The Cook County herald. [volume] (Grand Marais, Minn.) 1893-1909, 1900-07-14
IA +! !. NJ u 20 us T y N NE LIS.
.RoRINCs WHICH TOOK WEARS
s.. no CoMPLETE. 5....

lzsz555: - SSMfkE.l Is sassF$5 S. s
millions OF Money and Years Il Of Labor
Required to Build Them "A Tunnel
Twelve Miles Long-In the Alps OF
switzerlan *< 81
s. A task upon which years OF labor
and millions of money are expended
but which when completed. saves a
vast expenditure of time and wealth
as that Of tunneling. The spirit of the
age is progress and neither spares ex-
penses nor stops at difficulties in saw
ing time in transportation, and tun-.
nels, as much as anything else, work;
to this end. r. = e., zs@, U.5
Vs. The United States doesn't amount
to much as a country of tunnels,
The only American tunnel more than
mile and a quarter long is the
Hoosac, which has length of four and
three-quarters miles. and in fact the
builders broke no records except those
for slowness and expense. It. cost $15,-
100000 and took Fl years to build
The regions in which tunnels grow
to the greatest size are those of the
Alps, where the people point with
pride to the Arlberg tunnel, six and
a half miles in length; the Mount
Gems tunnel, seven and a quarter
miles; the st. Gothard, nine and a.
quarter miles long,. and the Simklon,
which will be twelve and a quarter
miles long when it's builders are
through the mountain.
1t was in the middle of the sos
when the people of France and Italy
became tired of crossing the Alps on
mules and resolved to have tunnel
They set to work in 1857 and pro-
ceeded to white their way into the
hearts of the everlasting hills with
pickaxes and crowbars. Working both
in France and Italy they could only
bore out eight feet day. Progress
was almost as slow: as that in the
Hoosac tunnel of the United States.
After humping away at the living
rock for about five years it occurred
to a Frenchman named Sommeiller
that time could be saved by the use
of machinery, and SO he invented a
drill that could bore hole in 20 min
utes that two workmen could not do
in two hours. After that the hole in
the mountain progressed more rapidly,
and toward the end the progress was
IA feet a day. The tunnel begun in
1857 was finished in 1871.
Communications between France
and Italy had scarcely opened when
work began on the St. Gothard rail-
way, which now connects Italy and
Switzerland through the most stu
pendous system of tunnels in the
world, This road, although quite
short. cost more than $4,000 900. 1t
passes through one of the most mount
ainous countries in the world, crossing
IA viaducts, III bridges and 70 tun-
nels, having total length of nearly
80 miles. ~ -
The third great trans-montane tun-
mel is the sArlberg. It is six and half
miles long-almost as long as the
Mont Cenis-and yet it took less than
one-fourth as long to build. Be-
gun in 1880, it was finished in 1884
having progressed at the rate of 27A
feet a day. It connects the province
Of Won Arlberg with the rest of the
Austrian Tyrol through the Arr
mountains, end facilitates trade be-
tween Austria-H Hungary and France.
7 The French took up tunnel build
ing in 1866 in order to connect their
river and canal systems, and built
several such tunnels within the sue.
ceeding 200 years. Tunneling for canal
purposes was taken up in England in
the middle of the last century. One
of these tunnels, only IL feet high,
was more than a mile and a half long,
and narrow boats were propelled
through it by men who lay on their
backs and pushed with their feet
upon the tunnels roof. The first tun-
mel in the United States was built be-
tween 1918 and 1921, on the Union
canal. It was 450 feet long 20 feet
high and Is feet wide. and has long
since been made into an open cut.
The boldest tunnel ever projected
was that under the Straits of Dover, 8
which would have been 21 miles long.
Lord tWolseley declared that it would
facilitate the invasion of England, and
it was, therefore, abandoned. Two of
the most recent tunnels are that UNI
der the Thames, at Blackwell, for car
riages, and that under the river Spree, .
in Germany, for street cars. The Gro ).
ton aqueduct, S3 miles long, is one of
the most remarkable engineering feats
in the world. .@4st =. &$%s
r: The longest underwater tunnel in
the world is that under the Severn
river in England It is four and a
half miles long and was opened in #
1885, after II years Of building. Sew
era1 times there were breaks, followed B
by an inflow of water. and once a
high tide flowed into the shafts and
sWamped the whole tunnel. Divers
were employed to close the bulkhead
doors, which were 1000 feet from the
49, rH yE5