The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1907-05-04
From the London Standard:

There Is a revival of the project Of
building tunnel under the straits Of
Dover to connect France with Eng
land. and there is now more than a
task first seriously proposed by the
eminent Frenchman, M. Thome de
Gamond, over 70 years ago, will some
day be contaminated.
Geologically speaking, there was
quite recently dry land where now the
turbulent waters of the straits dis
port themselves and make the hours
of the voyager unhappy, and the
palaeolithic Briton, on pleasure bent,
took advantage of the entente cordiale
of those far off days and ran over to
the continent for the weekend dry
shod. and spent a pleasant holiday
swapping flint instruments for carved
mammoth ivory with the cave
jewellers In the valley Of the Somme-
the great art emporium of the period.
This happy state of things, however,
ceased about the time when neol1thic
man appeared, and since then COM
munication has had to be maintained
by boat-whether by coracle or CAL
ais-Douvres. Yet there were ever some
bold spirits who dreamt of restoring
by art what had been torn from us
by nature, and over 70 years ago these
visions crystallized in the mind Of an
eminent Frenchman, M. Thome de
Gamond, who has been well named
The Father of the Channel Tunnel"
Was Not the First.
Others before him had toyed with
the idea; with de Gamond it was the
devouring passion of lifetime. For
20 years his fertile brain devised
scheme after scheme-tube, bridge and
q
support of both Queen Victoria and
the prince consort. He even dared
to beard Lord Palmerston. whose re-
ply was characteristic: What! you
pretend to ask us to contribute to
work whose object is to shorten a
distance which we already find too
Short! and when the prince cOnsort
expatiated on the advantages Of the
scheme, Pam cut him short with the
discourteous remark: You would
think quite differently if you had been
born in this island" To such pitch
OF enthusiasm was de Gamond carried
that he repeatedly dived to the bottom
Of the straits to obtain specimens Of
the geological formation, and on one
occasion he was attacked by conger
cells and narrowly escaped death.
His daughter to this day receives a
modest pension from the French
Channel company.
Founding of Company.
That company was founded in 1875,
one Of the directors being M. Raoul
Duval, and in the same year the Eng
lish Channel Tunnel company, formed
in 1872 began experimental opera
tions at St. Margarets bay, east of
Dover. These experiments, however,
were not successful, and in 1882 the
EToc ro
liamentary powers to make borings at
Shakespeare Cliff. A shaft was sunk
to a depth of 100 feet, and a tunnel
seven feet in diameter was driven for
a mile and a quarter under the sea-
bed, subsidiary shafts being also sunk
at'Abbot's Cliff and on the Dover side
Of Shakespeare Cliff for the purpose
of ventilation and drainage. In the
following year the works were taken
over by the Submarine COntin entail
Railway company, formed with cap
ital of $3.50, 000-subsequen in
creased, in 1886, to $1,375,00O, to buy
out the original company, the name of
the new venture being changed to
The Channel Tunnel Company, Lin
tied" In the meantime, the 'Societe
Franchise du Tunnel 5ous-rnarin,' -
working from their starting-point at
Sangatte, a few miles west of Calais,
had sunk two shafts to depth of 1870
feet and constructed a gallery for a
distance of $500 yards, using, like the
English engineers, the Beaumont drill,
which excavated at the rate of a quar-
ter Of a mile per month. The French,
moreover, in 1875 and 1877, had made
a. careful study of the whole line of
the tunnel making $500 sounulngs
and collecting over 5000 geological
specimens from the bottom of the sea.
tEnRlish In Panic
Matters were progressing thus sat-
isfactorily on both sides of the chan
mel when suddenly, like a bolt from
the blue, panic seized upon the Eng
lish nation. In July, 1882, an applica-
ton was made to the vice chancellor
to restrain the directors of the Chan
mel Tunnel from committing the
crime of establishing an under-sea
communication between England ana
France. Peers. bishops, members Of
parliament, and others notabilities
signed a petition against the scheme
amongst the signatories were Huxley,
Herbert Spencer and Robert Browning
and such an cutlery was raised by the
military party, headed by Lord VOL
seley, that the board of trade stepped
in and stopped the work. In 1888 the