting from the south shore of the Firth of Forth to the north shore. Now the railroad lines of the East Coast can reach directly to Aberdeen and Inverness in the north; and Perth is but an hour away from Edinburgh. Locate each of the cities mentioned. Are there any other large cities in the eastern part of Scotland? Name two large bridges in our own country. Keystone ID: 12711 Note: All titles, descriptions, and location coordinates are from the original Keystone Slide documentation as supplied by the Keystone View Company. No text has been edited or changed.