Mohave County miner., 1905-02-18
Reliability of Geological Prediction

A science may be judged by the re liability of predictions based on it.. Useful as mere facts are, their mere agglomeration hardly forms science in the modern acceptation of the word. When the chemist, Mendelejew, in 1868, was enabled by his periodic system to predict the existence of, as yet, undis- covered elements with all their prop critics clearly set' forth, he was thought to be rash man. When, years after, nearly all the clements he predicted were discovered and found to have al. most exactly the properties he had as. signed to them, it was recognized as a flight of scientific thought of the high est type.
 We have before us an opposite ex ample to the one just given-how sci entifc prediction was not justified. Herr Snlzer, an engineer on the Sinp lon tunnel. recently read paper be fore the Swiss Society of Engineers in which he dealt with some mistakes in driving the Simplon tunnel. The geol ogists caught it particularly hard. He said:
 The views of the geologists proved to be extremely incorrect. They told us, for exam pie, that from their examina tion of the dip and strike of the rock exposures they were confident that we should find the strata tilted to more or less perpendicular position, which would be very favorable for excava tion. But instead of crossing the str ta in practically vertical position, we found them almost, or quite, hori zontal. This increased the l bor of perforation and required enormous sums of money to make the roof of the solid or cohesive as it would have been if the excavation had penetrated yer tical strata. The geologists told us that we should encounter very little water on the southern, or Italian, side of the tunnel The ct was, however, that we met great streams of water, Ffom August 19 0, to the present time, no less than 1,,22 liters second have been pouring from the south end. The geologists also told us that we should probably find troublesome streams at Kilometer 3, on the north side of the mountain. It was just here that the rock was perfectly dry.
 "The pressure on the roof of the tun nel Is very much greater than it would have been if the rock strata had been vertical In one stretch about half a mile long the pressure was so great that no means we had hitherto used were adequate Large tree trunks put in for supports were broken. We finally introduced many steel pillars supporting a steel vaulting, with which we lined the roof. This difficulty was overcome only after six months of dangerous work, in which our average advance in digging was only 20 centi meters day instead of 51a me CTS Neither had we been lead to expec, the almost intolersble heat we en countered. We had been told that the maximum tem mperature at the depth of the excavation would probably be lO1 degrees Fahrenheit. This would be bad enough but not intolerable. But sud denly we reached a point in the work where the temperature arose to 131 de grees. Science is unable to explain the phenomenon. The refrigera:ine plant was made adequate for this new difficulty and we managed to maintain the tenn perature at about v degrees Then suddenly the temperature fel to it's original level. We are wholly unable to explain those very rapid ant enormous changes in the tom perature
 "These were the chief difficulties chat compelled the tunnel company tt ask for an extension of the contrac time, and an additional appropriation The work is now proceeding in sat isfactory manner, and we have n' doubt that the first tunnel and th lower part of the second tunnel will b. completed in contract time. The frs tunnel will be open to traffic on Apri 30, 1905, and the company, if necessary will push the work on Sundays an' holidays to have everything ready ol that date."-Translation from tn