The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-11-12
TUNNELING THROUGH THE
 ALPS

| A Tunnel Nearly Twelve Miles
 Long Being Driven Through the 1 Heart of Mountain
 Signor Musso has made an interest
 ing visit to Iselle, two hours drive l from Domodossola, and gives de- ! scription of the works on the Italian l side of the great Simplon tunnel All | along the splendid road up the Simplon
 now stand a quantity of villas and cot
 tages, either belonging to the families
 of superintendents of the works, or to
 Italian proprietors, who, foreseeing the immense future development of lselle, 1 have secured the best sites. There are | twenty-three hundred Italian work
 men employed at this end of the tun- l nel and the numerous inns and drink ing-shops bear signs with the names of
 their native towns--Naples. Capua Gaeta, and even Pompeii. These inns are of wood, plastered outside to keep off the damp; every winter some are
 destroyed by the snow, and must be
 rebuilt A permission is necessary to
 see the works, and the visitor must
 sign a declaration renouncing all claim
 for compensation in case he Is injured,
 for there is constant danger of acci-
 dents. There is a hospital at the gate
 of the works, with a surgeon always
 in attendance. There are also a Cath Olic and Protestant chapel The
 length of the tunnel will be 19,770 me-
 ters. The outlet at the Italian side is six hundred and thirty-three meters above sea level.
 The works are being carried on with
 feverish activity, night and day, for if not finished on the date fixed, the 18th of May, 1904, each day of delay will cost the contractors five thousand francs, while on the other hand, they
 will gain the same sum for every day if the works are finished sooner than that date.
 Engineers and workmen remain in the depths of the tunnel for eight hours at d stretch, amid the dropping of water, the screeching of the perfo rators, the fumes of gas and lamps, for electric lights have proved useless, as they are extinguished at every explo- sion of the mines. When the perfora- tors have bored hole some three feet deep, it is filled with dynamite and fired. These explosions are very dan gerous, for, in spite of all precautions, fragments of rocks may hurt the work man or the very ground may open be- meath his feet. When all the mines are laid, man is set to count the ex- plosions, so as to make sure that all the mines have gone off. Till this is ascertained no workman may return to his post. Still accidents sometimes occur. Luckily Signor Musso only found few workmen in the hospital. One had been deprived of a leg and another was dangerously wounded in the body by fragment of rock
 On the Italian side the tunnel has been made for twenty-eight hundred meters, and this, with what has been done on the Swiss side, makes fourth part of the total length. The work | now proceeds at an average of four to five meters per day. Few perforators work at the same time, there being only room for two or three Every | day five hundred three-sided steel | points are consumed, which are re- made, or resharpened, at special | workshop, where a large number of 1 men do nothing else. When the perfo- ] rators and mines have made a large | iiolc III llle IUChS, lle men set to WOrk with pick and chisel, working in one hole above the other, when boun holes are as wide as desired, the men come out, and the thin partition between the upper and lower holes is blasted, and the work is complete thus far. By this system there is no need of scaffolding 1 to support the roof, and many kinds of accidents are eliminated.
 The contractors have built fine baths | and douches for the workmen, and a large building contains their changes of clothes, While there is also a wash ng and drying esta blishment. There IS a special bath-house for the engi- 1eers. The wages of the workmen vary from three francs to six francs a lay. or course they get medical ad- vice and assistance gratis.-I 4nnd~+ l News.