The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1891-10-03
A TUNNEL TO CANADA.
The Worlds Greatest Submarine Tunnel
Formally Opened.

The United States and Canada shook
hands un@er the swift flowing St. Clair
River at Port Huron, last Saturday.
The Grand Trunk Railways St. Clair
tunnel was formally opened. Distin-
gulshed men passed through its portals
and assisted in the dedication of an in
ternational railway under water, which
is the greatest the world has ever vet
known.
Sir Henry Tyler, President of the
Grand Trunk, conducted the excursion
and the attendant ceremonies. In a
special train of four Ordinary day
coaches these, among other distin-
gulshed men, rode from Point Edward
down to Sarnia, on the Canadian siGe:
listened to an address from Mayor
Watson, OF Sarnia rode over two miles
through the tunnel and approaches. or
6o2o feet under the great commercial
waterway itself; heard Mayor McIIvain.
OF Port Huron, welcome them: rode
back to Sarnia on the Steamboat
Conger; participated in the pleasures
OF a banquet, and listened 10 Hon.
Erastus Wiman's address in behalf
r ~
OF real Canadian American reciprocity.
GREATEST OF RIVER TUNNELS.
The St. Clair Tunnel, passing for
more than mile under a commercial
waterway whose tonnage is five times
IS great as that of the Suez Canal, was
built 10 save two hours and SIX miles
tor railway passengers 10 or from Can
ada and the West, and to save much
more time and an equal distance for
international freight trains. Great iron
ferry boats, similar to those still plyIpe
between Detroit aud Windsor with
trains, have furnished the only means
OF transit between Point Edward, Ont,
and Fort Gratiot, Mich, where the
current of the rapids Is swifter than at
any other navigable point between the
great lakes, except at Niagara. Ice
foes caused great delays to ferries in
the winter.
After almost innumerable discourag.
ing tests in quicksands at the bed of
the St. Clair River the work of boring
the tunnel through a stratum of blue
clay about seventy feet beneath the
surface of the water was begun on July
II, 1880, on the Canadian side, and
on September 81, 1850, on the Ameri-
can. Two great hollow augers, or
shields, inside of which were the work.
men, bore toward each other from
either side, each being pushed forward
two feet at a time by massive and
powerful engines, and averaging a dis
tance of ten feet per day.
A MIGHTY TUBE IN sEGMENTs.
The watershed of Lakes Superior,
Michigan and Huron was above them.
A little leak would rapidly have devel-
oped so as to drown the workmen and
put an end to the enterprise. Quick
sands were encountered in the heavy
scapy clay on the Canadian side.
Compressed air of the den sity of two
and half ordinary atmospheres had
to be pumped in to make a pressure
around the workmen and keep out the
quicksands and water. Men with
perfect lungs had to be "acclimated"
to 1t by degrees.
But safety as they proceeded with
the work was not the only essential. 1t
must be SO permanently, SO lndestructi.
bly, done that neither quicksands, water,
nor anything else could possibly damage
it in the years to come. So the tun-
mel walls were made of cast iron seq
ments SIX inches thick, heated dipped
in tar and matched together in mighty
alright, ater-tight tube twenty feet
five inches in diameter; each layer of
the segments being four feet ten inches
long by eighteen inches wide and two
inches thick. Then these iron seq
ments were bolted together at sides
and ends, so that when all the layers
and segments were together behind the
mighty clay. cutting shield completed
section of the tunnel touched the
rear end OF the colossal auger-a tube
as solid as If it had been perfectly st
in single piece six inches thick and
over twenty feet in diameter.
The S2,ooo,ooo tunnel has $4,000
tons of this lining, and 2,ooo,o 900 pounds
of bolts and nuts hold it together.