The Railway Conquest of the World

THE Scandinavian peninsula has been the battle-ground of many titanic struggles on behalf of the railway. In this country the iron horse has forced its way to the most northerly point in the world where the shriek of a locomotive whistle may be heard. This is Ofoten, a port on the Atlantic seaboard of Norway, beyond the 68th parallel, and well into the Arctic circle, where the famous iron mines of Gellivare in Sweden find a western point for shipping the ore.

It was in Sweden that steel was pressed into service for the first time in connection with the erection of bridges by the late Major C. Adelsköld, R.E., and Member of the Academy of Sciences. This was so far back as 1866, and the daring engineer designed, superintended the preparation of the metal, and also the erection of the bridge. The claim of being the first steel bridge has been advanced on behalf of other structures in different parts of the world, but the records are against all such statements, for they were anticipated by a decade at least in a convincing, practical manner.

Major Adelsköld's bridge is highly interesting, not only from the historical point of view, but because of its unusual design, and the methods adopted in its erection. Through the courtesy of Madam Gustafva Adelsköld, I am enabled to give the following particulars of its evolution and construction.

The bridge was designed to carry the Uddevalla-Wenersborg-Herljunga railway across the Huvudnas Falls, just above the Tröllhatten Falls. At this point the Göta River forces its way through a gorge 137¹/₂ feet wide, just above a fall over a lofty ledge of rock. The depth and velocity