The Ohio Democrat. [volume] (Canal Dover, Ohio) 1840-1900, 1863-11-06

ADELPHlA, w.,
The Great works of the Age.
Many years ago work was published
in Paris, the exact title of which has es-
capped our recollection, to the best oi
our belief it was "Wonders of the year
5000" In this book were humorous
illustrations representing the progress
of the world up to that period and the
marvellous things mankind would be
enabled TO perform through the aid Of
machinery, &c. Among other engrav.
ings there was one of hdge mortar
from which two bombs chained together
were issuing. In each bomb two placid
Gauls were seated smoking Gas was quite
naturaD, and reading the papers as they
journeyed rapidly through the air.
Another engraving represented an indi-
vidual with a locomotive on each foot
making seven league strides over the
country, and enjoying the scenery with
his hands in his pocket. As we have
not yet achieved the 3Oth century, il is
hardly wise to predict as impossible the
forecasting Of the French work, and
while the busy inventors of the day have
not as yet turned their attention to
shooting men through the air iu bomb
shells, the capitalists and energetic peo-
pie of the period have taken hold oil
mighty works calculated to open up
commerce and extend the bonds of hu-
man brotherhood in aremarkable degree.
Railroads, telegraph lines canals, on
stupendons scales, are either projected
or going forward with such, promptness
that there would seem to be no part ol
the habitable globe to be left untrodden
by the feet of men, and no wilderness
however savage or forbidding, to be left
deSolate and uncultivated. ....... ......
r. 's' TUNNELINa THE ALPS. a,
Zone of the most stupendous works
ever undertaken in connection with rail.
road building is the tunneling of the
Alps, for the purpose Of opening com
5munication between Piedmont and Sa.
voy. The tunnel passes beneath what is
known as the Frejus ridge, in the vicini.
| ty of Mont Gems, from which it takes its
name. 1t has an average depth oi
about a mile below the surface, and is
to be about eight miles in length. The
hight is nineteen feet and the width
twenty-five. AS shafts q mile in depth
were out of the question, the tunnel has
been worked from the extremities alone.
Scientific expedients have bsen resorted
to to supply the workmen with air, which
is forced into iron reservoirs, and made
useful also in working the boaring ma
chimes. The mode of operation of these
borers is thus described:-Six of them,
having an edge in the shape Of the letter
u, with the machinery for driving them
forward, six reservoirs, containing water
which is forced in constant jet into the
hole while the boring is being perform
ed, and gas apparatus, are mounted
on railroad carriage frame and sent
in. The whole works in heading
eleven feet six inches by eleven feet. II
drives holes in the rock, varying from
two to three feet, in about twenty min
utes. These holes can be bored either
horizontally, vertically or obliquely. AS
many as eighty are sometimes driven in
the face of the rock, but oil are not charg.
ed with powder, the object in making
most of them being merely to facilitate
the breaking up of the rock when the
powder explodes in the others. When
the holes are bored the machine is drawn
back upon the rails 10 distance o.
about fifty yards. Great wooden doors
are then shut to guard against injury to
the machinery or workmen, aud the
holes are filled with powder, which is
ignited by means of fues. There ore
two blasts every twenty.four hours. II
requires long tine to get rid of the
foul gases produced by the explosion
and to remove the debris-from an hour
to four and q half hours-so that
but slow progress is made. Not more
than five feet Of tunneling can be done
daily, from each side, at which rate il
would take ten years to finish it. But
machines are being made which, it il
supposed, will expedite the work about
one third, so that six years may suffice
to see it completed. Its estimated cost
is three millions of dollars. The sides
of the Mont Gems tunnel are lined with
the excavated stone, and the roof witt
brick work. The walls are vertical and
the roof semi.circular. The lining j:
carried about foot below the road way
and makes miter joint with the rock,
so as to convert the substratum into Q
natural invert. A little over mile, OIL
nearly one. sixth Of the tunneling is fin
I ished. The tunnel will have continu
GUS gradient, falling from the Savoy enc
toward Italy at the rate Of one in five
hundred. rhe approaches are rather
steep, being about one in fifty on ont
side and one in forty on the other. The
hight Of the tunnel above the sea is, o.
its italian entrance, 4,3Sl feet"
,apmg THE oHoosIc TUNNEL, q. g.
"The Hoosic Mountain, lying betweer
the O Connecticut, and the Hudson rivers
4 in Massachusetts,, can bear no compari
son with the Alps or the Pyrenees; anC
yet the tunnel on the Troy and Green
field road falls little, if at all, short o
either the Mont GEMS, or the interpa
tional tunnel of the Aldrides. Lik'
those, it cannot be worked by the ordi
nary method of sinking shafts, on &C