Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1893-06-02
TAUGHT BY THE BIRDS.
HOW BRIGHT ENGINEER LEARNED A
VALUABLE LESSON.
fst. Johnsbury Republican,

ols 1OunSbuiy hVpupiiS"ii'l
All our people who have Travelled to
Burlington will remember the tunnel
through which the railroad runs, just
this side of the city. Hon. Lucius e.
Chittenden, in his recently published
autobiography, tells in an extremely in
teresting way the story of the building
OF this tunnel. 1t should be promised to
Mr.. Chittenuen's story that the bright
Young engineer who is his hero was the
late Hon. d. c. Linsley of Burligton, a
man of great ability and force of char
acter, whose too early death was great
public loss. Mr.. Chittenden says:
There are mechanical engineers among
the birds, and one of the most practical
is member of the swallow family. Be-
tween the Winooskl valley and Cham
plain, north of the city of Burlington,
lies a broad sand-plain high above the
lake level, through which the Central
railroad was to be carried in tunnel.
But the sand was destitute of moisture
or cohesiveness, and the engineers, after
expending a large sum of money, decided
the tunnel could not be constructed be-
cause there was no means of sustaining
the material during the building of the
masonry. The removal of so large
quantity of material from cut of such
dimensions alt involved an expense that
was prohibtory. The route was conse-
uuentlv given up and the road built in
crooked ravne through the centre
of the city, involving ascending and de-
scending grades of more than 100 feet to
the mile. When the railroad was opened
these grades were found to involve
cost which practically drove the through
freights to a competing railroad.
There was at the time young man in
the engineers office of the railroad who
said that he could tunnel the sandbank
at very small cost. He was summoned
before the managers and questioned.
YES" he said, modestly, 81 can build
the tunnel for so many dollars per run
ming foot, but | cannot expect you to act
upon my opinion when so many Ameri-
can and European engineers have de-
clared the project impracticable." The
managers knew that the first fifty feet
of the tunnel involved all the difficulties.
His plan was simplicity itself. On a
vertical face of the bank he marked the
line of an arch larger than the tunnel.
On this line he drove into the bank
sharpened timbers, twelve feet long,
three by four inches square. Then he
removed six feet of the material and
repeating this process until he had space
enough to commence the masonry. AS
fast as this was completed the space
above it was filled, leaving the timbers
in place. Thus he progressed, keeping
the masonry well up to the excavation.
until he had pierced the bank with the
cheapest tunnel eyer constructed, which
has carried the traffic of great railroad
for thirty years, and now stands as firm
as on the day of its completion.
: The engineer was asked if there was
any suggestion of the structure adopted
by him in the books on engineering.
! mo" said he, sit came to me in this
way. l was driving by the place where
the first Attempts were made, of which a
colony of bank-swallows had taken pos
session. 1t occurred to me that these
little engineers has disproved the asser
lions that this material had no cohesion
They have their homes in it where they
raise two families every summer. Every
home is tunnel self-sustaining withou
masonry. A larger tunnel can be con
structed by simply extending the princi
pie. This is the whole story. The bank
swallow is The inventor of this form OF
tunnel construction. | am simply 6
copyist-his imItator."
There are fine points in animal engin
aarinU