The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1891-10-08
The Seven Wonders of the World,

Subscriber ?'
To this day question OF this kind is
occasionally addressed to editors who are
80 obliging as to publish ANSWERS to cor
respondents" The writers do not mean
such wonders as the Hoosac tunnel or the
Suez canal, but the wonders of the an
cient world-the wonders which aston.
ished Plato, Xenophon and Alcibiades.
The "old subscriber" may have crossed
the Brooklyn bridge that morning, and
seen the statute of liberty loom up from
the mist OF New York harbor, and
watched the steamer Majestic as she
moved slowly down the bay toward the
ocean. But what he wants to know is the
seven wonders which have been embed.
ded in books for 1000 years and provoked
curiosity by excluding all the wonders OF
the world except seven.
The editorial mind tc iay cannot
remember those old wonders. Every
time the question comes there has to be a
search for them in dictionaries and
encyclopedias, where they are found to
be of great Pyramid of Egypt, the Light.
house of Alexandria, the Hanging Gar
dens of Babylon, the Statute of Jupiter
at Olympia, the Colussus of Rhodes, the
Temple OF Diana at Ephesus and the
Tomb of King Mausolus! wonders which
have all persisted, except the Pyramid,
and only oae OF which would seem re-
spectacle to the modem mind, namely
the Lighthouse of Alexandria.
We no longer approve the idea OF
wasting the toll of tens of Thousands OF
men upon pyramids, tombs and tasteless
colossal statutes. We desire that an ex.
pensive and elaborate structure shall
have certain basis of good sense, and
shall minister not to the pride of an indi-
vidual, but to the service or qualification
of the public.
If an editor were asked to name the
ssven wonders of the present world, he
could answer the question by turning to
Webster's Unabridged. The candidates
for place in the seven are numerous,
and by the time he had his seven we'll
chosen he might find, on reading the
morning paper, that his favofite wonder
had been effaced by rival in another
continent. A few years ago, the suspen-
sion bridge over the Niagara river, with
its span of S21 feet, might have put in its
claim to be one of the seven; but after q
while the railroad bridge at Cincinnati.
with span Of 1857 feet, reduced it to
the second rank, and then the Brooklyn
bridge of ,595 feet span put Cincinnati's
nose out of joint. The bridge over the
Firth of Forth in Scotland shows span
of l,62O feet. The projected bridge over
the Hudson at New York is expected to
hold up span of $3.50 feet; and now we
hear respectable engineers expressing the
conviction that bridge over the English
channel, % miles long, and lifted high
above the top masts of the largest ships,
is possible feat of engineering.
Something similar has happened with
regard to tunnels. Many years ago,
when I paid four English pence for the
pleasure of getting wet in the dark and
oozy tunnel under the Thames, that work
was regarded as the chief wonder of the
modern world. BY and by came the
Hoosac tunnel nearly five miles long,
and soon after the Mont Cenis tunnel
through the Alps, seven and a half miles
long, which has been followed by two
other tunnels through the Alps. There
was something exceedingly marvellous in
the way the Mont Gents tunnel was exc
cuted; particularly to persons not familiar
with mathematics. This tunnel was bo.
gun at both ends in 1857, and was finish
ed about fourteen years after. During
that period two gangs of men were work
ing toward one another through solid
rock in the heart of the mountain, and
when at last they met, it was found that
the direction of the two portions was per-
fectly identical. The two psrts fitted
exactly except that tie level Of one was
foot higher than the level of the other
which was mistake not difficult of cor
rection, aud grew out of the extreme diff.
fculty of ascertaining beforehand pre-
cisely how long the tunnel would have tt
be. 1t proved to be fifteen yards longer
than the engineers had calculated.
Perhaps the most curious fact concern
ing these long tunnel is the trifiing char
acter Of their object. The object of the
Hoosac tunnel was merely to shorten by
two hours the distance between Boston
and the West, which object, it appears
was not accomplished. The purpose o
the Mont Gents tunnel was to shorter
the distance between France and Italy
by forty-two hours. Atpresent, this tun
mel heads the long list of tunnel wonders
and may hold that place until the pro-
iected tunnel under the English channe
is open for traffic. There seems no rea-
sonable doubt of the feasibility of tunnel
ing the channel. Competent engineers
are of the opinion that the project is moi
even difficult, since the bottom Of the
channel is composed of thick bed o.
chalk. The main object to the execution
OF this work is political. There il
enough dread of the old dread OF
French inyation left to prevent the sane
ton Of the undertaking by the British
Parliament. John Bull, it is thought
would not yet feel quite safe with &
small hole open near Shakespare's Cliff
leading to France. 1t seems a childish
fear; but fear makes children OF us all
There are no operations of the engin-
eer that so startle and amaze the unpro-
fazaionol nbcaryer aa those which are re-