The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1882-03-24
TAs Channel r,,,el.

TAe Channel Turned.
On the French coast the compan
which obtained concession from th
French government in 1875 to construt
the southern half of the proposed chan
mel tunnel have made considerable and
SO far, satisfactory, progress in the exam
nation of the chalk cliffs near Calais
which are believed to be the outcrup o
acontinuOus bed of homogeneous chall
running beneath the sea between the tw'
shores, and by invitation Of the Pari
committee the engineers and officials O
the English Channel Tunnel Company
and some others yesterday visited thu
WORKS. The behring's are near the little
village of Sangatte, which, according t.
Murray, is about six miles from Calais
The buildings are not merely temporary
sheds, such as might suffice to protec,
the workers during .he prosecution ofex-
perimental borings, but substantial cree
tons Of brick, with concrete floors, q high
brick chimney shaft, and tramways run
ming distance of perhaps q hundred
yards, to the edge of the cliff, over which
the ezcavated chalk is thrown, the cliffs
at this point rising precipitously from the
beach to a height of over one hundred
feet. In one large building is the ma
chinery, designed by NJ. COlladon, for
driving with compressed air the boring
machines, This will be superintendent by
NJ. Welker, who was in charge of the air
COMPRISING machinery used in the St.
Gothard tunnel. Two shafts have been
sunk at a distance of forty or fifty
yards apart, and by the larger
of these the visitors descended to
examine q horizontal cutting. About
seventy feet below the surface
the borers have found the crate de Rouen,
strata corresponding to the lower portion
OF that homogeneous gray chalk which
some of our geologists have called the
chalk without flints. At depth. of sew
enty-eight feet the brick lining of the pit
ceases and the employment Of wooden
tubing" begins, this being carried
down to a depth of 2O4 feet, when the
chalk becomes so dry and hard that a
lining is nolOnger required. The depth
of the shaft is about $50 feet, and going
about six feet lower down by ladder
through hole at one side a gallery eight
feet high and of the same width is en-
tered. This opens into one of equal di-
ameter running nearly at right angles,
which, with a slightly upward inclina-
ton, to provide for drainage, runs in
direction, but trending to
The nOrthward- is, toward the sea
with curve having a radius of one
kilometre. 1t is to be 1850 yards long.
Artificial ventilation has not been found
necessary so far, the two shafts, with both
Of which it is in connection, providing
Tor an up and down current of air. This
gallery is about ITO feet below low-water
mark. but no portions of these workings
nave yet been pushed out under the sea.
". Alexandra Lavalley, the contractor
or the Suez Canal, who has offered to
Undertake the construction of the tunnel
'Or the French concessionaires, is to drive
another gallery of equal length in the
same direction as, but not Immediately
over, the one already begun. He will
employ Brunton's cutting machine, while
N the lower gallery Beaumont's machine
will be used, both machines being driven
with compressed air. 1t is found in the
over gallery that there is but little per-
collation. of water, and that such as runs
n comes from springs in assures. What
Ices flow in is pumped out at the rate
# sixty gallons per minute. At q depth
II 2S8 feet bed of green sand less than
even feet thick is reached, and then the
,alt. From the town of Dover the ap-
,roach would, as is now suggested, pass
It depth of 800 feet below the seward
pur of the outer wall of the CASTLE
London Times.