Waterbury evening Democrat., 1907-02-08

"x@ 1-
 There is 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 likelihood that the great engineering task first seriously proposed by the eminent Frenchman, M. Thome de over 70 years ago. will some day me consummated.
 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, cook advantage of the entene cordiaie of those far of days and ran over to Che continent for the weekend dry ohod, and spent pleasant holiday swapping flint instruments for carved mammoth ivory with the cave dwellers in the valley of the Somme- the great art emporium of the period. This happy state of things, however. ceased about the time when Neolithic man appeared, and since then com munication has had to be maintained by boat-whether by coracle or Calais IDouvres. 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 teminent Frenchman, M. Thome de iGamond, who has been well named I"The Father of the Channel Tunnel" Others before him had toyed with the idea; with de Gamond it was the de- touring passion of lifetime. For 20 years his fertile brain devised scheme after scheme-tube, bridge and tun- nel--and he won the sympathy and support of both Queen Victoria and the prince consort. He even dared to beard Lord Palmerston, whose re- Ny was characteristic: What! you pretend to ask us to contribute to a work whose object is to shorten 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 a 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.
 That company was founded in 1875. one of the directors being NJ. Raoul Duval, and in the same year the Eng fish Channel Tunnel company, formed in 1872. began experimental opera tions at St. Margaret's bay, east of Dover. These experiments. however, were not successful, and in 1881 the South Eastern railway obtained par liamentary powers to mako borings at Shakespeare Cliff. A shaft was sunk to a depth of 16o feet. and . tunnel seven feet in diameter was driven for . mile and a quarter under the sea he'd, subsidiary shafts being also sunk ct Abbot's Cliff and on the Dover Gde of Shakespeare Cliff for the purpose of ventilation and drainage. In she following year she works were taken over by the Submarine Continental Railway company. formed with . cap ,tal of S1,16o, ,ooo--subsequently in- creased, in 1888. to s1.s75.00o. to buy out the original company, the nams of the new venture being changed to
 The Channel Tunnel Company. Lim- fled" In the meantime, the "Societe Franca,se du Tunnel Sous-marin," !"
 working from their starting-point at Sangatte, a few miles west of Calais, had sunk two shafts to depth of 1sO feet and constructed . gallery for c distance of 2,3o0 yards. using. like the English engineers. the Beaumont drill,
 which excayated at che rate of quar- ter of a mile per month. The French. moreover, in 1876 and 1877. had made a careful study of the whole line of
 the tunnel, making 7.6o0 soundings and collecting over 5000 geological specimens from the bottom of the sea.
 Matters were progressing thus sat isfactorily on both sides of the chan
 mel when suddenly. like bolt from the blue. panic seized upon the Eng
 fish nation. In July. 1882. an applica- ton was made to the vice chancellor to restrain the directors of the Chan nel Tunnel from committing the crime" of establishing an under-sea communication between England and France. Peers. bishops. members of
 parliament, and other notabilities
 signed petition against the scheme amongst the signatories were Huxley. Herbert Spencer and Robert Brown ing-and such an outcry was raised by the military party, headed by Lord
 wolseley. that the board of trade
 stepped in and stopped the work In
 1883 the whole question was referred so a joint select committee of the lords