Weekly Chillicothe crisis. (Chillicothe, Livingston Co., Mo.) 1878-19??, 1880-04-15

Completion of the st. Gothard Tunnel.
The Swiss correspondent of the Londor
Times writes as follows under date o.
Feb. 20: "The working parties in the two
sections of the st. Gothald tunnel had
this morning, at 11.15, completed I, 7,16(
metres from the south entrance. The
calculations Of the engineers as to the d.
reCtion of the galleries are thus fully veri.
fed, but they were out by so metres in
their estimate of the length to be pierced.
At noon yesterday 1t was computed that
there were still very considerable num-
Der of metres to bore, and that the meet
ing from both ends would occur forty
hours later, but in the course of last night,
on sounding with a long drill, it was
found that the thickness of the intervening
rock was only 13 metres. The news Of
this unlocked for cOMsummation became
speedily known, and at ten o'clock large
crowds had assembled to wait for the aus.
picious blast which should make of the
two galleries one tunnel. At Alrolo a
few members of the local landwehr, with
their band, was hastily summoned, flags
hOisted, and engines and wagons gayly
decorated, and when the train bringing
the people from Goschenen ran into the
station, the tunnel being practicable for
locomotives two.thirds of the way, nothing
was wanting TO complete the satisfaction
of the engineers and Others connected
with the undertaking but the presence Of
NJ. Favre, the contractor, who died six
months ago in the very tunnel which he
had so nearly brought to a successful con-
clusion, and with which his name will be
ever associated.
The piercing of the longest tunnel in
the world has thus been achieved in seven
years and five months-a rapidity of exc
cution quite unprecedented, for, relatively
to its length, the st. GOthard has been
bored in a fourth of the time occupied in
the boring OF the Hauenstein tunnel, and
in less than half the time taken by the
Mont Gents. This great advance in the
art of tunnel driving is due 10 the more
extended application Of machinery, and
above all to the efficiency of the air com.
pressols invented by Professor Colladon,
OF Geneva. The perlorators, actuated by
these compressOrs, 10 their work with
marvellous swittnes3. In two hours one
machine drills 26 holes 100 metres deep
IN face of rock some two metres square.
The holes are then filed with dynamite,
charged, and fred, every explosion dis
lodging some 219 cubic metres of rock.
The point OF attack for the pcrforators is
always the upper part of the finished tun-
mel of the future; the floor OF the passage
they clear out being afterward blasted and
wrought down by hand to the required
level. The locomotives used in the tunnel
are moved by compressed air, and ventila-
tion is provided from the same source.
Horses are also used for dragging the
wagons, but owing to the intense heat and
closeness, the motality among them Is
very great Out of a stud Of forty, ten die
on an average every month. The men
work night and day in shifts of eight hours
each; the labor is very trying, and they
are compelled to take frequent holidays.
Great clrCumspection has had to be ex-
ercised in the admission Of outsiders to
the galleries, as a walk of several miles in
the sitting heat and vitiated atmosphere
might easily prove fatal to persons with
weak hearts or a tendency to congestion OF
the brain, and even the healthy who
venture in for the first time have often
occasion to regret their temerity. The
scene in the interior Of the tunnel is weird
In the extreme; the pitchy darkness, re-
lieved only by the glare of few lamps,
the shrieking of locomotives, the blowing
of horns, the tramp of horses, the vibra-
tion OF the perforators, the explosion of
mines, the continual passing of heavily
laden wagons, the groups Of naked men
plying pick-axe, spade, and Shovel-all
these things mingled together create an
impression never to be forgotten. The
completion of the work, now that the two
galleries are Joined and free circulation
of air is established will be comparatively
easy. The tunnel is expected to be ready
for traffic by the end of September, and the
entire system of which it is the centre in
the summer of 1882. The great engineer.
ing triumph Of which the st. Gothard
tunnel is at once the monument and the
consummation, though peaceful, has not
been a bloodless, one. Between sixty and
seventy men have been killed by the pre-.
mature explosion of mines and other mis-
haps; many more have been seriously
injured" "