The Sun.
London, England, 1858-07-09 00:00:00

EVENING, JETL:Y

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

HOUSE OF COMaIONS.—(This Day.)
Tau SPEAKE3 to,k the chl`r at 12 o'clock.
PRIVATE BUSINESS.

The Lords' amendments to the followinr, bills were
considered and agreed to :—Ei.st Kent Railway (Wes-
tern Extension) ; Formartine and Buchan Railw‘sy.;
North British Railway (Consolidation, &e.)i; Shrews-
bury and Welchpool Railway ; Blackburn Brit,' cay ; and
East Suffolk, Yarmouth, and liaddiscoe, and Lowestoft
and Bccles Railway Companies Aina!gi .atiori. -
The Westminster Palace Hotel Company (Limited) Bill
was read a third time and passed.
The Glasgow College Estats Bill was read a second
time.
SUPPLY.

On the mohion for going into supply,
Lord ELCHO moved "That an humble address be
presented to her Majesty, praying she will be graciously
pleased to issue a Royal Commission, to inquire and re-
port how far it may be desirable and practicable to sub•
etitute an equitable system of assessment in lieu of the
present mode of maintaining the public roads in Scot-
land by tolls and statute labour."
Mr. WALPOLE said the Lord Advocate was in
favour of the issue of a R iyal Commission, and he
asked the noble lord to allow the amendment to be
negatived, that he (Mr. Walpole) miglht consult the in-
to:de:l Lord Advocate on the subject.
Sir E. COLE BROOKE was favourable to the main-
tenance of the roads in &letlaud by an equitable assess-
ment instead of by tolls.

Mr. IL HERBERT raid the system of assessment
instead of tolls had been found to work well in Ireland.
Mr. BLACKBURN said the interests of Scotland
and England were so intimately counected that the
commissioners ought to have powers to examine into
the question of tolls on turnpike roads in England as
well as in Scotland.

After some discussion, in which the toll system gene-
rally was very strongly condemned by hon. members on
both sides of the house,
The motion was withdrawn, it being understood the
Government would issue the comtni.sion.

THE HOP DUTY.
Sir J. SHELLEY called the attention of the Chan-
cellor of the Exero quer "to that portion of the second
report of the commissioners of Inland Revenue relat-
ing to hops in which reference is made to. the minutes
of procce..iirigs of the Hop Duty Committee which sat
last year, and a presumption exprpsi,.ed by the said
commissioners as to the opinion which that committee
would ulirriately have reported to the house, although
no report was made by the committee." He condemned
the heavy amount of the hop duty, and said that be
was afraid if the hop-growers of inferior torts were
not blessed with a blight—(laughter)—this year, they
would be obliged to have their hops destro3 ed from
being unahle to pay the duty, owing to the deprecia-
tion in price large crops would produce.
Ater some remarks from Mr. KNIGHT and Mr. B.
HOPE,

Mr, LOCKE (S ,uth wark), as a member of a com-
mittee who at on this subject, said be believed the
committee, if polled, woul+l have been adverse to the
abolition of the duty, The committee were of opinion
t, at the ,00ner the hop growers (1 SuTex shut op
14 hop as grovv,:r4 of hops tn,, better. It was iinpos,,ible
for th.ro t.) produce the snp:,rior qualities of bops,
and in cons,que, ce they had been ruff,rers.
The subject rinpped.
THE PURP'.ICATION OF TUE THAMES.

Mr. COX moved the fullowiug resolution :—" That
this house is of opinion that the cost of the purification
of the river Thames, in the vicinity of the metropolis,
should be borne by the Consolidated Fund and the
metropolitan ratepayers in equal proportions." He
said 9d. in the pound of ttre coal tax, imposed for the
improvement of the metropolis, was appropriated by
the Government to purposes of their f, and
fact alone entitl.4 `Le metropoirtau ratepayers to some
in this matter. He charged the Govern-
ment with being the first cause of the nuisance,
from having sanctioned the scheme for emptying the
sewage of the metropolis daily into the Thames. He
reftrred to what had been done by the Metropolitan
B iard of Woiks and the Chief Commissioner of Works
with reference to the drainage and sewage 'of the metro-
polis, and asked the house to agree to his motion.
General THOMPSON seconded the motion. This
was a case in which the whole community ought to
assi t the metropolis.

Mr. BENTINCK opposed the motion. Upon ovary
ground it was to the interest cf the metropolis and the
duty of the inhabitants to carry out their own improve-
ments and sanitary regulations without calling upon the
country to pay for them. If the metropolis was visited
with pestileuce the inhabitants would be losers. Every
stranger who visited London paid his fair share of local
taxation during his stay here.
Sir G. C. LEWIS opposed the motion. The form
of the proposal was contrary to the forms of the house,
and the principle involved in the motion was objection-
able. He asked the house not to discuss the subject
then, but wait till the Government had brought forward
a measure on the subject, as promised. He defended
the c curse pur-ued by the late Government with re-
ference to the drainage scheme proposed by the Metro-
po:itan Board of Works.
Mr. T. DUNCOIBE asked if the hon. mover of the
resolution was wrong in point of form. A portion of the
expense of the metropolitan police force wee paid out of
the consolidated fund, and he saw no reason why the
cons,lidated fund should not contribute towards re•
moving the stench of the metropolis.
The SPEAKER said there were precedents for the
course now pursued. It would, however, lead to no
orac ical result : for. if fiir.
question 'of charge must be commenced de novo, sub-
jected to the forms which the house had directed to be
pursued on money questions.
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER thought
it would be better f.o withdraw the motion It was the
intention of her Majesty's Government to introduce a
bill on an early day next week for the purification of the
Thames. (Hear, hear.) Toe house would then have a
le,;itiatate opportunity for entering into a discussion cf
the suiket

Mr. GLADSTONE concurred in the suggestion of
the Chance for of the Exebegxer.
[LEFT SPEAKING

TDB SUBALPINE TUNNEL.

An interesting communicaiion on this important
subject has just been reeeival by the Academy of
Sciences from M. Menabrea, one of the most dis-
tinguish, d members of the Pie.iine i a ,ese Pad'a-
ineut. L was stated several months ago that the
immense work of boring a tunnel under the Alps
between Medaue and Bardoneche had commenced ;
but we have now to record some interesting facts
which might perhaps never have been discovered but
for the peculiar methods employed in this colossal
operation. Mudane and Biirdoneche are situated on
opposite sides of the Alpine chain dividing Pied-
mont from France, precisely at a point where the
valleys of the Arc and the Dora, which lie nearly
on the same level, run parallel to each other, and
the mountain is narrowest. The thickness of the
intervening mountain is 13 kilometres in a straight
line ; the actual tunnel will be 121 kiloine res. It,
is designed in the same vertical plane, but, to facili-
tate drainage, is somewhat higher in the middle
than at the orifices, so as to form gentle slopes
on both sides—one not exceeding an inclination
of five per thousand, and the other being twenty-
three per thousand, in consequence of a differ-
ence of level between the two extremities, the
numbers being Bardoneche (southern orifi :e)
1,324 metres ; culminating point, 1,335 metres ;
Modane (northern orifice), 1,190 metres above the
level of the sea. The crest of the mountain be ng
1,600 metres higher than the culminating point,
the sinking of shafts, which is the method gener-
ally employed in order to begin boring tunnels at
several points at once, was out of the question ;
hence the tunnel could only be worked at its ex-
tremities, so that the labour by the ordinary pro-
ces,es could not be accomplished in less than 36
years. Then, how was a depth of gallery of three
r
or four kilometres, and having but one orifice; to
be aired ? These were all serious obstacle?. MM.
Elie de Beaumont and Angelo Sismonda having
examined the mountain geologically, found it to
centain micaceous sandstone, micaceous schists,
quartzite, gypsum, and limestone, all easy to blast,
the quartzite alone excepted ; but the stratum
of this is not likely to be very thick ; the
other difficulties alone therefore remained,
and these were at length overcome by
three Sardinian engineers, MM. Somtneiller,
( Grattone, and Grandis, who proposed to turn the
abundance of water for which the locality was re-
markable to account, by applying it to a peculiar
system of perforation and ventilation, which we will
nowaimir
imagined
endeavour
d enby
ye
r,
these t
which
, ,
enxitsil)elani
el is
n consista in a hydraulic
. The first apparatus
y
photi turned with its
orifices upwarlt, and
comtntinicaing by one of
them with a stream of . water, by the
other with a 'reservoir
it air,
exeTrciiie :acto'nr'-
descending into the Brst branch, enters the se-
cond,s
tahnedairb,ywhtileih is thee forcade rrcesu of o
into the reser-
voir. This done, a valve is opened, by which the
water c-..ntained in the syphon is let out, and the
operation recommences. The emission and intro-
duction valves are regula•ed by a r-mill machine
i.tperating by rn, aiis of a column of water; and the
air in tie reeervo:r is mainiained at a constant
degree of pressure by a c dentin of water coannuni
eating with another reservoir above. Thus,
with a waterfall 20 metres in height, the air is
condensed to six atmospheres, equivalent to the
pressure of 62 metres of water. This condensed
air is used for two purposes; first, as a motive
power, and then for ventilation. Two kinds of
perferators, worked by condensed air instead of
steam, are employed, one invented by Mr. Bartlett,
the other by M. Sommeiller ; arid the manner in
which these machines perform their duty affords
the first practical demonstration of the possibility
of employing compressed air as a motive power
with advantage. By means of these perforators
holes for blasting may be bored through the hardest
Isienite in one-twelfth of the time which would be
$ required if ordinary means were employed. In
order to understand the importance of this result,
it may be stated that, in tunnelling, three-fourths