Ashtabula weekly telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1880-1886, 1880-03-26

The St. GOthard Tunnel.
FEaRuARY 20, 1880, WIN be memora-
BILE for something more than It's bisseX-
tile significance, or the fact Of its giving
a fifth Sunday TO February, an event
which will not happen agein in forty
years. IL must also be recorded as the
day on which The shaft Of the largest
tunnel in the world was pierced through
TO the end, and on which the practical
success Of one Of the grandest engineer
ing works Of modern times was finally
demonstrated.
A dispatch went TO London yesterday
morning from Beime, Switzerland, and
was duly transmitted TO the new world,
to the effect that Mount st. Gothard
had been perforated TO the whole length
of the great tunnel at nine O'clock on
| that day. The contract demanded that
this work should be completed by
August Z, 1880; and the task has con-
sequently been finished some months
before the time agreed upon. The con-
summation of the colossal undertaking
is noteworthy in more ways than one.
The tunnel will constitute the line of
shortest transit from the valley of the
Rhine to the Mediterranean Sen; and
from the facilities 1t viii afford must be
of the highest Importance to Italy as
well as to Germany and Switzerland,
whatever may be its relative bearing
upon the interests of France.
| The St. Gothard Tunnel is nine and
a quarter miles long, has been bored
through in less than seven and half
years, and isto cost by contract SO, 700,-
900; while the Mount Gents Tunnel is a
little less than eight miles long and was
constructed in thirteen years, at q cost of
| S15, 200, 900; and the Hoosac Tunnel,
four miles and three-quarters long, con-
sumed eleven years in building, and an
outlay of $13,000,000, Thus the St.
Gothard work exhibits a decided adj
vantage in point Of both time and ex-
pense; an advantage which may be
briefly accounted for by experience,
improved tools and superior explosives.
Dynamite was unknown, for example,
until the Mount Gents Tunnel, finished
in 1870, was far advanced toward COM
pletion; and the drilling machinery en-
ployed at St. Gothard was the la
borious fruit of invention begotten not
of necessity alone but of countless
difficulties and failures that had gone
before.
A great gain is secured by the st.
Gothard Tunnel for the commerce and
the travel of the three contributing
nations, and, in measure, for all the
people of Europe. But this does not
represent all the good that the COM
pletion of the work will do Tor the
world, There have been peculiar diff
culties in the construction of this tun-
mel. II has been necessary to contend
with perpetual caving in of rock and
irruption of water. But these obsta-
cles have been met ana overcome with
greater ease than have been more
formidable obstacles before. Hence
the accomplishment of the task is an
encouragement to the construction of
tunnels wherever commerce or conven-
ience may indicate their utility. If
! the gigantic Mount St. Gothard, which
is almost a mass of solid rock, can be
! thus pierced by a shaft nearly ten
miles long, shorter tunnels through
easier routes will cease to be regarded
as difficult and still less as impossible
! In word, there will now, we may con-
: fidently affirm, be no mountain or river
that a tunnel will not hereafter go
through or under when the exigencies
of trade or of rapid transit require such
, project to be undertaken.
, The immediate bearing of this con-
summation, then, upon the United
, States, and in the Immediate future
upon the city of New York is plain.
, Already a tunnel is in progress under
, the Hudson River. But q tunnel will
I also be required in time under the East
River, and, in further time, as suggest
, ed by the EUenitsg Post, when discussing
the subject some months ago, a tunnel
under the Narrows to connect with a
similar work under the Kill Won Kull,
; and thus to complete circle of metro
, politan rapid transit may cease to ap-
! pear visionary. Each new achievement
= in the way of tunnel building at all
. events serves to stimulate similar use
] full improvements elsewhere, and thus
! the piercing of Mount St. Gothard is a
] spur to enterprise in the new world, as
well as a solid benefit to the old.-M Y.
a EUening Post.