Bridging the Firth of Forth 1

Abstract

DURING the past four years many thousands of visitors from all parts of the United Kingdom, and, indeed, I may say from all parts of the world, have more or less carefully inspected the works now in progress under the superintendence of Sir John Fowler, the engineer-in-chief, and myself, for bridging the Firth of Forth. All classes of visitors, whether possessed of technical knowledge or not, have found at least something to interest them amongst the multifarious operations incidental to carrying out so gigantic an undertaking; and I should have little fear of interesting my present audience if I could change the scene from Albemarle Street to the shores of the Forth. That is impossible, so I must rest content with an imperfect attempt to convey to you, by description and illustration, some notion of the magnitude of the proportions and difficulties of construction of what is generally admitted to be one of the most important engineering works yet undertaken. A “personally conducted” tour over the work would be far more congenial to me than giving a lecture, and infinitely more effective. Photographs, and even the highest efforts of pictorial art, are a poor substitute for the reality. The smallest street accident witnessed by ourselves affects us more than a description or picture of the greatest battle, and for similar reasons I well know that when I speak of men working with precarious foothold at dizzy heights in stormy weather my words will sound very different in this room to what they would were my listeners standing beside me in an open cage hanging by a single wire rope, in appearance like a packthread, and swinging more or less in the wind at a height of between three and four hundred feet above the ground; or were they following me up a ladder as high as the golden cross on the top of St. Paul's Cathedral, with the additional excitement of the rungs of the ladder being festooned with icicles a foot long. You will lose a great deal in vividness of impression necessarily by the substitution of a lecture for a personal visit to the works, but there are some compensating advantages, as you will be saved between eight and nine hundred miles of railway travelling, and a good deal of clambering of the kind shadowed forth.