,transcriber's ,note3 ,italic text is denoted by underscores4 ,illustration ,thomas ,whiteside ,the ,tunnel ,under the ,channel ,illustration ,,simon ,,and ,,schuster ,,new ,,york #aifb ,,all ,,rights ,,reserved ,,including ,,the ,,right ,,of ,,reproduction ,,in ,,whole ,,or ,,in ,,part ,,in ,,any ,,form ,,copyright #aifa1 #aifb ,,by ,,thomas ,,whiteside ,,published ,,by ,,simon ,,and ,,schuster1 ,,inc4 ,,rockefeller ,,center1 #fcj ,,fifth ,,avenue ,,new ,,york #bj1 ,n4 ,y4 ,,most ,,of ,,the ,,material ,,in ,,this ,,book ,,originated ,,in ,the ,new ,yorker ,,as ,a ,,series ,,of ,,articles1 ,,which ,,have ,,been ,,here ,,expanded4 ,,first ,,printing ,,library ,,of ,,congress ,,catalog ,,card ,,number3 #fb-igdd ,,manufactured ,,in ,,the ,,united ,,states ,,of ,,america ,,by ,,american ,,book-,,stratford ,,press1 ,,inc41 ,,new ,,york ,to ,karen1 ,anne1 ,jimmy ,illustration3 ,one ,,in ,,the ,,social ,,history of ,england1 the ,english ,channel1 that proud sea passage some three hundred and fifty miles long1 has separated that country from the ,continent as by a great gulf or a bottomless chasm4 ,however1 at its narrowest point1 between ,dover and ,cap ,gris-,nez--a distance of some twenty-one and a half miles--the ,channel1 despite any impression that storm-tossed sea travelers across it may have of yawning profundities below1 is actually a body of water shaped less like a marine chasm than like an extremely shallow puddle4 ,indeed1 the relationship of depth to breadth across the ,strait of ,dover is quite extraordinary1 being as one to five hundred4 ,this relationship can perhaps be most graphically illustrated by drawing a section profile of the ,channel to scale4 ,if the drawing were two feet long1 the straight line representing the level of the sea and the line representing the profile of the ,channel bottom would be so close together as to be barely distinguishable from one another4 ,at its narrowest part1 the ,channel is nowhere more than two hundred and sixteen feet deep1 and for half of the distance across1 it is less than a hundred feet deep4 ,it is just this extreme shallowness1 in combination with strong winds and tidal currents flowing in the ,channel neck between the ,north ,sea and the ,atlantic1 that makes the seas of the ,strait of ,dover so formidable1 especially in the winter months4 ,the weather is so bad during ,november and ,december that the odds of a gale's occurring on any given day are computed by the marine signal station at ,dunkirk at one in seven1 and during the whole year there are only sixty periods in which the weather remains decent in the ,channel through a whole day4 ,under these difficult conditions1 the passage of people traveling across the ,channel by ferry between ,england and ,france is a notoriously trying one2 the experience has been mentioned in print during the last hundred years in such phrases as that fearful ordeal1 an hour and a half's torture1 and that unspeakable horror4 ,writing in the ,revue des ,deux ,mondes in #ahhb1 a ,french writer named ,valbert described the trip from ,dover to ,calais as two centuries 444 of agony4 ,ninety-odd years ago1 an article dealing with the ,channel passage1 in ,the ,gentleman's ,magazine1 asserted that hundreds of thousands of people crossing the ,strait each year suffered in a manner that beggared description4 ,probably there is no other piece of travelling in civilized countries1 where1 within equal times1 so much suffering is endured2 certainly it would be hard to find another voyage of equal length which is so much feared1 the author said1 and he went on to report that only one day out of four was calm1 on the average1 while about three days in every eight were made dreadful to passengers by heavy weather4 ,he concluded1 with feeling1 ,what wonder that1 under such circumstances1 patriotism often fails to survive2 and that if any wish is felt in mid-,channel1 it is that1 after all1 ,england was not an island4 ,how many ,englishmen1 their loyalty having been subjected to this strain1 might express the same wish upon safely gaining high ground again is a question the writer in ,the ,gentleman's ,magazine did not venture to discuss4 ,however1 there is no question about the persistence with which1 during the past century at least1 cross-,channel ferry passengers have spoken about or written about the desirability of some sort of dry-land passage between ,england and ,france4 ,engineers have been attracted to the idea of constructing such a passage for at least a hundred and fifty years4 ,during that time1 they have come up with proposals for crossing the ,channel by spanning it with great bridges1 by laying down submersible tubes resting on the sea bottom or floating halfway between sea bed and sea level1 or even by using transports shaped like enormous tea wagons1 whose wheels would travel along rails below sea level and whose platforms would tower high above the highest waves4 ,but more commonly than by any other means1 they have proposed to do away with the hazards and hardships of the ,channel boat crossing by boring a traffic tunnel under the rock strata that lie at conveniently shallow depths under sea level4 ,the idea of a ,channel tunnel1 at once abolishing seasickness and connecting ,england with the ,continent by an easy arterial flow of goods and travelers1 always has had about it a quality of grand simplicity--the simplicity of a very large extension of an easily comprehended principle2 in this case1 digging a hole--that has proved irresistible in appeal to generations not only of engineers but of visionaries and promoters of all kinds4 ,the tunnel seems always to have had a capacity to arouse in its proponents a peculiarly passionate and unquenchable enthusiasm4 ,men have devoted their adult lives to promoting the cause of the tunnel1 and such a powerful grip does the project seem to have had on the imagination of its various designers that just to look at some of their old drawings--depicting1 for example1 down to the finest detail of architectural ornamentation1 ventilation stations for the tunnel sticking out of the surface of the ,channel as ships sail gracefully about nearby--one might almost think that the tunnel was an accomplished reality1 and the artist merely a conscientious reporter of an existing scene4 ,such is the minute detail in which the tunnel has been designed by various people that eighty-six years ago the ,french ,assembly approved a tunnel bill that specified the price of railway tickets for the ,channel-tunnel journey1 and even contained a clause requiring second-class carriages to be provided with stuffed seats rather than the harder accommodations provided for third-class passengers4 ,and an ,englishman called ,william ,collard1 who died in #aidc1 after occupying himself for thirty years with the problem of the ,channel tunnel1 in #aibh wrote and published a book on the subject that went so far as to work out a time-table for ,channel-tunnel trains between ,paris and ,london1 complete with train and platform numbers and arrival and departure times at intermediate stations in ,kent and northern ,france4 ,as for the actual engineering details1 a ,channel tunnel has been the subject of studies that have ranged from collections of mere rough guesses to the most elaborate engineering1 geological1 and hydrographic surveys carried out by highly competent civil-engineering companies4 ,interestingly enough1 ever since the days1 a century or so ago1 when practical ,victorian engineers began taking up the problem1 the technical feasibility of constructing a tunnel under the ,channel has never really been seriously questioned4 ,yet1 despite effort piled on effort and campaign mounted on campaign1 over all the years1 by engineers1 politicians1 and promoters1 nobody has quite been able to push the project through4 ,up to now1 every time the proponents of a tunnel have tried to advance the scheme1 they have encountered a difficulty harder to understand1 harder to identify1 and1 indeed1 harder to break through than any rock stratum4 ,the difficulty seems to lie in the degree to which1 among ,englishmen1 the ,channel has been not only a body of water but a state of mind4 ,because of the prevalence of this curious force1 the history of the scheme to put a tunnel below the ,channel has proved almost as stormy as the ,channel waves themselves4 ,winston ,churchill1 in an article in the ,london ,daily ,mail1 wrote in #aicf1 ,there are few projects against which there exists a deeper and more enduring prejudice than the construction of a railway tunnel between ,dover and ,calais4 ,again and again it has been brought forward under powerful and influential sponsorship4 ,again and again it has been prevented4 ,mr4 ,churchill1 who could never be accused of lacking understanding of the ,british character1 was obliged to add that he found the resistance to the tunnel a mystery4 ,some thirty-five times between #ahhb and #aiej the subject of the ,channel tunnel was brought before ,parliament in one form or another for discussion1 and ten bills on behalf of the project have been rejected or set aside4 ,on several occasions1 the ,parliamentary vote on the tunnel has been close enough to bring the tunnel within reach of becoming a reality1 and in the eighties the construction of pilot tunnels for a distance under the sea from the ,english and ,french coasts was even started4 ,but always the tunnel advocates have had to give way before persistent opposition1 and always they have had to begin their exertions all over again4 ,successive generations of ,englishmen have argued with each other--and with the ,french1 who have never showed any opposition to a ,channel tunnel--with considerable vehemence4 ,the ranks of pro-tunnel people have included ,sir ,winston ,churchill 7who once called the ,british opposition to the tunnel occult71 ,prince ,albert1 and1 at one point1 ,queen ,victoria2 and the people publicly lining themselves up with the anti-tunnel forces have included ,lord ,randolph ,churchill 7,sir ,winston's father71 ,alfred1 ,lord ,tennyson1 ,robert ,browning1 ,professor ,thomas ,huxley1 and1 more recently1 ,first ,viscount ,montgomery of ,alamein4 ,queen ,victoria1 once pro-tunnel1 later turned anti-tunnel2 her sometime ,prime ,minister1 ,william ,e4 ,gladstone1 took an anti-tunnel position at one period when he was in office1 and later1 out of it1 turned pro-tunnel4 ,throughout its stormy history the tunnel project has had the qualities of fantasy and nightmare--a thing of airy grace and claustrophobic horror2 a long1 bright kaleidoscope of promoters' promises and a cavern resounding with ,cyclopean bellowing4 ,proponents of the tunnel have called it an end to seasickness1 a boon to peace1 international understanding1 and trade2 and they have hailed it as potentially the greatest civil-engineering feat of their particular century4 ,its opponents have referred to it sharply as a mischievous project1 and they have denounced it as a military menace that would have enabled the ,french 7or ,germans7 to use it as a means of invading ,england--the thought of which1 in #aiad1 caused one prominent ,english anti-tunneler1 ,admiral ,sir ,algernon de ,horsey1 publicly to characterize as unworthy of consideration the dissenting views of pro-tunnelers1 whom he contemptuously referred to as those poor creatures who have no stomach for an hour's sea passage1 and who think retention of their dinners more important than the safety of their country4 ,over the years1 anti-tunnel forces have used as ammunition an extraordinary variety of further arguments1 which have ranged from objections about probable customs difficulties at the ,english and ,french ends of the tunnel to suspicions that a ,channel tunnel would make it easier for international ,socialists to commingle and conspire4 ,behind all these given reasons1 no matter how elaborate or how special they might be1 there has always lurked something else1 a consideration more subtle1 more elusive1 more profound1 and less answer able than any specific objections to the construction of a ,channel tunnel--the consideration of ,england's traditional insular position1 the feeling that somehow1 if ,england were to be connected by a tunnel with the ,continent1 the peculiar meaning1 to an ,englishman1 of being ,english would never be quite the same again4 ,it is this feeling1 no doubt1 that in #ahhb motivated an article on the tunnel1 in so sober a publication as ,the ,solicitors' ,journal1 to express about it an uneasiness bordering on alarm1 on the ground that1 if successful1 the construction of a tunnel would effect a change in the natural geographical condition of things4 ,and it is no doubt something of the same feeling that prompted ,lord ,randolph ,churchill1 during a speech attacking a bill for a ,channel tunnel before the ,house of ,commons in #ahhi--the bill was defeated1 of course--to observe skillfully that the reputation of ,england has hitherto depended upon her being1 as it were1 virgo intacta4 ,if the proponents and promoters of the tunnel have never quite succeeded in putting their project across in all the years1 they have never quite given up trying1 either2 and now1 in a new strategic era of nuclear rockets1 a new era of transport in which air ferries to the ,continent carry cars as well as passengers1 and a new era of trade1 marked by the emergence and successful growth of the ,european ,economic ,community1 or ,common ,market1 the pro-tunnel forces have been at it again1 in what one of the leading pro-tunnelers has called a last glorious effort to get this thing through4 ,this time they have encountered what they consider to be the most encouraging kind of progress in the entire history of the scheme4 ,in ,april1 #aifj1 an organization called the ,channel ,tunnel ,study ,group announced1 in ,london1 a new series of proposals for a ,channel tunnel1 based on a number of recent elaborate studies on the subject4 ,the proposals called for twin parallel all-electric railway tunnels1 either bored or immersed1 with trains that would carry passengers and transport1 in piggyback fashion1 cars1 buses1 and trucks4 ,the double tunnel1 if of the immersed kind1 would be #bf miles long between portals4 ,a bored tunnel1 as planned1 would be #cb miles long and would be by far the longest traffic tunnel of either the underwater or under-mountain variety in the world4 ,the longest continuous subaqueous traffic tunnel in existence is the rail tunnel under the ,mersey1 connecting ,liverpool and ,birkenhead1 a distance of #b4b miles2 the longest rail tunnel through a mountain is the ,simplon ,tunnel1 #ab4c miles in length4 ,the ,channel tunnel would run between the areas of ,sangatte and ,calais on the ,french side1 and between ,ashford and ,folkestone on the ,english side4 ,trains would travel through it at an average speed of #fe miles an hour1 reaching #hg miles an hour in some places1 and at rush hours they would be capable of running #d1bjj passengers and #a1hjj vehicles on flatcars every hour in each direction4 ,while a true vehicular tunnel could also be constructed1 the obviously tremendous problems of keeping it safely ventilated at present make this particular project1 according to the engineers1 prohibitively expensive to build and maintain4 ,the train journey from ,london to ,paris via the proposed tunnel would take four hours and twenty minutes2 the passenger trains would pass through the tunnel in about thirty minutes4 ,passengers would pay #cb shillings1 or #d4dh-b4ib cheaper than the cost of a first-class passenger ticket on the ,dover-,calais sea-ferry--to ride through the tunnel2 the cost of accompanied small cars would be #af4dh1 a claimed #cj per cent less than a comparable sea-ferry charge4 ,the tunnel would take four to five years to build1 and the ,study ,group estimated that1 including the rail terminals at both ends1 it would cost approximately #cfd1jjj1jjj4 ,all that the ,study ,group1 which represents ,british1 ,french and ,american commercial interests1 needs to go ahead with the project and turn it into a reality is--besides money1 and the ,study ,group seems to be confident that it can attract that--the approval of the ,british and ,french ,governments of the scheme4 ,for all practical purposes1 the ,french ,government never has had any objection to a fixed installation linking both sides of the ,channel1 and as far as the official ,british attitude is concerned1 when the ,british ,government announced1 in ,july1 #aifa1 that it would seek full membership in the ,european ,common ,market1 most of the tunnel people felt sure that the forces of ,british insularity which had hindered the development of a tunnel for nearly a century at last had been dealt a blow to make them reel4 ,but what raised the pro-tunnelers' excitement to the greatest pitch of all was the decision of the ,french and ,british ,governments1 last ,october1 to hold discussions on the problem of building either a bridge or a tunnel4 ,when these discussions got under way last ,november1 the main question before the negotiators was the economic practicality of such a huge undertaking4 ,yet1 with all the encouragement1 few of the pro-tunnelers in ,england seem willing to make a flat prediction that the ,british ,government will actively support the construction of a tunnel4 ,they have been disappointed too often4 ,then again1 despite the generally high hopes that this time the old strategic objections to the construction of a tunnel have been pretty well forgotten1 pro-tunnelers are well aware that a number of ,englishmen with vivid memories of #aidj are still doubtful about the project4 ,the ,channel saved us last time1 even in the age of the airplane1 didn't it8 one ,english barrister said a while ago1 in talking of his feelings about building the ,channel tunnel4 ,the tunnel project has the open enmity of ,viscount ,montgomery1 who has made repeated attacks on it and who in #aifj demanded1 in a newspaper interview1 that before the ,government took any stand on behalf of such a project1 ,the ,british people as a whole should be consulted and vote on the ,channel tunnel as part of a ,general-,elections program4 ,and1 to show that the spirit of the anti-tunnelers has not lost its resilience1 ,major-,general ,sir ,edward ,l4 ,spears1 in the correspondence columns of the ,london ,times in ,april of that same year1 denounced the latest ,channel-tunnel scheme as a plan which will not only cost millions of public money1 but will let loose on to our inadequate roads eighteen hundred more vehicles an hour1 each driven by a right-of-the-road driver in a machine whose steering wheel is on the left4 ,illustration3 ,two ,,the ,,first ,,scheme for the construction of a tunnel beneath the ,english ,channel was put forward in ,france1 in #ahjb1 by a mining engineer named ,albert ,mathieu1 who that year displayed plans for such a work in ,paris1 at the ,palais du ,luxembourg and the cole ,nationale ,suprieure des ,mines4 ,mathieu's tunnel1 divided into two lengths totaling about eighteen and a half miles1 was to be illuminated by oil lamps and ventilated at intervals by chimneys projecting above the sea into the open air1 and its base was to be a paved way over which relays of horses would gallop1 pulling coachloads of passengers and mail between ,france and ,england in a couple of hours or so of actual traveling time1 with changes of horses being provided at an artificial island to be constructed in mid-,channel4 ,mathieu managed to have his project brought to the attention of ,napoleon ,bonaparte1 the ,first ,consul1 who was sufficiently impressed with it to bring it to the attention of ,charles ,james ,fox during a personal meeting of the two men during the ,peace of ,amiens4 ,fox described it as one of the great enterprises we can now undertake together4 ,but the project got no further than this talking stage4 ,in #ahjc1 a ,frenchman named de ,mottray came up with another proposal for creating a passage underneath the ,channel4 ,it consisted of laying down sections of a long1 submerged tube on top of the sea bed between ,england and ,france1 the sections being linked together in such a way as to form a watertight tunnel4 ,however1 ,mottray's project petered out quickly1 too1 and the subject of an undersea connection between the two countries lay dormant until #ahcc1 when it attracted the attention of a man named ,aim ,thom de ,gamond1 a twenty-six-year-old ,french civil engineer and hydrographer of visionary inclinations4 ,thom de ,gamond was to turn into an incomparably zealous and persistent projector of ways in which people could cross between ,england and ,france without getting wet or seasick2 he devoted himself to the problem for no less than thirty-four years1 and had no hesitation in exposing himself to extraordinary physical dangers in the course of his researches4 ,unlike the plans of his predecessors1 ,thom de ,gamond's were based upon fairly systematic hydrographic or geological surveys of the ,channel area4 ,in #ahcc he made the first of these surveys by taking marine soundings to establish a profile of the sea bottom in a line between ,calais and ,dover2 on the basis of this1 he drew up1 in #ahcd1 a plan for a submerged iron tube that was to be laid down in prefabricated sections on the bed of the ,strait of ,dover and then lined with masonry1 the irregular bottom of the sea meanwhile having been prepared to receive the tube through the leveling action of a great battering-ram and rake operated from the surface by boat4 ,by #ahce1 ,thom de ,gamond modified this scheme by eliminating the prefabricated tube in favor of a movable hydrographic shield that would slowly advance across the ,channel bottom1 leaving a masonry tube behind it as it progressed4 ,but the rate of progress1 he calculated1 would be slow2 the work was to take thirty years to complete1 or fifteen years if work began on two shores simultaneously4 ,thom de ,gamond moved on to schemes for other ways of crossing the ,channel1 and between #ahce and #ahcf he turned out1 successively1 detailed plans for five types of cross-,channel bridges4 ,they included a granite-and-steel bridge of colossal proportions1 and with arches higher than the cupola of ,st4 ,paul's1 ,london1 which was to be built between ,ness ,corner ,point and ,calais2 a flat-bottomed steam-driven concrete-and-stone ferryboat1 of such size as to constitute a true floating island1 which would travel between two great piers each jutting out five miles into the ,channel between ,ness ,corner ,point and ,cap ,blanc-,nez2 and a massive artificial isthmus of stone1 which would stretch from ,cap ,gris-,nez to ,dover and block the neck of the ,english ,channel except for three transverse cuttings spanned by movable bridges1 which ,thom de ,gamond allowed across his work for the passage of ships4 ,thom de ,gamond was particularly fond of his isthmus scheme4 ,he traveled to ,london and there promoted it vigorously among interested ,englishmen during the ,universal ,exhibition of #ahea1 but he reluctantly abandoned it because of objections to its high estimated cost of #cc1fjj1jjj and to what he described as the obstinate resistance of mariners1 who objected to their being obliged to ply their ships through the narrow channels4 ,such exasperating objections to joining ,england and ,france above water sent ,thom de ,gamond back to the idea of doing the job under the sea1 and between #ahdb and #ahee he made various energetic explorations of the ,channel area in an attempt to determine the feasibility of driving a tunnel through the rock formations under the ,strait4 ,geological conditions existing in the middle of the ,strait were1 up to that time1 almost entirely a matter of surmise1 based on observations made on the ,british and ,french sides of the ,channel1 and in the process of finding out more about them1 ,thom de ,gamond decided to descend in person to the bottom of the ,channel to collect geological specimens4 ,in #ahee1 at the age of forty-eight1 he had the hardihood to make a number of such descents1 unencumbered by diving equipment1 in the middle of the ,strait4 ,naked except for wrappings that he wound about his head to keep in place pads of buttered lint he had plastered over his ears1 to protect them from high water pressure1 he would plunge to the bottom of the ,channel1 weighted down by bags of flints and trailing a long safety line attached to his body1 and a red distress line attached to his left arm1 from a rowboat occupied also by a ,channel pilot1 a young assistant1 and his own daughter1 who went along to keep watch over him4 ,on the deepest of these descents1 at a point off ,folkestone1 ,thom de ,gamond1 having put a spoonful of olive oil into his mouth as a lubricant that would allow him to expel air from his lungs without permitting water at high pressure to force its way in1 dived down weighted by four bags of flints weighing a total of #ahj pounds4 ,about his waist he wore a belt of ten inflated pig's bladders1 which were to pull him rapidly to the surface after he had scooped up his geological specimen from the ,channel bed and released his ballast1 and1 using this system1 he actually touched bottom at a depth of between #ii and #ajh feet4 ,his ascent from this particular dive was not unremarkable1 either2 in an account of it1 he wrote that just after he had left the bottom of the ,channel with a sample of clay 444 ,i was attacked by voracious fish1 which seized me by the legs and arms4 ,one of them bit me on the chin1 and would at the same time have attacked my throat if it had not been preserved by a thick handkerchief4444 ,i was fortunate enough not to open my mouth1 and ,i reappeared on top of the water after being immersed fifty-two seconds4 ,my men saw one of the monsters which had assailed me1 and which did not leave me until ,i had reached the surface4 ,they were conger eels4 ,thom de ,gamond's geological observations1 although they were certainly sketchy by later standards1 were enough to convince him of the feasibility of a mined tunnel under the ,channel1 and in #ahef he drew up plans for such a work4 ,this was to be a stone affair containing a double set of railroad tracks4 ,it was to stretch twenty-one miles1 from ,cap ,gris-,nez to ,eastwear ,point1 and from these places was to connect1 by more than nine miles at each end of sloping access tunnels1 with the ,french and ,british railway systems4 ,the junctions of the sloping access tunnels and the main tunnel itself were to be marked by wide shafts1 about three hundred feet deep1 at the bottom of which travelers would encounter the frontier stations of each nation4 ,the line of the main tunnel was to be marked above the surface by a series of twelve small artificial islands made of stone4 ,these were to be surmounted with lighthouses and were to contain ventilating shafts connecting with the tunnel4 ,thom de ,gamond prudently provided the ventilation shafts in his plans with sea valves1 so that in case of war between ,england and ,france each nation would have the opportunity of flooding the tunnel on short notice4 ,the tunnel was designed to cross the northern tip of the ,varne1 a narrow1 submerged shelf that lies parallel to the ,english coast about ten miles off ,folkestone1 and so close to the surface that at low tide it is only about fifteen feet under water at its highest point4 ,thom de ,gamond planned to raise the ,varne above water level1 thus converting it into an artificial island1 by building it up with rocks and earth brought to the spot in ships4 ,through this earth1 engineers would dig a great shaft down to the level of the tunnel1 so that the horizontal mining of the tunnel as a whole could be carried on from four working faces simultaneously1 instead of only two4 ,the great shaft was also to serve as a means of ventilating the tunnel and communicating with it from the outside1 and around its apex ,thom de ,gamond planned1 with a characteristically grand flourish1 an international port called the toile de ,varne1 which was to have four outer quays and an interior harbor1 as well as amenities such as living quarters for personnel and a first-class lighthouse4 ,as for the shaft leading down to the railway tunnel1 according to alternate versions of ,thom de ,gamond's plan1 it was to be at least #cej feet--and possibly as much as #ihd feet--in diameter1 and #adg feet deep2 and1 according to a contemporary account in the ,paris newspaper ,la ,patrie1 an open station would be formed as spacious as the court of the ,louvre1 where travelers might halt to take air after running a quarter of an hour under the bottom of the ,strait4 ,from the bottom of this deep station1 trains might also ascend by means of gently spiraling ramps to the surface of the toile de ,varne1 ,la ,patrie reported4 ,the newspaper went on to invite its readers to contemplate the panorama at sea level3 ,imagine a train full of travelers1 after having run for fifteen minutes in the bowels of the earth through a splendidly lighted tunnel1 halting suddenly under the sky1 and then ascending to the quays of this island4 ,the island1 rising in mid-sea1 is furnished with solid constructions1 spacious quays garnished with the ships of all nations2 some bound for the ,baltic or the ,mediterranean1 others arriving from ,america or ,india4 ,in the distance to the ,north1 her silver cliffs extending to the ,north1 reflected in the sun1 is white ,albion1 once separated from all the world1 now become the ,british ,peninsula4 ,to the ,south 444 is the land of ,france4444 ,those white sails spread in the midst of the ,straits are the fishing vessels of the two nations4444 ,those rapid trains which whistle at the bottom of the subterranean station are from ,london or ,paris in three or four hours4 ,in the spring of #ahef1 ,thom de ,gamond obtained an audience with ,napoleon ,,iii and expounded his latest plan to him4 ,the ,emperor reacted with interest and told the engineer that he would have a scientific commission look into the matter as far as our present state of science allows4 ,the commission found itself favorable to the idea of the work in general but lacking a good deal of necessary technical information1 and it suggested that some sort of preliminary agreement between the ,british and ,french ,governments on the desirability of the tunnel ought to be reached before a full technical survey was made4 ,encouraged by the way things seemed to be going1 ,thom de ,gamond set about promoting his scheme more energetically than ever4 ,he obtained a promise of collaboration from three of ,britain's most eminent engineers--,robert ,stephenson1 ,isambard ,kingdom ,brunel1 and ,joseph ,locke--and in #aheh he traveled to ,london to advance the cause of the tunnel among prominent people and to promote it in the press4 ,leading journals were receptive to the idea4 ,an article in the ,illustrated ,london ,news referred to the proposed tunnel as this great line of junction1 and said that it would put an end to the commercial isolation that ,england was being faced with by the creation on the ,continent of a newly unified railway system that was making it possible to ship goods from ,central to ,western ,europe without breaking bulk4 ,the article added that the creation of the tunnel 444 would still preserve for this country for the future that maritime isolation which formed its strength throughout the past2 for the situation of the tunnel beneath the bed of the sea would enable the government on either coast1 in case of war1 as a means of defense1 to inundate it immediately4444 ,according to the calculations of the engineer1 the tunnel might be completely filled with water in the course of an hour1 and afterwards three days would be required1 with the mutual consent of the two ,governments1 to draw off the water1 and reestablish the traffic4 ,thom de ,gamond's visit to ,england was climaxed by a couple of interviews on the subject of the ,channel tunnel that he obtained with ,prince ,albert1 who supported the idea with considerable enthusiasm and even took up the matter in private with ,queen ,victoria4 ,the ,queen1 who was known to suffer dreadfully from seasickness1 told ,albert1 who relayed the message to ,thom de ,gamond1 ,you may tell the ,french engineer that if he can accomplish it1 ,i will give him my blessing in my own name and in the name of all the ladies of ,england4 ,however1 in a discussion ,thom de ,gamond had earlier had with ,her ,majesty's ,prime ,minister1 ,lord ,palmerston1 who was present at one of the engineer's interviews with ,albert1 the idea of the tunnel was not so well received4 ,the engineer found ,palmerston rather close on the subject4 ,what6 ,you pretend to ask us to contribute to a work the object of which is to shorten a distance which we find already too short6 ,thom de ,gamond quoted him as exclaiming when the tunnel project was mentioned4 ,and1 according to an account by the engineer1 when ,albert1 in the presence of both men1 spoke favorably of the benefits to ,england of a passage under the ,channel1 ,lord ,palmerston without losing that perfectly courteous tone which was habitual with him remarked to the ,prince ,consort1 ,you would think quite differently if you had been born on this island4 ,while ,thom de ,gamond was occupied with his submarine-crossing projects1 other people were producing their own particular tunnel schemes4 ,most of them seem to have been for submerged tubes1 either laid down directly on the sea bed or raised above its irregularities by vertical columns to form a sort of underwater elevated railway4 ,perhaps the most ornamental of these various plans was drawn up by a ,frenchman named ,hector ,horeau1 in #ahea4 ,it called for a prefabricated iron tube containing a railway to be laid across the ,channel bed along such judiciously inclined planes as to allow his carriages passage through them without their having to be drawn by smoke-bellowing locomotives--a suffocatingly real problem that most early ,channel-tunnel designers1 including1 apparently1 ,thom de ,gamond1 pretty well ignored4 ,the slope given to ,horeau's underground railway was to enable the carriages to glide down under the ,channel from one shoreline with such wonderful momentum as to bring them to a point not far from the other1 the carriages being towed the rest of the way up by cables attached to steam winches operated from outside the tunnel exit4 ,the tunnel itself would be lighted by gas flames and1 in daytime1 by thick glass skylights that would admit natural light filtering down through the sea4 ,the line of the tube was to be marked1 across the surface of the ,channel1 by great floating conical structures resembling pennanted pavilions in some medieval tapestry4 ,the pavilions were to be held in place by strong cables anchored to the ,channel bottom2 they were also to contain marine warning beacons4 ,this project never got under the ground4 ,in #aheh1 an attempt to assassinate ,napoleon ,,iii brought ,france into the ,italian war against ,austria1 and when word spread in ,france that the assassin's bombs had been made in ,birmingham1 a chill developed between the ,french and ,british ,governments4 ,this led to a wave of fear in ,england that another ,napoleon might try a cross-,channel invasion4 ,all this froze out ,thom de ,gamond's tunnel-promoting for several years4 ,he did not try again until #ahfg1 when he exhibited a set of revised plans for his ,varne tunnel at the ,universal ,exhibition in ,paris4 ,in doing so he concluded that he had pushed the cause of the tunnel about to the limit of his personal powers4 ,thirty-five years of work devoted to the problem had cost him a moderate personal fortune1 and he was obliged to note in presenting his plan that the work must now be undertaken by collective minds well versed in the physiology of rocks and the workings of subterranean deposits4 ,after that1 ,thom de ,gamond retired into the background1 squeezed out1 it may be1 by other tunnel promoters4 ,in #ahge1 an article in the ,london ,times that mentioned his name in passing reported that he was living in humble circumstances1 his daughter supporting him by giving lessons on the piano4 ,he died in the following year4 ,although ,thom de ,gamond's revised plan of #ahfg came to nothing in itself1 it did cause renewed talk about a ,channel tunnel4 ,the new spirit of free trade was favorable to it among ,europeans1 and everybody was being greatly impressed with reports of the striking progress on various great ,european engineering projects of the time that promised closer communication between nations--the successful cutting of the ,isthmus of ,suez1 the near completion of the #h4a-mile-long ,mount ,cenis rail tunnel1 and the opening1 only a few years previously1 of the #i4c-mile-long ,st4 ,gotthard ,tunnel1 for example4 ,hardly any great natural physical barriers between neighboring nations seemed beyond the ability of the great nineteenth-century engineers to bridge or breach1 and to many people it appeared logical enough that the barrier of the ,dover ,strait should have its place on the engineers' list of conquests4 ,in this generally propitious atmosphere1 an ,englishman named ,william ,low took up where ,thom de ,gamond left off4 ,shortly after the ,universal ,exhibition1 ,low came up with a ,channel tunnel scheme based principally upon his own considerable experience as an engineer in charge of coal mines in ,wales4 ,low proposed the creation of a pair of twin tunnels1 each containing a single railway track1 and interconnected at intervals by short cross-passages4 ,the idea was a technically striking one1 for it aimed at making the tunnels1 in effect1 self-ventilating by making use of the action of a train entering a tunnel to push air in front of it and draw fresh air in behind itself4 ,according to ,low's scheme1 this sort of piston action1 repeated on a big scale by the constant passage of trains bound in opposite directions in the two tunnels1 was supposed to keep air moving along each of the tunnels and between them through the cross-passages in such a way as to allow for its steady replenishment through the length of the tunnels4 ,with modifications1 ,low's concept of a double self-ventilating tunnel forms the basis for the plan most seriously advanced by the ,channel ,tunnel ,study ,group in #aifj4 ,after showing his plans to ,thom de ,gamond1 who approved of them1 ,low obtained the collaboration of two other ,victorian engineers--,sir ,john ,hawkshaw1 who in #ahfe and #ahff had had a number of test borings made by a geologist named ,hartsink ,day in the bed of the ,channel in the areas between ,st4 ,margaret's ,bay1 just east of ,dover1 and ,sangatte1 just north-east of ,calais1 and had become convinced that a ,channel tunnel was a practical possibility in geological terms2 and ,sir ,james ,brunlees1 an engineer who had helped build the ,suez ,canal4 ,in #ahfg1 an ,anglo-,french committee of ,channel-tunnel promoters submitted a scheme for a ,channel tunnel based on ,low's plan to a commission of engineers under ,napoleon ,,iii1 and the promoters asked for an official concession to build the tunnel4 ,the members of the commission were unanimous in regarding the scheme as a workable one1 although they balked at an accompanying request of the promoters that the ,british and ,french ,governments each guarantee interest on a million sterling1 which would be raised privately1 to help get the project under way1 and took no action4 ,but apart from the question of money the promoters were encouraged4 ,in #ahgj they persuaded the ,french ,government officially to ask the ,british ,government what support it would be willing to give to the proposed construction of a ,channel railway tunnel4 ,consideration of the question in ,whitehall got sidetracked for a while by the outbreak of the ,franco-,prussian war in the same year1 but in #ahgb1 after further diplomatic enquiries by the ,french ,government1 the ,british ,government eventually replied that it found no objection in principle to a ,channel tunnel1 provided it was not asked to put up money or guarantee of any kind in connection with it and provided that ownership of the tunnel would not be a perpetual private monopoly4 ,in the same year1 a ,channel ,tunnel ,company was chartered in ,england1 with ,lord ,richard ,grosvenor1 chairman of the ,london1 ,chatham ,dover ,railway1 at its head1 and with ,hawkshaw1 ,low1 and ,brunlees as its engineers4 ,the tunnel envisioned by the company would stretch from ,dover to ,sangatte1 and its cost1 including thirty-three miles of railway that would connect on the ,english side with the ,london1 ,chatham ,dover and the ,south-,eastern ,railways1 and on the ,french side with the ,chemin de ,fer du ,nord1 would be #aj1jjj1jjj4 ,three years later1 the ,english company sought and obtained from ,parliament temporary powers to buy up private land at ,st4 ,margaret's ,bay1 in ,kent1 for the purpose of going ahead with experimental tunneling work there4 ,at the same time1 a newly formed ,french ,channel ,tunnel ,company backed by the ,house of ,rothschild and headed by an engineer named ,michel ,chevalier obtained by act of the ,french legislature permission from the ,french ,government to start work on a tunnel from the ,french side at an undetermined point between ,boulogne and ,calais1 and a concession to operate the ,french section of the tunnel for ninety-nine years4 ,the cahier des charges of the ,french tunnel bill dealt in considerable detail with the terms under which the completed tunnel was to be run1 down to providing a full table of tariffs for the under-,channel railroad4 ,thus1 a first-class passenger riding through the tunnel in an enclosed carriage furnished with windows would be charged fifty centimes per kilometre4 ,freight rates were established for such categories as furniture1 silks1 wine1 oysters1 fresh fish1 oxen1 cows1 pigs1 goats1 and horse-drawn carriages with or without passengers inside4 ,the greatest uncertainty facing the two companies1 now that they had the power to start digging toward each other's working sites1 consisted of their lack of foreknowledge of geological obstacles they might encounter in the rock masses lying between the two shores at the neck of the ,channel4 ,however1 the companies' engineers had substantial reasons for believing that1 in general1 the region and stratum into which they planned to take the tunnel were peculiarly suited to their purpose4 ,their belief was based on a rough reconstruction--a far more detailed reconstruction is available nowadays1 of course--of various geological events occurring in the area before there ever was a ,channel4 ,a hundred million years ago1 in the ,upper ,cretaceous period of the ,mesozoic era1 a great part of southern ,england1 which had been connected at its easterly end with the ,continental land mass1 was inundated1 along with much of ,western ,europe1 by the ancient ,southern ,sea4 ,as it lay submerged1 this sea-washed land accumulated on its surface1 over a period of ten million years1 layers of white or whitish mud about nine hundred feet thick and composed principally of the microscopic skeletons of plankton and tiny shells4 ,eventually the mud converted itself into rock4 ,then1 for another forty million years1 at just the point where the neck of the ,dover ,strait now is1 very gentle earth movements raised the level of this rock to form a bar-shaped island some forty miles long4 ,by ,eocene times this ,wealden ,island1 stretching westward across the ,calais-,dover area1 actually seems to have been the only bit of solid ground standing out in a seascape of a ,western ,europe inundated by the ,eocene sea4 ,when most of ,france and southern ,england reappeared above the surface1 in ,miocene times1 this island welded them together2 later1 in the ice age1 the ,channel isthmus disappeared and emerged again four times with the rise and fall of the sea caused by the alternate thawing and refreezing of the northern icecap4 ,when each sequence of the ice age ended1 the land bridge remained1 high and dry as ever1 and it was over this isthmus that paleolithic man shambled across from the ,continent1 in the trail of rhinoceroses1 hippopotamuses1 giant boars1 and other great beasts whose fossilized bones have been found in the ,wealden area4 ,encroaching seas made a channel through the isthmus and cut the ,bronze ,age descendants of this breed of men off from the ,continent about six thousand years ago4 ,then fierce tidal currents coursing between the ,north ,sea and the ,atlantic widened the breach still further until1 as recently as four thousand years ago 7or only about a couple of thousand years before ,caesar's legions invaded ,britain by boat71 the sea wore away the rock of the isthmus to approximately the present width of the ,strait1 leaving exposed high at each side the eroded rock walls1 formerly the whitish mudbank of ,cretaceous times--now the white chalk cliffs of the ,dover and ,calais areas4 ,providentially for the later purposes of ,channel tunnelers1 however1 the seas that divided ,england from the ,continent also left behind them a thin remnant of the old land connection in the form of certain chalk layers that still stretched in gentle folds across the bottom of the ,strait1 and it was through this area of remaining chalk that the ,victorian engineers planned to drive their tunnel headings4 ,even more providentially1 they had the opportunity of extending their headings under the ,channel through a substratum of chalk almost ideal for tunneling purposes1 known as the ,lower ,chalk4 ,unlike the two layers of cretaceous rock that lie above it--the white ,upper ,chalk and the whitish ,middle ,chalk1 both of which are flint-laden1 heavily fissured1 and water-bearing1 and consequently almost impossible to tunnel in for any distance--the ,lower ,chalk 7it is grayish in color7 is virtually flint-free and nearly impermeable to water1 especially in the lower parts of the stratum1 where it is mixed with clay2 at the same time it is stable1 generally free of fissures1 and easy to work4 ,from the coastline between ,folkestone and ,south ,foreland1 north-east of ,dover1 where its upper level is visible in the cliffs1 the ,lower ,chalk dips gently down into the ,strait in a north-easterly direction and disappears under an outcropping ,middle ,chalk1 and emerges again on the ,french side between ,calais and ,cap ,blanc-,nez4 ,given this knowledge and their knowledge of the state of ,lower ,chalk beds on land areas1 the ,victorian engineers were confident that the ribbon of ,lower ,chalk extending under the ,strait would turn out to be a continuous one4 ,to put this view to a further test1 the ,french ,channel ,tunnel ,company1 in #ahge1 commissioned a team of eminent geologists and hydrographers to make a more detailed survey of the area than had yet been attempted4 ,in #ahge and #ahgf the surveyors made #g1gjj soundings and took #c1bfg geological samples from the bed of the ,strait and concluded from their studies that1 except for a couple of localities near each shoreline1 which a tunnel could avoid1 the ,lower ,chalk indeed showed every sign of stretching without interruption or fault from shore to shore4 ,however1 when these studies were completed1 ,lord ,grosvenor's ,channel ,tunnel ,company did not find itself in a position to do much about them4 ,the company was having trouble raising money1 and its temporary power to acquire land at ,st4 ,margaret's ,bay for experimental workings had lapsed without the promoters ever having used it4 ,william ,low1 who had left the company in #ahgc after disagreements with ,hawkshaw on technical matters--,low had come to believe1 for one thing1 that the terrain around ,st4 ,margaret's ,bay was unsuitable as a starting place for a channel tunnel--had become the chief engineering consultant of a rival ,channel-tunnel outfit that called itself the ,anglo-,french ,submarine ,railway ,company4 ,but the ,anglo-,french ,submarine ,railway ,company wasn't getting anywhere1 either4 ,it remained for a third ,english company1 headed by a railway magnate named ,sir ,edward ,watkin1 to push the ,channel-tunnel scheme into its next phase1 which turned out to be the most tumultuous one in all its history4 ,illustration3 ,a ,,pledged ,m4,p4 ,m4,p4's ,,bride4 ,oh6 ,william dear--if you are--a ,liberal--do bring in a ,bill--next ,session--for that ,underground ,tunnel66 ,this cartoon depicting the horrors of the ,channel crossing originally appeared in ,punch in #ahfi4 ,in #aifa1 #ib years later1 ,punch found it as timely as ever4 ,illustration3 ,aim ,thom de ,gamond ,,the ,,great ,,tunnel ,,schemers ,sir ,edward ,watkin ,illustration3 ,,the ,,great ,,anti-,,tunneler ,lt4-,gen4 ,sir ,garnet ,wolseley1 #ahhb ,illustration3 ,sir ,garnet ,wolseley's fears of a ,french invasion through the tunnel as seen in the ,united ,states in #ahhb by ,puck4 ,illustration3 ,hector ,horeau's tunnel scheme of #ahea involved laying down a prefabricated submerged tube on the ,channel bottom4 ,the pavilions are ventilating stations4 ,illustration3 ,thom de ,gamond's plan in #ahef for a ,channel tunnel by way of the ,varne1 which would be built up into an international harbor4 ,illustration3 ,the ,channel tunnel workings at ,shakespeare ,cliff in #ahhb4 ,the entrance is by the smokestack near the twin portals1 which are unconnected with the tunnel workings4 ,illustration3 ,diagram of the tunnel workings at ,shakespeare ,cliff in #ahhb4 ,the ,admiralty ,pier at ,dover is in the distance4 ,illustration3 ,,tunnel ,,parties ,,in ,,the #ahhjs ,everybody who was anybody went down into the tunnel to inspect the new undersea road to ,france4 #a4 ,guests preparing for the descent4 #b4 ,being lowered #afc feet below the surface to the gallery4 #c4 ,champagne party in the tunnel4 #d4 ,inspecting the ,beaumont tunneling machine as it bores toward ,france4 #e4 ,tunnel oratory at champagne lunch at ,dover4 ,illustration3 ,an early ,napoleonic vision of the invasion of ,england ,illustration3 by air1 sea1 and a ,channel tunnel4 ,illustration3 ,sir ,edward ,watkin1 at the sluice-gates1 vanquishes the ,french invaders marching on ,england through the tunnel4 ,a ,london newspaper cartoon at the time of the great tunnel controversy4 ,illustration3 ,,three ,,solutions ,,to ,,the ,,invasion ,,problem ,how to have a tunnel and still keep ,england safe from invasion is a problem that has attracted the attention of artists since the eighties4 ,the ,illustrated ,london ,news1 #ahhb1 shows how1 at the first sign of invasion1 the tunnel could be bombarded from the ,admiralty ,pier at ,dover1 from the ,dover fortifications1 and from positions offshore4 ,viaduct for the ,french tunnel entrance proposed in #aijf4 ,at signs of ,french intentions to invade1 the ,british fleet would sail up and blow this viaduct to smithereens1 thus blocking the tunnel from the ,french end4 ,david ,langdon in ,paris ,match1 #aifj1 suggests another way of handling the invasion problem4 ,illustration ,illustration ,illustration3 ,,proposed ,,method ,,of ,,constructing ,a ,,submerged ,,tube ,,under ,,the ,,channel ,illustration3 ,the illustration shows the proposed laying of a cut and cover prefabricated tunnel on the ,channel bottom with the aid of a ,de,long self-elevating construction platform4 ,illustration3 ,artist's impression of the boring of the double ,channel tunnel1 with its extra service tunnel and cross-passages1 as proposed by the ,channel ,tunnel ,study ,group in #aifj4 ,illustration3 ,three ,,sir ,,edward ,,watkin was a vociferously successful promoter from the ,midlands4 ,the son of a ,manchester cotton merchant1 ,watkin had passed up a chance at the family business in favor of railways in the early days of the age of steam1 and it is a measure of his generally acknowledged shrewdness at railway promotion that in his mid-twenties1 having become secretary of the ,trent ,valley ,railway1 he negotiated its sale to the ,london ,north ,western ,railway at a profit of #dch1jjj4 ,now in his early sixties1 ,watkin was chairman of three ,british railway companies1 the ,manchester1 ,sheffield ,lincolnshire ,railway1 the ,metropolitan 7,london7 ,railway1 and the ,south-,eastern ,railway--the last-named being a company whose line ran from ,london to ,dover via ,folkestone--and one of his big current schemes was the formation of a through route under a single management--his own1 naturally--from ,manchester and the north to ,dover4 ,it was while he was busily promoting this scheme that ,watkin caught the ,channel-tunnel fever4 ,he realized that part of the land the ,south-,eastern ,railway owned along its line between ,folkestone and ,dover lay happily accessible to the ribbon of ,lower ,chalk that dipped into the sea in the direction of ,dover and stretched under the bed of the ,strait1 and it wasn't long before he was conjuring up visions of a great system in which his projected ,manchester-,dover line1 instead of stopping at the ,channel shoreline1 would carry on under the ,strait to the ,continent4 ,one of ,sir ,edward ,watkin's first steps toward determining the technical feasibility of constructing a tunnel was to call in1 sometime in the mid-seventies1 ,william ,low1 whose own tunnel company had quite fallen apart1 for engineering consultation4 ,watkin decided to aim for a twin tunnel based on ,low's idea1 which would have its starting point in the area west of ,dover and east of ,folkestone1 and he put his own engineers to work on the job4 ,in #ahhj1 the engineers sank a seventy-four-foot shaft by the ,south-,eastern ,railway line at ,abbots ,cliff1 about midway between ,folkestone and ,dover1 and began driving a horizontal pilot gallery seven feet in diameter along the ,lower ,chalk bed in the direction of the sea off ,dover4 ,by the early part of the following year1 the experimental heading extended about half a mile underground4 ,his engineers having satisfied themselves that the ,lower ,chalk was lending itself as well as expected to being tunneled1 ,sir ,edward went ahead and formed the ,submarine ,continental ,railway ,company1 capitalized at #bej1jjj and closely controlled by the ,south-,eastern ,railway ,company1 to take over the existing tunnel workings and to continue them on a larger scale1 with the aim of constructing a ,channel tunnel connecting with the ,south-,eastern's coastal rail line4 ,at the same time1 he reached an understanding with the ,french ,channel ,tunnel ,company on co-ordination of ,english and ,french operations2 he also engineered through ,parliament--he was an ,m4,p4 himself1 and that helped things a bit--a bill giving the ,south-,eastern power to carry out the compulsory purchase of certain coastal land in the general direction taken by the existing heading4 ,then ,sir ,edward's engineers sank a second shaft1 farther to the east but in alignment with the first heading1 #afj feet below a level stretch of ground by the ,south-,eastern ,railway line at ,shakespeare ,cliff1 just west of ,dover1 #abj feet below high water1 and began boring a new seven-foot pilot tunnel that dipped down with the ,lower ,chalk bed leading into the ,channel4 ,this second boring1 like the first1 was carried out with the use of a tunneling machine especially designed for the purpose by ,colonel ,frederick ,beaumont1 an engineer who had had a hand in the construction of the ,dover fortifications4 ,the ,beaumont tunneling machine1 a prototype of some of the most powerful tunneling machines in use nowadays1 was run by compressed air piped in from the outside1 and the discharge of this air from the machine as it worked also served as a way of keeping the gallery ventilated4 ,the cutting of the rock was done by a total of fourteen steel planetary cutters set in two revolving arms at the head of the machine2 with each turn of the borer a thin paring of chalk #e_/af of an inch thick was shorn away from the working face1 the spoil being passed by conveyor belt to the back of the machine and dumped into carts or skips that were pushed by hand along the length of the gallery on narrow-gauge rails4 ,the machine made one and a half to two revolutions a minute1 and ,sir ,edward estimated for his stockholders that with simultaneous tunneling with the use of similar equipment from the ,french shore--the ,french ,tunnel ,company had already sunk a #bhj-;foot shaft of its own at ,sangatte and was preparing to drive a gallery toward ,england--the ,channel bottom would be pierced from shore to shore by a continuous single pilot tunnel1 twenty-two miles long1 in three and a half years4 ,once this was done1 according to ,sir ,edward's plans1 the seven-foot gallery was to be enlarged by special cutting machinery to a fourteen-foot diameter1 and a double tunnel1 thickly lined with concrete and connected by cross-passages1 constructed4 7,four miles of access tunnel were to be added on the ,french1 and possibly on the ,english1 side1 too47 ,the completed tunnel was to be lighted throughout by electric light--a novelty already being tried out in the pilot tunnel by the well-known electrical engineer ,c4 ,w4 ,siemens--and the trains that ran through it between ,france and ,britain were to be hauled by locomotives designed by ,colonel ,beaumont4 ,instead of being run by smoke-producing coal1 the locomotives were to be propelled by compressed air carried behind the engine in tanks1 and1 like the ,beaumont tunneling machine1 the engine was supposed to keep the tunnel ventilated by giving out fresh air as it went along4 7,a lot of air was to be released in the tunnel in the course of a day2 a tentative schedule called for one train to traverse it in one direction or another every five minutes or so for twenty hours out of the twenty-four47 ,trains coming through the tunnel from ,france were to emerge into the daylight and the ordinary open air of ,england either from a four-mile-long access tunnel connected to the ,south-,eastern's railway line at ,abbots ,cliff or--this was a favored alternative plan of ,sir ,edward's--at ,shakespeare ,cliff via a station to be constructed in a great square excavated a hundred and sixty feet deep in the ground1 which would be covered over with glass1 lighted by electric light1 and equipped with large waiting rooms and refreshment rooms4 ,from the abyss of this submerged station1 trains arriving from the ,continent were to be raised1 an entire train at a time1 to the level of the existing ,south-,eastern line by a giant hydraulic lift4 7,actually1 constructing an elevator capable of raising such an enormous load would not seem as unlikely a feat in the eighties as it might to many people now2 ,victorian engineers were expert in the use of hydraulic power for ship locks and all sorts of other devices1 and1 in fact1 hydraulic power was so commonly used that the ,london of half a century ago had perhaps eight hundred miles of hydraulic piping laid below the streets to work industrial presses1 motors1 and most of the cranes on the ,thames docks47 ,as the experimental work progressed1 ,sir ,edward ,watkin saw to it that all the splendid details about the ,channel-tunnel scheme were constantly brought to the attention of the ,south-,eastern's shareholders1 the press1 and the public4 ,sir ,edward1 besides being a nineteenth-century railway king1 was also something of a twentieth-century public-relations operator4 ,he was a firm believer in the beneficial effects of giving big dinners1 a pioneer in the art of organizing big junkets1 and an adept at getting plenty of newspaper space4 ,an energetic lobbyist in ,parliament for all sorts of causes1 not excluding his own commercial projects1 he was known as a habitual conferrer of friendly little gestures upon important people in and out of government1 and his kindness is said to have gone so far at one time that he provided ,mr4 ,gladstone with the convenience of a private railway branch line that went right to the statesman's country home4 ,the driving of the ,channel-tunnel pilot gallery at ,shakespeare ,cliff offered ,sir ,edward a handy opportunity for exercising his gifts in the field of public relations1 and he took full advantage of it4 ,week after week1 as the boring of the tunnel progressed1 he invited large groups of influential people1 as many as eighty at a time1 including politicians and statesmen1 editors1 reporters1 and artists1 members of great families1 well-known financiers and businessmen from ,britain and abroad1 and members of the clergy and the military establishment to be his guests on a trip by special train from ,london to ,dover at ,shakespeare ,cliff4 ,there1 at the ,submarine ,continental ,railway ,company workings1 the visitors were taken down into the tunnel to inspect the creation of the new experimental highway to the ,continent4 ,a typical enough descriptive paragraph in the press concerning one of these visits 7on this occasion a group of prominent ,frenchmen were the guests of ,sir ,edward7 is contained in a contemporary report in the ,times3 ,the visitors were lowered six at a time in an iron skip down the shaft into the tunnel4 ,at the bottom of this shaft1 #afc feet below the surface of the ground1 the mouth of the tunnel was reached1 and the visitors took their seats on small tramcars which were drawn by workmen4 ,so evenly has the boring machine done its work that one seemed to be looking along a great tube with a slightly downward set1 and as the glowing electric lamps1 placed alternately on either side of the way1 showed fainter and fainter in the far distance1 the tunnel1 for anything one could tell from appearances1 might have had its outlet in ,france4 ,sir ,edward ,watkin1 in a speech he made at a ,submarine ,continental ,railway ,company stockholders' meeting shortly after such a visit 7the main parts of the speech were duly paraphrased in the press71 found the effect of the electric light 7operated on something called the ,swan system7 in the tunnel to be just as striking as the ,times reporter had--only brighter4 ,he thought the visit might be regarded as a remarkable one4 ,their colleague1 ,dr4 ,siemens1 lighted up the tunnel with the ,swan light1 and it was certainly a beautiful sight to see a cavern1 as it were1 under the bottom of the sea made in places as brilliant as daylight4 ,while on their way by tramcar to view the working of ,colonel ,beaumont's boring machine at the far end of the tunnel1 visitors stopped after a certain distance to enjoy another experience--a champagne party held in a chamber cut in the side of the tunnel4 ,a contemporary artist's sketch in the ,illustrated ,london ,news records the sight of a group of visitors clustered around a bottle-laden table at one of these way side halts4 ,mustachioed and bearded1 and wearing ,sherlock ,holmes deerstalker caps and dust jackets1 they are shown1 in tableaued dignity1 standing about within a solidly timbered cavelike area with champagne glasses in their hands2 and for all the ,victorian pipe-trouser formality of their posture there is no doubt that the subjects are having a good time4 ,after such a refreshing pause1 the visitors would be helped on the tramcars again and escorted on to see the boring machine cutting through the ,lower ,chalk and to admire the generally dry appearance of the tunnel1 and after that they would be taken back to the surface and given a splendid lunch either in a marquee set up near the entrance to the shaft or at the ,lord ,warden ,hotel1 in ,dover1 where more champagne would be served1 along with other wines and brandies1 more toasts to the ,queen's health proposed1 and speeches made on the present and future marvels of the tunnel1 the forwardness of its backers1 and the new era in international relations that the whole project promised4 ,these lunches were also convenient occasions for the speakers to pooh-pooh the claims of the rival tunnel scheme of ,lord ,richard ,grosvenor's ,channel ,tunnel ,company1 which was still being put forward1 although entirely on paper1 and to make announcements of miscellaneous items of news about progress in the ,lower ,chalk4 ,thus1 at one of these lunches at the ,lord ,warden ,hotel held in the third week of ,february1 #ahhb1 ,mr4 ,myles ,fenton1 the general manager of the ,south-,eastern ,railway1 took occasion to announce to a large party of visitors from ,london that boring of the gallery had now reached a distance of eleven hundred yards1 or nearly two-thirds of a mile1 in the direction of the end of the great ,admiralty ,pier at ,dover4 ,according to an account in the ,times1 ,mr4 ,fenton read to the interested gathering a telegram he had received from ,sir ,edward1 who was unable to be present1 but who by wire expressed the hope that by ,easter ,week a locomotive compressed air engine would be running in the tunnel1 of which it was expected the first mile would by that time have been made4 7,cheers47 ,sometimes these lunches were held down in the tunnel itself1 and general conditions down there were such that even ladies attended them1 on special occasions1 as a contemporary magazine account of a visit paid to the gallery by a number of engineers with their families makes clear4 ,the visitors were conducted twenty at a time to the end on a sort of trolley or benches on wheels drawn by a couple of men4 ,in the centre of the tunnel a kind of saloon1 decorated with flowers and evergreens1 was arranged1 and1 on a large table1 glasses and biscuits1 etc41 were spread for the inevitable luncheon4 ,there was no infiltration of water in any part4 ,in the places where several small fissures and slight oozings had appeared during the boring operations1 a shield in sheet iron had been applied against the wall by the engineer1 following all the circumference of the gallery and making it completely watertight4 ,there they were as in a drawing-room1 and the ladies having descended in all the glories of silks and lace and feathers were astonished to find themselves as immaculate on their return as at the beginning of their trip4 ,the atmosphere in the tunnel was not less pure1 but even fresher than outside1 thanks to the compressed air machine which1 having acted on the excavator at the beginning of the cutting1 released its cooled air in the centre of the tunnel4 ,with the widespread talk of champagne under the sea1 potted plants flourishing under the electric lights1 and bracing breezes blowing within the ,lower ,chalk1 going down from ,london to attend one of ,sir ,edward's tunnel parties seems to have become one of the fashionable things to do in ,english society in the early part of #ahhb4 ,by the beginning of spring1 visitors taken down into the tunnel and entertained by ,sir ,edward included such eminent figures as the ,lord ,mayor of ,london1 the ,archbishop of ,canterbury1 and the ,prince and ,princess of ,wales4 ,to judge by this stage of affairs1 the boring of the tunnel was going on under the most agreeable of auspices4 ,behind all the sociability and the stream of publicity engendered in the press by the visits of well-known people to the tunnel1 the situation was not quite so promising4 ,while the physical boring was going ahead smoothly enough in the ,lower ,chalk1 the promotion of the tunnel as a full-scale project was encountering growing resistance from within the upper crust of ,the ,establishment4 ,the fact seems to be that the ,british ,government had never felt altogether easy about the idea of the ,channel tunnel from the start1 and although it had never formally expressed any misgivings about the scheme as a whole1 it had always been careful not to associate itself with the enterprise1 and its attitude toward its progress generally had been one of reluctant acquiescence4 ,whatever disquiet people in government felt about the tunnel project appears to have been expressed in three general ways--first1 in the introduction of caveats of a military nature2 second1 in proposals to delay the progress of the scheme on other than military grounds2 and third1 in a general1 nameless suspicion of the whole idea4 ,such reservations had been evident even in #ahge1 when the ,channel ,tunnel ,company applied to ,parliament for powers to carry out experimental work at ,st4 ,margaret's ,bay4 ,to exemplify the first kind of reservation put forward1 the ,board of ,trade1 the governmental department under whose surveillance such commercial schemes came1 made a point of insisting that for defense purposes the ,government must retain absolute power to erect and maintain such military works at the ,english mouth of the ,tunnel as they may deem expedient1 and in case of actual or threatened war to close the tunnel down4 ,as for the tendency of governmental people to find other grounds for objection in the project1 this could be exemplified by the delaying action of the ,secretary to the ,treasury1 when in #ahge it looked as though ,parliament were about to take action on the ,channel-tunnel bill4 ,in a memorandum to the ,foreign ,office1 the ,secretary sought to have the tunnel bill laid aside at the last moment of its consideration before ,parliament so that the answers to all sorts of important jurisdictional questions could be sought--for example1 ,if a crime were committed in the ,tunnel1 by what authority would it be cognizable8#a ,and as for the third1 unnamed kind of objection1 ,queen ,victoria1 who1 with her late husband 7,prince ,albert died in #ahfa71 had once been so enthusiastic about the idea of a ,channel tunnel1 simply changed her mind about the entire business2 in ,february of #ahge1 the ,queen wrote ,disraeli1 without elaborating1 that she hopes that the ,government will do nothing to encourage the proposed tunnel under the ,channel which she thinks very objectionable4 ,ever since #ahge1 all these official doubts and misgivings had continued to lurk in the background of the ,government's dealings with the ,channel-tunnel promoters--especially military misgivings about the scheme4 ,apart from putting down the usual bloody insurrections among native populations while she went about the business of maintaining her colonial territories1 ,britain was at peace with the world4 ,as far as her military relations with the ,continent stood1 the threats of ,napoleon ,i to invade the island had not been forgotten1 and even in the reign of ,napoleon ,,iii there had been occasional alarms about an invasion1 but the country's physical separation from the ,continent tended to make the military tensions existing over there seem rather comfortingly remote4 ,britain's home defenses were left on a pretty easygoing basis1 the country's reliance on resistance to armed attack being placed1 in traditional fashion1 in the power of the ,royal ,navy to control her seas--meaning1 for all practical purposes1 its ability to control the ,channel4 ,with the ,navy and the ,channel to protect her shores1 ,britain in the seventies and eighties got along at home with a professional army of only sixty thousand men1 as against a standing army in ,france of perhaps three-quarters of a million4 ,seasickness or no seasickness1 the ,channel was considered to be a convenient manpower and tax-money saver4 ,the advantages of the ,channel to ,victorian ,england were perhaps most eloquently expressed by ,mr4 ,gladstone in the course of an article of his in the ,edinburgh ,review in #ahgj on ,england's relationship to the military and political turmoil existing on the ,continent4 ,happy ,england6 he wrote in a brief panegyric on the ,channel4 ,happy 444 that the wise dispensation of ,providence has cut her off1 by that streak of silver sea1 which passengers so often and so justly execrate 444 partly from the dangers1 absolutely from the temptations1 which attend upon the local neighborhood of the ,continental nations4444 ,maritime supremacy has become the proud--perhaps the indefectible--inheritance of ,england4 ,and ,mr4 ,gladstone went on1 after dwelling upon one of his favorite themes1 the evils of standing armies and the miserable burden of conscription1 to suggest that ,englishmen didn't realize just how grateful they ought to be for the ,channel3 ,where the ,almighty grants exceptional and peculiar bounties1 ,he sometimes permits by way of counterpoise an insensibility to their value4 ,were there but a slight upward heaving of the crust of the earth between ,france and ,great ,britain1 and were dry land thus to be substituted for a few leagues of sea1 then indeed we should begin to know what we had lost4 ,these remarks of ,mr4 ,gladstone's on the ,channel appear to have made a powerful impression on opinion in upper-class ,england2 for many years after their publication his partly ,shakespearean phrase1 the streak of silver sea--or a variation of it1 the silver streak--remained as a standard term in the vocabulary of ,victorian patriotism4 ,not surprisingly1 considering his views in #ahgj1 the attitude of ,mr4 ,gladstone in #ahha and #ahhb1 during his term as ,prime ,minister1 toward the plan of ,sir ,edward ,watkin to undermine those ,straits the statesman had so extolled was an equivocal one4 ,indeed1 quite a number of people in and around ,whitehall had considerably stronger reservations about the ,channel-tunnel project than ,mr4 ,gladstone did4 ,these misgivings had to do with fears that a completed tunnel under the ,channel might form a breach in ,england's traditional defense system1 and in ,june of #ahha they first came to public notice in the form of an editorial in the ,times4 ,discussing the ,channel-tunnel project1 the ,times1 while conceding that ,as an improvement in locomotion1 and as a relief to the tender stomachs of passengers who dread seasickness1 the design is excellent1 went on to observe that from a national and military point of view it must not the less be received with caution4 ,and the paper asked1 ,shall we be as well off and as safe with it as we now are without it8 ,will it be possible for us so to guard the ,english end of the passage that it can never fall into any other hands than our own8 ,the ,times frankly doubted it1 and questioned whether1 if the tunnel were built1 a force of some thousands of men secretly concentrated in a ,french ,channel port and suddenly landed on the coast of ,kent might not be able by surprise to seize the ,english end of the tunnel and use it as a bridgehead for a general invasion of ,england4 ,at the very least1 the paper warned1 the construction of the tunnel meant that a design for the invasion of ,england and a general plan of the campaign will be subjects on which every cadet in a ,german military school will be invited to display his powers1 and it suggested that in the circumstances the ,channel had best be left untunneled4 ,nature is on our side at present1 the ,times concluded gravely1 and she will continue so if we will only suffer her4 ,the silver streak is our safety4 ,the author of a letter to the ,times printed in the same issue declared that the tunnel1 if constructed1 could be seized by the ,french from within as easily as from without1 and that in three hours a cavalry force might be sent through to seize the approaches at the ,english end4 ,to all this ,sir ,edward ,watkin replied easily that the tunnel1 when it was finished1 could at any time be rendered unusable from the ,british end by a pound of dynamite or a keg of gunpowder4 ,however1 the negative attitude of a journal as influential as the ,times was a setback for the project4 ,as a result1 the ,government increased its caution about the tunnel4 ,when1 at the end of #ahha1 ,sir ,edward drew up a private bill for presentation during the coming year to ,parliament that would formally grant the ,south-,eastern full authority to buy further coastal lands in the ,shakespeare ,cliff area and to complete the construction of and to maintain a ,channel tunnel 7,lord ,richard ,grosvenor and the proprietors of the ,london1 ,chatham ,dover ,railway came up with a similar bill on behalf of the ,channel ,tunnel ,company71 the ,board of ,trade held departmental hearings on the rival schemes1 and at these hearings further attention was turned to the question of the military security of the tunnel in the event of its being attacked4 ,at these proceedings1 ,sir ,edward1 who appeared for the purpose of testifying to the civilizing magnificence of his project1 was put somewhat on the defensive by questions about the desirability of the tunnel from a military point of view4 ,he found himself in the disconcerting position of being obliged to show not so much the practicability of building a ,channel tunnel as the practicability of disabling or destroying it4 ,however1 making the most of the situation1 he declared that fortifying the ,english end of the tunnel1 and knocking it out of commission in case of hostile action by another power1 was a simple enough matter to be accomplished in any number of ways--by flooding it1 by filling it with steam1 by bringing it under the gunfire of the ,dover fortifications1 by exploding electrically operated mines laid in it1 or choking it with shingle dumped in from the outside4 7,there was even mention1 at the hearings1 of a proposal to pour boiling petroleum down upon invaders47 ,getting into the spirit of the thing in spite of himself1 ,sir ,edward told the examining committee confidently1 ,i will give you the choice of blowing up1 drowning1 scalding1 closing up1 suffocating and other means of destroying our enemies4444 ,you may touch a button at the ,horse ,guards and blow the whole thing to pieces4 ,notwithstanding ,sir ,edward's categorical assurances1 the wisdom of constructing the tunnel came under vigorous attack at the hearings from a formidably high official military source--from ,lieutenant-,general ,sir ,garnet ,wolseley1 the ,adjutant ,general of the ,british ,army4 ,a veteran of the ,crimean ,war and the ,indian ,mutiny who was considered to be an expert on the art of surprise attack--his routing of such foes as ,king ,koffee in the first ,ashanti ,war of #ahgc-gd1 as well as the great promptitude with which he was said to have restored the situation in the ,zulu ,war1 made him a well-known figure to the ,british public--,sir ,garnet ,wolseley had a dual reputation as an imperialist general and a soldier with advanced ideas on reform of the supply system of the ,british ,army4 ,in fact1 his enthusiasm for efficiency was such that the phrase ,all ,sir ,garnet was commonly used in the ,army as a way of saying all correct4 ,the actor ,george ,grossmith made himself up as ,wolseley to sing the part of a modern ,major-,general in performances in the eighties of ,gilbert and ,sullivan's ,the ,pirates of ,penzance4 ,sir ,garnet later became ,lord ,wolseley and ,commander-in-,chief of the ,british ,army4 ,sir ,garnet ,wolseley's opinions of the tunnel project were very strong ones4 ,in a long memorandum he submitted to the ,board of ,trade committee examining the tunnel project1 he described the ,channel as a great wet ditch for the protection of ,england1 the like of which1 he said1 no ,continental power1 if it possessed one instead of a land frontier1 would cast recklessly away1 by allowing it to be tunnelled under4 ,and he denounced the construction of a ,channel tunnel on the ground that it would be certain to create what he termed a constant inducement to the unscrupulous foreigner to make war upon us4 ,in agitated language1 ,general ,wolseley invoked the opinion of the late ,duke of ,wellington that ,england could be invaded successfully1 and he reiterated the fear previously expressed by the ,times that the ,english end of the tunnel might be seized from the outside--before any of its defenders had a chance of setting in motion the mechanisms for blocking it up--by a hostile force landing nearby on ,british soil1 whereupon it could readily be converted into a bridgehead for a general invasion of the country4 ,he also declared that the works at our end of the tunnel may be surprised by men sent through the tunnel itself1 without landing a man upon our shores4 ,general ,wolseley went on to show just how the deed could be done3 ,a couple of thousand armed men might easily come through the tunnel in a train at night1 avoiding all suspicion by being dressed as ordinary passengers1 and the first thing we should know of it would be by finding the fort at our end of the tunnel1 together with its telegraph office1 and all the electrical arrangements1 wires1 batteries1 etc41 intended for the destruction of the tunnel1 in the hands of an enemy4 ,we know that 444 trains could be safely sent through the tunnel every five minutes1 and do the entire distance from the station at ,calais to that at ,dover in less than half an hour4 ,twenty thousand infantry could thus be easily despatched in #bj trains and allowing 444 #ab minutes interval between each train1 that force could be poured into ,dover in four hours4444 ,the invasion of ,england could not be attempted by #e1jjj men1 but half that number1 ably led by a daring1 dashing young commander might1 ,i feel1 some dark night1 easily make themselves masters of the works at our end of the tunnel1 and then ,england would be at the mercy of the invader4 ,general ,wolseley conceded that an attack from within the tunnel itself would be difficult if even a hundred riflemen at the ,english end had previously been alerted to the presence of the attackers1 but he doubted that the vigilance of the defenders could always maintain itself at the necessary pitch4 ,and he put it to the committee3 ,since the day when ,david secured an entrance by surprise or treachery into ,jerusalem through a tunnel under its walls1 how often have places similarly fallen8 and1 ,i may add1 will again similarly fall8 ,general ,wolseley also found highly questionable the efficacy of the various measures proposed for the protection of the tunnel4 ,he declared that a hundred accidents could easily render such measures useless4 ,thus1 for example1 he found fault with proposals to lay electrically operated mines inside the tunnel 7,a galvanic battery is easily put out of order2 something may be wrong with it just when it is required 444 the gunpowder may be damp72 proposals to admit the sea into the tunnel by explosion 7an uncertain means of defense72 and proposals to flood it by sluice-gates at the ,english end 7,these water conduits might become choked or unserviceable when required and the drains rendered useless by treachery74 ,then1 after pointing out all the frailties of the contemplated defenses1 ,general ,wolseley went on to assert that the construction of the tunnel would necessitate1 at very least1 the conversion of ,dover at enormous expense into a first-class fortress and that it could very well make necessary the introduction into ,england on a permanent basis of compulsory military service to meet the increased threat to ,britain's national security4 ,surely ,sir ,garnet concluded ,john ,bull will not endanger his birth-right1 his property1 in fact all that man can hold most dear 444 simply in order that men and women may cross to and fro between ,england and ,france without running the risk of seasickness4 ,sir ,garnet reinforced the arguments against the tunnel in personal testimony before the committee4 ,in this testimony he emphasized1 among other things1 his conviction that once an enemy got a foothold at ,dover1 ,england would find herself utterly unable short of the direct interposition of ,god ,almighty--an eventuality that ,sir ,garnet did not appear to count on very heavily--to raise an army capable of resisting the invaders4 ,and the inevitable result of such a default1 ,sir ,garnet told the committee1 would be that ,england would then cease to exist as a nation4 ,sir ,garnet's fears for ,britain were not shared in a memorandum submitted to the committee by another high ,army officer1 ,lieutenant-,general ,sir ,john ,adye1 the ,surveyor-,general of the ,ordnance4 ,sir ,john gave his opinion that a ,general in ,france1 having the intention of invading ,england1 would not1 in my opinion1 count on the tunnel as adding to his resources4 ,he maintained that the argument that the ,english end of the tunnel might be taken from within could be safely dismissed1 as invading troops could be destroyed as they arrived by means of a small force1 with a gun or two1 at the mouth of the tunnel4 ,as for the possibility of a hostile force landing on ,british soil to seize the mouth of the tunnel1 he questioned whether an enemy1 having successfully invaded ,england1 should turn aside to capture a very doubtful line of communication1 when the main object of his efforts was straight before him4 ,general ,adye thought that the invaders would probably feel a much stronger disposition to march straight on ,london and finish the campaign4 ,however1 the frontal attack on the project by ,general ,wolseley was not a factor to be discounted by any means4 ,rallying to it in typical fashion1 ,sir ,edward ,watkin attempted to stifle the spread of patriotic fears about the tunnel by giving more large lunches at the ,lord ,warden ,hotel at ,dover1 and he tried to keep all prospects bright by inviting more and more prominent people down into the tunnel at ,shakespeare ,cliff to marvel at the workings and to refresh themselves with champagne under the electric lights4 ,by mid-,february1 his guests in the tunnel included no less than sixty ,members of ,parliament whose support he hoped to obtain for his pending ,tunnel ,bill1 and on one occasion he even succeeded in having the ,prime ,minister1 ,mr4 ,gladstone himself1 come down into the tunnel and be shown around4 ,sir ,edward assured his stockholders that what he called alarmist views concerning the construction of the tunnel were without any real foundation4 ,addressing an extraordinary general meeting of the ,submarine ,continental ,railway ,company1 ,sir ,edward quoted from an alleged reaction of ,count von ,moltke on the matter3 ,the invasion of ,england through the proposed tunnel ,i consider impossible4 ,you might as well talk of invading her through that door--pointing to the entrance to his library4 ,sir ,edward brushed the arguments of military men aside as a collection of hobgoblin arguments by men who would prefer to see ,england remain an island for ever1 forgetting that steam had abolished islands1 just as telegraphy had abolished isolated thought4 ,he insisted that the tunnel promoters were engaged in a project at once idealistic and practical1 and bravely declared their motto to be identical to that of the ,south-,eastern ,railway ,company--,onwards4 ,by way of countering ,sir ,garnet ,wolseley's invocation of the opinion of the ,duke of ,wellington on the dangers of invasion1 the promoters put it about that the ,duke of ,wellington in his day had strongly opposed the construction of a railway between ,portsmouth and ,london on the ground that it would dangerously facilitate the movement of a ,french army upon ,london4 ,they asserted that one unnamed but very high ,english military figure had even expressed alarm1 at the time of the ,universal ,exhibition of #ahea1 that the ,english ,cabinet did not insist on the ,queen's retiring to ,osborne1 her country place on the ,isle of ,wight1 because of the large numbers of foreigners at the ,exhibition1 including three thousand men of the ,french ,national ,guard1 who were allowed to parade the streets of ,london in uniform1 wearing their side arms4 ,and pro-tunnelers recalled in derisive fashion ,lord ,palmerston's denunciation of the ,suez ,canal project as a madcap scheme which would be the ruin of our ,indian ,empire1 were it possible of construction1 and which would spell disaster to those who had the temerity to assert it4 ,colonel ,beaumont1 as an engineer and military man1 too1 wrote an article challenging the validity of ,general ,wolseley's conclusions about the tunnel4 ,colonel ,beaumont maintained that ,dover might already be regarded as a first-class fortress1 quite safe from any coup de main from without4 ,concerning an attack by bodies of infantry or cavalry through the tunnel1 he declared1 ,they cannot come by train2 as1 irrespective of any suspicions on the part of the booking clerks1 special train arrangements would have to be made to carry them2 they cannot march1 as they would be run over by the trains1 running1 as they would do1 at intervals of ten minutes1 or oftener1 without cessation1 day or night4 ,colonel ,beaumont also outlined1 in his article1 a number of precautionary measures that could be taken to secure the safety of the ,english end of the tunnel4 ,they included a system of pumping coal smoke instead of compressed air from a ventilating shaft into the tunnel1 and also the provision of a system of iron water mains that would connect the sea with the ventilating shaft and make it possible for the officer of the guard1 in case of invasion1 to flood the tunnel by turning a stopcock4 ,in accordance with these proposed measures1 ,sir ,edward1 early in #ahhb1 attempted to forestall further military criticism of the ,channel-tunnel scheme by having such a ventilating shaft sunk at the eastern end of ,shakespeare ,cliff1 about a mile from the main shaft1 and having a start made on another horizontal gallery bored from the foot of the new shaft in the direction of the main pilot tunnel under the sea4 ,the new gallery was four feet instead of seven feet in diameter--the smaller aperture in itself being an additional measure of protection1 ,sir ,edward explained1 in that intruders would find it impossible to walk along the ventilation shaft in an upright position or in any numbers4 ,a friendly article on the tunnel in the ,illustrated ,london ,news at the beginning of ,march noted significantly that not only the entrance at the ,english end--either at ,abbots ,cliff or at ,sir ,edward's proposed glassed-in railway station at ,shakespeare ,cliff--would be under the fire of the eighty-ton turret guns installed on the ,admiralty ,pier1 but that it is to be observed how completely the entrance to the new ventilating shaft is commanded both from the sea and from the ,pier1 and also from the guns of the fortress4 ,the ,illustrated ,london ,news obligingly showed the principle of the thing by running a large two-page-wide engraving depicting1 in handsomely apocalyptic style1 the hypothetical destruction of the entire tunnel workings and1 presumably1 the invaders inside them1 amid great ballooning clouds of smoke from gun batteries everywhere--from the end of the ,admiralty ,pier1 from points within the ,dover land fortifications1 and from the cannonading broadsides of ,british naval men-of-war standing offshore4 ,the fate of invaders from floodwaters was depicted in a more sensational ,london publication1 the ,penny ,illustrated ,paper1 which published an engraving a foot and a half long and a foot high illustrating ,sir ,edward ,watkin's remedy for the invasion scare3 ,drowning the ,french ,pharaoh in the ,channel ,tunnel4 ,the engraving showed a cutaway section of the tunnel under the ,channel near the ,english end and1 rising upward at the left1 a staired chamber of rock equipped with sluice-gates and set in the white cliffs4 ,in this chamber1 two figures in top hats and frock coats are standing and gazing down on the tunnel1 which is filled with ,french infantry led by plumed1 helmeted officers on horseback4 ,one of the figures in the cliff chamber1 evidently meant to represent ,sir ,edward ,watkin1 is in the act of calmly operating a turncock that has loosed1 through the sluices1 a dreadful flood cascading down into the tunnel upon the invaders1 who are turning to flee in panic4 ,vivid as these scenes of destruction were1 they had little effect on the anti-tunnel forces4 ,already1 in ,february1 another attack on the tunnel scheme had appeared in the literary magazine ,the ,nineteenth ,century1 signed by ,lord ,dunsany4 ,the article1 repeating the claim that the tunnel project was a menace to ,britain's security1 referred to the capacity of the ,dover fortress system to defend itself against a modern invading fleet as contemptible4 ,lord ,dunsany wrote that he had gone down to ,dover to examine the famous fortress and had found that with the exception of the two recently installed turret guns on the ,admiralty ,pier1 the guns generally speaking were of an obsolete pattern--popguns1 in fact4 ,and he asserted that when he had remarked on the relatively modern appearance of one of the larger guns in a particularly commanding position of the fortress1 ,i was told by an artilleryman that there were orders against firing it1 as it would bring down the brickwork of the rampart4 ,soon after this1 an anonymous article in the ,army and ,navy ,gazette declared that ,the ,island has been invaded again and again and it reminded the ,gazette's readers that ,the present constitution of the country depends on the last successful invasion by a ,dutch ,prince with ,dutch troops1 and the overthrow of the ,king1 by an army largely composed of foreigners4 ,the article took ,lieutenant-,general ,sir ,john ,adye severely to task for having found the tunnel a good security risk1 and it even went so far afield in its criticism of him as to find fault with the ,general for what it called his deliberate1 vehement1 and long-continued resistance to the introduction of the breech-loading system in our artillery that placed us at the fag-end of all the world1 when we ought to have been first4 ,then1 in ,march1 #ahhb1 ,the ,nineteenth ,century carried an article against the tunnel by ,professor ,goldwin ,smith1 who wrote that the protection of the ,channel1 by exempting ,england from the necessity of keeping a large standing army1 had preserved the country from military despotism and enabled her to move steadily in the path of political progress4 ,the ,channel1 ,professor ,smith wrote1 in the past had preserved ,england from the ,armada and from the army of ,napoleon ,i2 in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it had preserved the ,reformation2 and in the eighteenth century it had preserved her from the spread of revolutionary fevers and from subjection to foreign tyranny4 ,now1 he said1 it was the barrier between ,britain's industrial people and military conscription1 and he went on1 in an echo of ,mr4 ,gladstone's earlier remarks in the ,edinburgh ,review1 to declare of the ,channel that ,a convulsion of nature which should dry it up would be almost as fatal to ,england as one which should ruin the dykes would be to ,holland4 ,under these circumstances of increasing controversy1 the attitude of the ,board of ,trade toward the tunnel project became one of further reserve4 ,in ,february1 the ,board informed the ,war ,office that the military question of the tunnel had assumed such magnitude that a decision on it should be taken not on a departmental level but on the higher governmental policy level1 and it suggested that the ,war ,office start its own investigations on the military aspect of the matter4 ,commenting on the prevailing ,french attitude toward ,british fears about the tunnel project1 the ,paris correspondent of the ,london ,times observed mildly that the political uneasiness which the scheme has raised on the other side does not exist here4444 ,no ,frenchman1 of course1 regards it as jeopardizing national security4 ,frenchmen see in it a greater facility for visiting the ,united ,kingdom1 and for relieving the monotony of ,swiss tours by a trip to the ,scotch highlands4 ,in satirical fashion1 a paragraph in ,punch undertook to summarize the reaction in another ,european country3 ,bogie6 ,the ,italian ,government are so struck by the alarm exhibited by ,sir ,garnet ,wolseley at the prospect of a ,channel ,tunnel1 that they have closed the ,mount ,cenis and ,st4 ,gotthard ,tunnels1 and left travellers to the mountain diligences4 ,their reason for doing this is the fact that ,napoleon really crossed the ,alps1 while he only threatened to invade ,england4 ,as for reactions in ,germany1 the ,british charg d'affaires in ,dresden reported in a dispatch to the ,foreign ,office that he had questioned the ,chief of ,staff of the #abth 7,saxon7 ,corps--an officer of high attainments--on his attitude toward the possible invasion of ,england through the ,channel tunnel1 or through sudden seizure of the ,english end from the outside4 ,he wrote that ,general von ,holleben1 the officer in question1 had observed1 in connection with the practicability of landing a ,continental force and taking the ,british end1 that although such an operation was not impossible1 that it would succeed in the face of our military and moral resources1 railways and telegraphs1 he should believe when he saw it happen4 ,general von ,holleben then remarked that the idea of moving an ,army-,corps #be miles beneath the sea was one which he did not quite take in4 ,the distance was a heavy day's march2 halts must be made2 and the column of troops would be from eight to ten miles long4 ,he was unable to realize all this off hand1 and he did not know but what we were talking of a chimoera4 ,i observed that no one appeared to have asked what would happen to the air of the tunnel if bodies of #bj1jjj or even #aj1jjj men were to move through at once4 ,the ,general said that this atmospheric difficulty was new to him1 and it did not sound very soluble4 ,but the fears of the ,war ,office were not stilled by such observations as these4 ,on ,february #bc1 the ,war ,office announced that it was appointing a ,channel ,tunnel ,defense ,committee1 headed by ,major-,general ,sir ,archibald ,alison1 the chief of ,british ,army ,intelligence1 to collect and examine in detail scientific evidence on the practicability of closing effectually a submarine railway tunnel in case of actual or apprehended war4 ,the ,board of ,trade1 in the meantime1 did its best to hold ,sir ,edward ,watkin and his project off at arm's length4 ,on ,march #f1 #ahhb1 the secretary of the ,board of ,trade1 which had been keeping an eye on newspaper accounts of the progress of the tunnel1 wrote to remind ,sir ,edward of the vital fact that all the foreshore of the ,united ,kingdom below high-water mark at ,dover was prima facie the property of the ,crown and under the management of the ,board of ,trade1 and that while the department did not wish to impede progress it distinctly wished to give notice that the ,government hold themselves free to use any powers at their disposal in such a matter as ,parliament may decide1 or as the general interest of the country may seem to them to require4 ,in other words1 the ,board told the ,submarine ,continental ,railway ,company that it could not drive its tunnel toward ,france without trespassing on ,crown property extending all the way from high-water mark to the three-mile limit of ,british jurisdiction--the traditionally accepted limit of the carrying power of cannon4 ,the claim of the ,crown to the foreshore in this case was1 however1 one that ,sir ,edward ,watkin disputed4 ,he claimed that through an arrangement with a landowner near ,shakespeare ,cliff1 and by certain purchases of land from the ,archbishop of ,canterbury as head of the ,church of ,england1 the tunnel proprietors had come into possession of ancient manorial rights1 originally granted by the ,crown itself1 that permitted them to exploit the foreshore at ,shakespeare ,cliff as they saw fit1 including the right to tunnel under it4 ,sir ,edward had claimed that he was having made an extensive legal search of the title in question1 which would take a little while4 ,but the notification from the ,board of ,trade was an ominous development for ,sir ,edward and his scheme2 and even more ominous signs were to follow4 ,during ,march1 anti-tunneling forces in ,britain circulated a great petition among prominent ,englishmen against the scheme1 for presentation to ,parliament4 ,the petition1 recording the conviction of the signatories that a ,channel tunnel would involve this country in military dangers and liabilities from which1 as an island1 it has hitherto been happily free1 was published in the ,april issue of ,the ,nineteenth ,century1 and it was signed not only by military people but by many of the most diversely eminent literary1 scientific1 and ecclesiastical men of the day--including ,robert ,browning1 ,alfred1 ,lord ,tennyson1 ,herbert ,spencer1 ,professor ,t4 ,h4 ,huxley1 ,cardinals ,newman and ,manning1 and the ,archbishop of ,york--as well as a great cloud of names from the nobility and the landed gentry4 ,in an eloquent article accompanying the petition1 the editor of ,the ,nineteenth ,century1 ,james ,knowles1 implicitly added the name of ,william ,shakespeare to the list of anti-tunnel signatories by invoking the ,john of ,gaunt speech from ,richard ,,ii3 ,this royal throne of kings1 this scepter'd isle1 ,this earth of majesty1 this seat of ,mars1 ,this other ,eden1 demi-,paradise1 ,this fortress built by ,nature for herself ,against infection and the hand of war1 ,this happy breed of men1 this little world1 ,this precious stone set in the silver sea1 ,which serves it in the office of a wall ,or as a moat defensive to a house1 ,against the envy of less happier lands4444 ,the editor went on to declare1 more prosaically1 that ,to hang the safety of ,england at some most critical instant upon the correct working of a tap1 or of any mechanical contrivance1 is quite beyond the faith of this generation of ,englishmen4 ,almost at the instant that the heavy blow of the petition in ,the ,nineteenth ,century fell upon the tunnel promoters1 the ,board of ,trade sent down a real thunderbolt upon their heads4 ,on ,april #a1 the ,board of ,trade wrote ,sir ,edward ,watkin that1 whatever might be the title to the foreshore at ,shakespeare ,cliff1 there was no doubt as to the title of the ,crown under the bed of the sea below low-water mark and within the three-mile limit4 ,it informed him that according to the department's calculations1 based on a tracing of the tunnel route previously obtained from the ,submarine ,continental ,railway ,company1 the boring of the tunnel now must necessarily be close to the point of low-water mark4 ,and1 as a consequence1 the ,board of ,trade instructed the company that1 pending the outcome of the ,government's deliberations on the military security of the tunnel1 it must suspend its boring operations forthwith and give the ,government assurances to that effect4 ,footnote #a3 ,an ,anglo-,french ,joint ,commission formed to set up agreements on the jurisdiction of the two countries over the ,channel tunnel in #ahgf actually drew up a protocol for a channel-tunnel treaty between ,england and ,france4 ,the ,commission agreed to the jurisdiction of each government ceasing at a point to be marked in the center of the tunnel and it recommended that the tunnel be regulated by a specially appointed international body4 ,illustration3 ,four ,all at once1 it seems1 the entire ,british press was in an uproar of criticism against the ,channel tunnel and its unfortunate promoters4 ,the ,sunday ,times pretty well expressed a common reaction of newspapers and periodicals to the latest developments when it said1 in an editorial1 ,we confess to experiencing a feeling of relief on hearing of the interdiction of ,sir ,edward ,watkin's progress in his working day and night to put an end to that insular position which has in past times more than once proved our sheet anchor of safety4 ,we sincerely hope that ,sir ,e4 ,watkin's project will shortly receive its final coup de grce4 ,no doubt1 it added presciently1 he will not yield without a resolute struggle4 ,some hard things were said in the press about the great tunnel promoter4 ,he was accused in various publications of adroit and unscrupulous lobbying and of dispensing profuse hospitality 444 persistent and continuous in pursuit of his scheme4 ,in the ,may issue of ,the ,nineteenth ,century1 which contained a further number of attacks on the tunnel1 ,lord ,bury reported bitterly on the softening effect that ,sir ,edward ,watkin's public-relations technique had had on a friend of his4 ,asked if he had signed the great petition against the tunnel1 the friend was said to have replied1 ,no1 ,i have not2 ,i am strongly against the construction of the ,tunnel1 and ,i told ,watkin so4 ,but he gave a party of us1 the other day1 an excellent luncheon1 and was very civil in showing us everything2 so ,i should not like to do an unhandsome thing to him by signing the protest4 ,an editorialist in a periodical called ,all the ,year ,round1 which formerly had been put out by ,charles ,dickens1 wrote of the extraordinary vigor with which ,sir ,edward was pushing his tunnel4 ,the editorialist dwelt in satirical fashion on the manner in which prominent persons were perpetually being whisked down to ,dover by special trains1 conducted into vaults in the chalk1 made amiable with lunch and sparkling wines1 and whisked back in return specials to dilate to their friends 7and1 incidentally1 to the public7 on the peculiar charm of ,pommery and ,greno consumed in a chamber excavated far under the sea4 ,the writer found ,sir ,garnet ,wolseley's argument1 that the ,english end of the tunnel could be seized1 on reflection to be perfectly feasible4 ,he asked1 ,can anyone suppose that if such a government as that which was formed by the ,communists were by any chance 444 to rule ,france1 the danger that the temptation to make such a grand coup as the conquest and plunder of ,england would be too much for them would not be a very real and very present one8 ,and he wound up by warning that ,french troops might checkmate our fleet by simply walking underneath it1 and 444 take a revenge for ,waterloo1 the remote possibility of which must make every ,englishman shudder4 ,the probable future effects of the ,channel tunnel upon the nervous systems of ,englishmen were the subject of intense speculation in most of the press1 as a matter of fact4 ,almost without exception1 the prognosis of this hypothetical nervous condition was grave4 ,if1 nowadays1 the capacity to maintain extraordinary spiritual fortitude under conditions of national emergency has come to be regarded almost as a basic characteristic of the ,british people1 it is a characteristic that the ,victorian ,british press seemed not to be aware of4 ,almost unanimously1 the press warned that part of the price of constructing a tunnel would be the occurrence of wild periodic alarms among the population4 ,perpetual panics and increased military expenditure are the natural result of such a change as that which will convert us from an island into a peninsula1 an editorial in ,john ,bull declared4 ,the ,london ,daily ,news demanded to know whether anyone who is in the least acquainted with ,english character and history could deny the country's susceptibility to periodic panics4 ,the ,daily ,news dwelt apprehensively on the inevitable result of panics arising out of the construction of a ,channel tunnel3 ,we should be constantly beginning expensive and elaborate schemes for strengthening the defences according to the fashionable idea of the day4444 ,they would be about half carried out by the time the next panic occurred1 and then they would be obsolete4444 ,now it would be elaborate fortifications at ,dover itself2 now a great chain of forts to hem it in from inland2 now the old scheme of the fortification of ,london2 now the establishment of forts out at sea over the tunnel4444 ,is it worth while to run the chance4448 ,the most diverse arguments were advanced in the press against the construction of the tunnel4 ,in the ,may issue of ,the ,nineteenth ,century1 ,major-,general ,sir ,e4 ,hamley raised the question of whether the ,french1 invading ,britain by train through the tunnel1 might not seize some distinguished ,english people and carry the captives along on the engine as hostages1 so that however thoroughly the officer in charge of the defensive apparatus at the ,english end were alerted to their presence1 still he might well be expected to pause if suddenly certified that he would be destroying1 along with the enemy in the ,tunnel1 some highly important ,englishmen4 ,another writer1 referring to the responsibility and possibly also to the character of the officer in charge of the tunnel defenses1 observed thoughtfully that the commandant of ,dover would carry the key of ,england in his pocket4 ,still another commentator wondered if responsibility for making a decision to blow up the tunnel might not be too much even for an ,english ,prime ,minister3 ,the ,premier might think himself justified in destroying twenty millions of property 444 but also1 he might not4 ,he might be an undecided man1 or a man expecting defeat by the ,opposition1 or a man paralyzed by the knowledge that the tunnel was full of innocent people whom his order would condemn to instant death1 in a form which is at once most painful and most appalling to the imagination4 ,they would all be drowned in darkness4 ,the responsibility would be overwhelming for an individual1 and a ,cabinet1 if dispersed1 takes hours to bring together4 ,in his article in ,the ,nineteenth ,century ,lord ,bury1 going under the assumption that a ,prime ,minister in a period of gravest national emergency would indeed be able to haul his ,cabinet colleagues and military advisers together in reasonable time to consider having the tunnel blown up1 asked his readers to conjure up the painful scene at ,downing ,street3 ,imagine him for a moment sitting in consultation4 ,his military advisers tell him that the decisive moment has come4 ,i think1 gentlemen1 says the minister1 turning to his colleagues1 that we are all agreed--the ,tunnel must be immediately destroyed4 ,fire the mine6 ,there is one other point1 says the officer1 on which ,i request instructions--at what time am ,i to execute the order8 ,at once1 sir2 telegraph at once1 and in five minutes the blasting charge can be fired4 ,but1 persists the officer1 trains laden with non-combatants are at this moment in the ,tunnel4 ,they enter continuously at twenty minutes' intervals2 there are never less than four trains1 two each way1 in the ,tunnel at the same time2 each train contains some three hundred persons 444 ,i could not destroy twelve hundred non-combatants without very special instructions4 ,and ,lord ,bury asked1 ,what would any minister1 under such circumstances1 do8 ,as for the proposed defensive measure of flooding the tunnel in case of invasion1 ,general ,sir ,lintorn ,simmons1 writing in the same issue of ,the ,nineteenth ,century1 considered it to be a dubious one at best1 since1 he observed1 it is not to be believed that a great country like ,france1 with the engineering talent she possesses1 could not find the means of pumping all the flood waters out again4 ,an assertion by ,dr4 ,siemens1 the electric-lighting expert1 that the tunnel could easily be rendered unusable to invaders if its ,british defenders would pump carbonic-acid gas into it to asphyxiate the intruders1 was similarly challenged1 in the correspondence columns of the ,times1 by a scientific colleague of his1 ,dr4 ,john ,tyndall4 ,dr4 ,tyndall offered to wager ,dr4 ,siemens that the latter could in six hours devise countermeasures that would enable troops to pass unscathed through the tunnel1 gas or no gas4 ,dr4 ,tyndall illustrated his point by describing an experiment he said he had made on the very day of his letter1 while coming down home from ,london by train1 on a part of the ,south-,eastern line where the speed was thirty miles an hour3 ,i took out my watch and determined how long ,i could hold my breath without inhalation4 ,by emptying my lungs very thoroughly1 and then charging them very fully1 ,i brought the time up to nearly a minute and a half4 ,in this interval ,i might have been urged through more than half a mile of carbonic-acid gas with no injury and with little inconvenience to myself4 ,dr4 ,tyndall concluded1 firmly1 ,the problem of supplying fresh air to persons surrounded by an irrespirable atmosphere has been already solved by ,mr4 ,fleuss and others4 ,then there were even more disturbing objections4 ,could the defenders at the ,english end always be relied on as absolutely loyal ,englishmen8 ,the ,field1 without naming any names1 wrote of proof that in the ,united ,kingdom itself 444 there are numbers of daring and reckless persons who1 to gain their sinister ends 444 would not hesitate to sacrifice the independence of the country4 ,frankly1 the paper feared possible acts of treachery in the tunnel by a handful of unprincipled desperadoes4 ,and the ,spectator1 visualizing the thing in more detail1 suggested that its readers consider 444 the danger of treachery 444 the rush on the tunnel being made by ,irish ,republicans in league with the ,french1 while the wires of the telegraph were cut1 and all swift communications between ,dover and ,london suddenly suspended4 ,taking all the risks of the tunnel into account1 the ,spectator said it could not bring itself to believe that even in this age1 with its mania for rapid riding and comfortable locomotion1 such a project will be tolerated4 ,the ,sunday ,times1 for its part1 pointed out that1 as things stood1 the silver streak is a greater bar to the movements of ,nihilists and ,internationalists 444 than is generally believed4 ,but1 it added1 with several trains a day between ,paris and ,london1 we should have an amount of fraternising between the discontented denizens of the great cities of both countries1 which would yield very unsatisfactory results on this side of the ,channel4 ,meetings and debates to discuss the tunnel menace were held all over ,england1 and even at a meeting of so progressive an organization as the ,balloon ,society of ,great ,britain1 which was held in the lecture room of the ,royal ,aquarium at ,westminster1 the subject was discussed with some warmth of feeling 444 on both sides4 ,there was a wide circulation of sensational pamphlets1 written in pseudohistorical style1 that purported to chronicle the sudden downfall of ,england at the end of the nineteenth century through the existence of a ,channel tunnel--,dover taken1 the garrison butchered1 the ,english end of the tunnel incessantly vomiting forth armed men1 ,london invaded1 and ,england enslaved--all of this in a few hours' time4 ,in contrast to these manifold cries of alarm among the ,english1 it seems never to have occurred to anybody in ,france at the time seriously to suggest that if a tunnel were to be constructed1 a hostile ,english force1 supported by an ,english navy in control of the ,channel sea1 might suddenly seize the ,french entrance by surprise and use it as a bridgehead for a general invasion of ,france4 ,a few ,french commentators did1 however1 remind the anti-tunnel forces in ,england that while the ,english had set hostile foot on ,french soil some two or three times in as many centuries--not to mention her having kept physical control over the port of ,calais for over two hundred years following the ,battle of ,crcy--,english soil had remained untouched by ,france4 ,most of the ,french newspapers appeared to be unable to fathom the cause of the whole tunnel commotion1 which was generally put down to ,english eccentricity4 ,several ,french journals1 surveying all the fulminations on the other side of the ,channel1 even took an attitude toward the ,english of a certain detached sympathy4 ,one of the more interesting ,french commentaries on the uproar in ,england appeared in the ,revue des ,deux ,mondes4 ,in this article1 the author expressed some doubt that ,british military men who denounced the dangers of the tunnel were really convinced of the reality of those dangers4 ,for them to do so1 he suggested1 one would have to presuppose1 on one side of the ,channel1 a ,france again a conqueror with1 at her head1 a man gifted with 444 an incredible depth in crime2 a secret1 an almost incredible diligence in preparation as in execution1 and1 on the other side1 a governor of ,dover who would be an idiot or a traitor1 a ,war ,minister who would not possess the brain of a bird1 a ,foreign ,minister who would allow himself to be deceived in doltish fashion4 ,how could the ,french possibly assemble perhaps a thousand railway carriages in ,england without arousing the suspicions of ,british ,intelligence8 ,how could the vanguard of the ,french invaders get through the tunnel with all their required ammunition1 horses1 and supplies1 and get them all unloaded in a few minutes--would this vanguard sally forth without biscuits8 ,the author found no solution to these particular problems4 ,instead1 he devoted himself to the larger issue3 ,the day the inauguration of the ,submarine ,tunnel will be celebrated1 ,england will no longer be an island1 and that is a stupendous event in the history of an island people4444 ,islanders have always considered themselves the favorites of ,providence1 which has undertaken to provide for their security and independence4444 ,they congratulate themselves on their separation from the rest of the world by natural frontiers over which nobody can squabble4 ,they feel that they hold their destiny in their own hands1 and that the effect of the follies and crimes of others could not reach them4444 ,their character is affected by this4 ,like ,great ,britain1 every ,englishman is an island where it is not easy to land4 ,and the article asked1 wonderingly1 ,what would an ,england that was not an island be8 ,the deliberations of the scientific investigating committee appointed by the ,war ,office and presided over by ,sir ,archibald ,alison lasted from the latter part of ,february until the middle of ,may4 ,in the committee's report of its findings to the ,war ,office1 the complexity and solemn nature of the questions laid before it were indicated by their mere classification and subclassification4 ,thus1 the contingencies for rendering a ,channel tunnel absolutely useless to an enemy were considered under the headings of3 ,i4 ,surprise from ,within ,,ii4 ,attack from ,without ,and the committee reported that it had considered measures to secure the tunnel against 7,i7 under such subcategories as3 #a4 ,fortifications #b4 ,closure or temporary obstructions #c4 ,explosion by mines or charges #d4 ,flooding a4 ,temporary b4 ,permanent ,after reviewing the situation in great detail1 and from every aspect1 the committee suggested a long list of precautionary measures that1 it said1 it would be necessary to use1 singly or in combination1 to protect and seal off the tunnel against any enemy attempts to invade ,england directly through the tunnel or by seizing the ,english end from the outside and using it as a bridgehead for invasion4 ,the list included these recommendations3 ,the mouth of the tunnel should be protected by a portcullis or other defensible barrier4 ,a trap bridge should be set in connection with this portcullis4 ,means should be provided for closing off the ventilation1 and for discharging irrespirable gases or vapors into the tunnel4 ,arrangements should be made for rapidly discharging loads of shingle into the land portion of the tunnel1 shutting it off4 ,the land portion of the tunnel should be thoroughly mined with explosives capable of being fired by remote control exercised not only from within the central fort at ,dover but also from more distant points inland1 so that even if the protective fortress fell to the enemy1 the tunnel still could be permanently destroyed4 ,in addition1 a truck loaded with explosives and equipped with a time fuse should be kept ready by the entrance1 so that it could be sent coasting down into the tunnel for some distance1 there to explode automatically4 ,arrangements should be made for temporarily flooding the tunnel by means of culverts operated by sluice valves4 7,if by chance the sluice valves should not act1 ,measure ,,xviii could be resorted to1 or the tunnel could be blocked by one or more of the means 444 mentioned in ,measures ,,viii1 ,,ix1 ,x1 ,,xi1 and ,,xii47 ,the tunnel should emerge inland1 out of firing range from the sea4 ,and it was imperative that it emerge under the guns and in the immediate vicinity of a first-class fortress1 in the modern acceptation of the term1 a fortress which could only be reduced after a protracted siege both by land and sea4 ,and so on4 ,even after drawing up all these elaborate precautions for closing the tunnel from the ,english end1 the ,channel ,tunnel ,defense ,committee was left with some nagging doubts about their adequacy4 ,in a concluding paragraph of its report1 the committee pointed out that it must always be borne in mind that1 in dealing with physical agencies1 an amount of uncertainty exists1 and that it was impossible to eliminate human fallibility4 ,as a consequence1 the members stated cautiously1 it would be presumptuous to place absolute reliance upon even the most comprehensive and complete arrangements4 ,the committee also agreed1 almost as an afterthought1 that the ,channel tunnel proposed by ,sir ,edward ,watkin could not be sanctioned in the form envisaged1 on the grounds that it did not meet the committee's conditions for emerging inland1 out of firing range from the sea1 and in the immediate vicinity of a first-class fortress4 ,it also rejected1 on the first of these grounds1 a proposal by the lesser ,channel ,tunnel ,company for a tunnel that would start from within ,dover and for the sake of easy destructibility run right under a nearby corner of ,dover ,castle--and on the grounds that this entrance would be too much in the vicinity of a fortress4 ,and the committee objected that since the proposed entrance would emerge in the heart of the main defences and in the midst of the town any fire from these defenses would inflict great injury on the town and its inhabitants1 and the general defence would be much embarrassed4 ,at the ,war ,office1 the report of the ,alison committee was supplemented by another long memorandum on the tunnel question by ,sir ,garnet ,wolseley4 ,in this document of some twenty thousand words1 which was conveniently furnished with numerous marginal headings like ,why tunnels through the ,alps afford no argument in favor of the ,channel ,tunnel1 ,the ,tunnel an acknowledged danger1 ,what national advantage then justifies its construction1 ,many tunnels will be constructed1 ,what we owe to the ,channel1 and ,danger of surprise of our fortifications without warning6 ,fatal result661 ,sir ,garnet recapitulated and elaborated at great length upon his previous arguments against the tunnel and added several new ones4 ,sir ,garnet went into fine detail concerning the possibility of a sudden seizure of the ,english end of the tunnel and1 simultaneously1 ,dover1 by the ,french4 ,for example1 to his previous description of how hostile ,french forces might come by train through the tunnel dressed in ordinary clothes he added the detail that they might also travel in the carriages at express speed1 with the blinds down1 in their uniforms and fully armed--their co-conspirators at the other end meanwhile having rendered it not likely that ticket-takers or telegraph operators on the ,french side would be allowed any channel of communicating with us until the operation had been effected4 ,sir ,garnet was equally explicit about the situation at ,dover4 ,warning that the civilian may start in horror at the statement that ,dover could also be taken by surprise1 ,general ,wolseley declared that1 as things stood1 anybody at all1 any night1 was free to walk up to any of the forts at ,dover1 and1 if he would announce himself to be an officer returning home to barracks1 the wicket would be opened to him1 and if he entered he would see but two men1 one the sentry1 the other the noncommissioned officer who had been roused up from sleep by the sentry to unlock the gate4 ,general ,wolseley demonstrated how such a caller might well be a dashing partisan leader of a ,french raiding party that had landed in ,dover in the dead of night1 in calm or foggy weather1 from steamers1 and had already quietly knocked down and silenced any watchman or other witnesses in the dark area4 ,he showed how such a soi-disant ,english officer and his accomplices might thus easily obtain an entrance into every fort in ,dover2 the sentry and the sleepy sergeant might be easily disposed of4 ,the rifles of our sentries at home are not loaded1 and the few men on guard could be made prisoners whilst asleep on their guard bed4 ,thus1 ,general ,wolseley said1 the intruders could quickly effect the seizure of all the forts in ,dover--,in an hour's time from the moment when our end of the tunnel was taken possession of by the enemy1 large reinforcements could reach ,dover through the tunnel1 and 444 before morning dawned1 ,dover might easily be in possession of #bj1jjj of the enemy1 and every succeeding hour would add to that number4 ,with ,dover done in1 ,london would be next1 and the future commander-in-chief of the ,british ,army went on to show how the enemy force1 now swelled to #aej1jjj men1 once it reached ,london and occupied the ,thames from there to the arsenal at ,woolwich1 could dictate its own terms of peace1 which he estimated at a rough guess as the payment of six hundred million pounds and the surrender of the ,british ,fleet1 with the ,english end of the tunnel remaining permanently in the hands of the ,french1 so that the perpetual yoke of servitude would be ours for ever4 ,concerning all the various measures proposed to protect the tunnel1 ,sir ,garnet had no confidence in them at all4 ,he stressed once more the unreliability of anything mechanical or electrical1 and he added the new argument that whatever secret devices1 such as mines1 were installed in the tunnel for its protection were bound to come to the knowledge of the enemy sooner or later4 ,any military secret1 ,general ,wolseley said1 was a purchasable secret2 he illustrated his argument with an observation concerning a meeting between ,napoleon ,i and ,alexander ,i of ,russia3 ,no two men were more loyally followed or had more absolute authority than ,napoleon and ,alexander4 ,no two men had a stronger wish or stronger motive for keeping secret the words which passed between them personally in a most private conference in a raft in the middle of a river4 ,yet1 by paying a large sum our ,ministry obtained the exact terms of the secret agreement the two had there arrived at4 ,moreover1 our ,ministry obtained that information so immediately that they were able to act in anticipation of the designs formed by the two ,emperors4 ,finally1 having discussed1 in the most elaborate fashion1 all the measures that his previous opposition to the scheme had caused to be proposed for the defense of the tunnel1 ,sir ,garnet condemned them on the ground of their very elaborateness4 ,if in any one of these respects our security fails1 it fails in all1 he wrote of the multiple precautions recommended by ,sir ,archibald ,alison's scientific committee4 ,thus1 in ,general ,wolseley's eyes1 the defense of the tunnel was foredoomed as a self-defeating process1 and was therefore a practical impossibility4 ,the question of the multiplicity of the proposed defenses was handled in different fashion in a further ,war ,office memorandum on the tunnel1 issued by the ,duke of ,cambridge1 the ,army ,commander-in-,chief and a cousin of ,queen ,victoria4 ,nothing has impressed me more with the magnitude of the danger which the construction of this proposed tunnel would bring with it1 the ,duke of ,cambridge wrote1 than the amount of precautions and their elaborateness proposed by this ,scientific ,committee4444 ,if this danger was small1 as some would have the country believe1 why should all these complicated precautions be necessary8 ,the ,duke of ,cambridge fully endorsed the position taken by ,sir ,garnet ,wolseley4 ,he protested most emphatically against the construction of a ,channel tunnel and would most earnestly beg ,her ,majesty's ,government to consider with the utmost gravity the perils of surprise attack upon the country arising out of even a modified scheme that would take into account the recommendations of the ,alison committee4 ,to his memorandum ,his ,royal ,highness appended a copy of a report that he had had his intelligence service put together specially in connection with the tunnel question--a long account purporting to show some hundred and seven instances occurring in the history of the previous two hundred years where hostilities between states had been started without any prior declaration of war1 or even any decent notification4 ,if anything seemed likely to have been successfully blocked up and finished off under all this bombardment1 it was ,sir ,edward ,watkin's ,channel-tunnel scheme4 ,curiously enough1 the ,board of ,trade1 which had ordered the tunnel workings stopped back in ,april and had no intention of issuing a working permit for them now1 was not altogether convinced of this4 ,in fact1 since ,april the ,board had been developing the suspicion that something peculiar might be going on down under the sea at ,shakespeare ,cliff4 ,back in the early part of ,april1 the ,board of ,trade's order to the ,submarine ,continental ,railway ,company to stop its tunneling activities was received1 as one might expect1 with some anguish4 ,the first formal reaction was a letter from the permanent secretary of the company to ,t4 ,h4 ,farrer1 the secretary of the ,board of ,trade1 saying that the company would of course acquiesce in the orders of the board1 but begging1 at the same time1 to be allowed to continue the present gallery extending from the main1 or ,number ,two1 shaft at ,shakespeare ,cliff a short distance further1 so as to be able to complete the first stage of the works--the junction of the main gallery with the new gallery extending from the ventilating1 or ,number ,three1 shaft4 ,this letter was followed on ,april #i by another from ,sir ,edward ,watkin addressed to ,joseph ,chamberlain1 the president of the ,board of ,trade1 urgently repeating the request1 this time on the ground of safety4 ,sir ,edward wrote ,mr4 ,chamberlain3 ,the moment the ,board of the ,tunnel ,company decided to obey you1 ,i peremptorily ordered the works to be stopped4 ,the boring machine has been silent since ,thursday evening4 ,but the ,engineer sends me a very startling report and warning4 ,he fears defective ventilation owing to stoppage of the air-driven boring machine and danger to life--quite apart from depriving a fine body of skilled workmen of their bread1 and general loss and damage in money4 ,i can only reply to him that ,i am acting under your order4 ,still 444 this is the first time the ventilation of a mine has been so interfered with4 ,should the engineer's alarm be well founded1 and should men faint from bad air at the end of the gallery1 there would be no means of getting them out alive4 ,sir ,edward added1 without changing his tone of humane agitation1 that only the day before he had received a request from the ,duke of ,edinburgh to be allowed to see the tunnel workings1 along with the ,duchess1 ten days hence1 and that the ,speaker of the ,house of ,commons had already arranged to visit the tunnel on ,saturday1 the #bbnd1 leaving ,charing ,cross at eleven4 ,what must be done8 he asked4 ,mr4 ,chamberlain replied promptly by telegraph that if the stopping of the machinery in the tunnel was constituting a danger to life1 he authorized ,sir ,edward1 pending further investigation of the situation by the ,board of ,trade1 temporarily to keep the machinery going to the extent of preventing this danger4 ,however1 he followed up this telegram with a letter to ,sir ,edward in which he expressed himself as being not able to understand the exact nature of the physical danger anticipated by ,sir ,edward in the tunnel if the workings were stopped4 ,i do not see the necessity for workmen remaining in the tunnel where the ventilation is likely to be defective1 ,mr4 ,chamberlain observed4 ,he added that he was making arrangements to have one of the ,board of ,trade inspectors visit the tunnel to investigate the situation4 ,on ,april #aa1 the ,board of ,trade duly telegraphed ,sir ,edward that its chief inspector of railways1 ,colonel ,yolland1 of the ,royal ,engineers1 would be at ,dover at noon the next day to investigate the ventilation problem in the tunnel4 ,sir ,edward1 however1 wired back that he was unable to meet the ,colonel at ,dover that day and could not make an appointment with him until after the visit to the works of the ,duke of ,edinburgh on ,tuesday next4 ,to this the ,board of ,trade replied1 on ,april #ac1 that ,colonel ,yolland had been instructed to visit the tunnel works entirely out of regard to the very urgent and grave question raised in your letter 444 respecting the ventilation of the boring and that the department was finding it difficult to understand why ,colonel ,yolland's visit to the tunnel should be postponed4 ,sir ,edward's answer to this was to invite ,mr4 ,chamberlain down into the tunnel personally1 so that ,sir ,edward could show and explain everything1 since until you have seen1 and had explained to you1 on the spot as ,mr4 ,gladstone did and had1 and as we hope the ,duke of ,edinburgh will next ,tuesday1 the nature and condition of our works1 it is1 in my humble judgement1 impossible to discuss the question with exactitude4 ,he said nothing about the possibility of ,mr4 ,chamberlain's or the ,duke and ,duchess of ,edinburgh's being asphyxiated in the tunnel4 ,mr4 ,chamberlain declined the invitation2 he said he had ordered ,colonel ,yolland down to ,dover immediately to report on the tunnel4 ,but ,colonel ,yolland didn't get down into the tunnel to make an inspection that month4 ,some impediment1 some unanticipated difficulty always seemed to arise when things appeared to be about to straighten themselves out4 ,by the beginning of ,may1 the ,board of ,trade1 still trying1 flatly informed ,sir ,edward that ,colonel ,yolland and ,walter ,murton1 its solicitor1 would inspect the tunnel workings on ,may #f4 ,but on ,may #d the general manager of the ,south-,eastern ,railway replied that ,sir ,edward ,watkin wishes me to say that he regrets very much that it will be quite impossible to arrange for such inspection to take place on that date4 ,he suggested that ,sir ,edward could arrange it for the #acth4 ,the ,board of ,trade1 replying immediately1 insisted on its taking place not later than ,wednesday next4 ,that letter was met with the answer that ,sir ,edward ,watkin is at present out of town1 and is not expected to return until early next week4 ,he must have stayed out of town quite a while1 because the ,board of ,trade heard nothing from the company until ,may #ah1 when the directors of the company1 writing jointly1 told the department that while they acquiesced in the request of ,colonel ,yolland and ,mr4 ,murton to visit the tunnel1 unfortunately the machinery is under repair1 and as a consequence it would not be 444 safe for those gentlemen to go down the shaft4 ,however1 the directors added1 hopefully1 they felt sure that by working the machinery1 air compressors1 and pumping engines for a few days and nights their engineers could get everything in order for a proper tour of inspection4 ,on ,may #bd ,mr4 ,murton tried again4 ,he wrote the tunnel proprietors1 notifying them that ,colonel ,yolland and myself propose to inspect the tunnel works on ,saturday next the #bgth instant4 ,but the company's reply to the letter was regretful4 ,it said that the repairs to the winding engine cannot be completed until after ,whitsuntide4 ,meanwhile1 ,mr4 ,murton was having his difficulties with the solicitor of the ,south-,eastern over the legal question of the company's claims to ancient manorial rights to the use of the foreshore at ,shakespeare ,cliff1 as the tone of various letters he was obliged to write indicates4 ,for example3 ,,dear ,,sir1 ,may ,i remind you that ,i have not yet received the abstract of title2 ,i beg that you will at once send it to me4444 ,i am1 c41 ,,walter ,,murton ,or again3 ,,dear ,,sir1 ,i am without answer to my letter of the #cast ultimo4 ,i beg you will let me know without further delay whether you do or do not propose to send me abstract of title4 ,i am1 c41 ,,walter ,,murton ,or yet again3 ,,dear ,,sir1 ,will you kindly write me a reply to my letters which ,i can send on to the ,board of ,trade4 ,yours1 c41 ,,walter ,,murton ,by ,june #i1 the ,board of ,trade became quite out of patience over the matter of inspecting the tunnel4 ,introducing an ominous note1 it informed ,sir ,edward that ,mr4 ,chamberlain feels that he must insist upon this visit of inspection1 and if he understands that permission is refused1 will be compelled to place the matter in the hands of his legal advisers1 with the view of determining and enforcing the rights of the ,crown4 ,sir ,edward was indignant4 ,in reply1 he declared that he was being subjected to an undeserved threat4 ,mr4 ,chamberlain1 responding1 denied that the threat was undeserved4 ,he wrote firmly3 ,hitherto1 on one ground or another1 this inspection has been again and again postponed4 ,i am bound to guard the rights of the ,crown in this matter1 and ,i desire to ascertain whether those rights have up to the present time been in any way invaded4 ,this is the object of the inspection1 and as it will not brook delay 444 ,i have only now to ask an immediate answer stating definitely when it can take place4 ,sir ,edward's answer was once more to beg ,mr4 ,chamberlain himself to join a party of prominent visitors going down to see the tunnel2 he added that ,colonel ,yolland shall be at once communicated with4 ,but by various intervening circumstances--joint letters got up by the tunnel promoters to the ,prime ,minister and to the ,board of ,trade protesting hard treatment1 and so on--the ,board of ,trade found itself brooking delays all through the month of ,june4 ,on ,june #bf1 the ,board of ,trade wrote in stern fashion to ,sir ,edward that the demands of the ,board of ,trade to inspect the tunnel workings have been repeatedly formulated and persistently evaded on behalf of the ,submarine ,continental ,railway ,company1 and that the only way the company could avoid legal action by the ,crown was to consent at once to the proposed inspection4 ,there was no satisfactory reply from the tunnel proprietors1 and on ,july #e the ,board of ,trade1 after due notification to the ,submarine ,continental ,railway ,company1 obtained an order from ,mr4 ,justice ,kay1 in the ,high ,court of ,justice1 restraining the tunnel promoters and their employees from further working or excavating1 or taking or interfering with any chalk1 soil1 or other substance in the ,channel tunnel without the consent of the ,board of ,trade1 and ordering them to give the department access to the tunnel to inspect the workings4 ,in the course of these judicial proceedings1 a number of affidavits presented to ,mr4 ,justice ,kay by the ,government revealed the interesting information that the ,board of ,trade1 finding itself unable to obtain access for its inspectors into the tunnel1 for some time past had felt itself obliged to station watchers on top of ,shakespeare ,cliff and on the sea regularly to spy upon the tunnel workings and to count the number of bucketfuls of soil it maintained had been removed from the workings4 ,and1 according to all its calculations1 the ,board of ,trade had little doubt that the proprietors of the ,submarine ,continental ,railway ,company were deliberately and surreptitiously tunneling under the sea below low-water mark1 on ,crown property1 and burrowing into and removing chalk of the realm4 ,intimation of what was in store for him in the ,high ,court of ,justice reached ,sir ,edward ,watkin at the very time that he was showing a party of distinguished people1 including ,ferdinand de ,lesseps1 the builder of the ,suez ,canal1 around the tunnel4 ,a glimpse of that interesting visit is contained in a report in the ,london ,times3 ,m4 de ,lesseps1 while down in the tunnel and under the sea1 proposed the health of the ,queen1 remarking that the completion of the work was required in the interest of mankind4 ,when all the visitors were again above ground1 luncheon was served in a marquee4 ,sir ,e4 ,watkin1 in proposing the health of ,m4 de ,lesseps1 remarked that there were those in our country who seemed to consider that the work of the company they had just inspected was a crime4 ,he had just received a telegram informing him that he would have to answer on ,wednesday next at the instigation of the ,president of the ,board of ,trade before a court of law for having committed the crime of carrying on these experiments4 7,hisses and groans47 ,somewhat revealingly1 ,sir ,edward added1 when the signs of indignation subsided1 that ,for his own part1 if he was to be committed by a court of law for contempt1 he should have this consolation--that the proceedings which had been taken against him had been delayed sufficiently long to enable him with his colleagues to have the honor of entertaining ,m4 de ,lesseps1 in whom he should have a witness1 if he had to call one1 to prove that they had been engaged in a work which had been as successful as he believed it would be ultimately useful4 ,at long last1 supported by all the might of the ,crown1 ,colonel ,yolland got to the tunnel on ,july #h to make his inspection of the workings4 ,but upon his arrival there he found1 to his chagrin1 that ,i was not provided1 at the time 444 with all the necessary means for making the measurements1 and taking the requisite bearings in the tunnel1 and he was obliged to put his inspection off once more4 ,properly equipped1 he descended into the tunnel a week later1 on ,saturday1 ,july #ae1 and inspected everything1 including the boring apparatus that ,sir ,edward had insisted had to be used to ventilate the gallery and prevent loss of life4 ,what ,colonel ,yolland found there caused the ,board of ,trade1 five days later1 to send a most severe letter to the tunnel proprietors4 ,in it1 the ,board declared3 #a4 ,that the means of ventilating the tunnel could have been and be so readily disconnected from the boring machine 7i4e41 by the movement of a single lever that would pour a stream of compressed air coming from the supply pipe directly into the tunnel7 that it has never been necessary that a single inch of cutting should have taken place in order to protect life or to secure ventilation1 nor can such necessity arise in the future4 #b4 ,that in spite of the repeated orders of the ,board of ,trade1 and the assurances of the ,secretary of the ,submarine ,railway ,company and ,sir ,edward ,watkin himself that those orders were acquiesced in and submitted to1 the substantial work of boring has nevertheless been carried to a distance of more than #fjj yards from low-water mark 7thus constituting a trespass on the property of the ,crown74 ,calling these acts a flagrant breach of faith on the part of the tunnel promoters1 the ,board of ,trade wrote that henceforth the order of the court must be strictly and literally adhered to1 and that no work of maintenance1 ventilation1 drainage1 or otherwise would be allowed without the express permission of the board4 ,sir ,edward ,watkin and his fellow directors1 after some days1 replied in hurt fashion to what they termed the unjustified accusations directed against them4 ,they reiterated their concern for the health of their employees in the tunnel1 and in connection with their tunneling activities below low-water mark they came up with the ingenious explanation that many visits of ,royal and other personages have been1 by request1 made to the tunnel for purposes of inspection1 and it was essential fully to work the machine from time to time for the purpose of such visits4 ,they also sent a protest to ,mr4 ,gladstone at #aj ,downing ,street against their hard treatment1 and asked for the ,prime ,minister's intercession with the ,board of ,trade4 ,but there was nothing doing4 ,mr4 ,gladstone politely refused to act and replied that the actions of the ,board of ,trade had the full sanction of the ,government4 ,on ,august #e1 ,colonel ,yolland descended once more into the tunnel to make an inspection4 ,he found things there in a rather run-down condition4 ,the tunnel is not nearly so dry as it was when ,i first saw it1 he wrote in his report to the ,board of ,trade1 referring to the fact that the engineers had ceased work on the drainage of the gallery4 ,colonel ,yolland also mentioned in his report that during his previous visit1 on ,july #ae1 ,i had an escape from what might have been a serious accident4 ,the wet chalk in the bottom of the tunnel1 between and outside the rails of the tramways1 is so slippery and greasy that it is almost impossible to keep on one's feet2 and1 on one occasion1 ,i suddenly slipped1 and fell at full length on my back1 and the back of my head came against one of the iron rails of the tramway--fortunately with no great force or my skull might have been seriously bruised or fractured4 ,the ,colonel added1 ,there is not light enough in the tunnel from the electric lamps to enable one to see one's way through 444 so that it is necessary to carry a lamp in one hand and a note-book in the other1 to record the different measurements4 ,the ,colonel then gave some startling news4 ,he declared that1 according to his measurements1 somebody had advanced the length of the tunnel some seventy yards since his inspection on ,july #ae4 ,when this report reached the ,board of ,trade1 the department1 outraged1 made a motion before the ,high ,court of ,justice to cite the tunnel promoters for contempt4 ,however1 a cloud of doubt descended on the issue when the tunnel promoters claimed in court that ,colonel ,yolland's calculations were in error4 ,the motion was put off with the promoters' promising to obey to the letter the demands of the ,board of ,trade4 ,later on in the month1 ,colonel ,yolland1 after making a further inspection1 conceded that1 owing to the difficulties of working in the tunnel1 he had made some error of calculation4 ,the true advance made in the tunnel since ,july #ae1 he said1 was thirty-six yards--a figure he said was confirmed by the tunnel company's engineer4 ,colonel ,yolland reported that the company engineers had installed a pump at the eastern end of the tunnel to force out the water accumulating there4 ,he added1 somewhat testily1 ,of course men had to be employed in erecting this pump in the tunnel and in working it when it was ready1 and as the boring machine has not been made use of for the purpose of cutting chalk1 this 444 conclusively proves what ,i had stated in my former reports1 that it was not necessary to cut an inch of chalk for the purpose of ventilating and draining the tunnel4 ,altogether1 and with all the difficulties they had encountered1 the tunnel promoters had succeeded in boring the tunnel for a distance of #b1ajj yards1 or a little less than a mile and a quarter1 toward ,france4 ,the operations at the ,french end1 which came to a stop in ,march of #ahhc1 completed #b1jji yards of pilot tunnel from the bottom of the shaft by the cliffs at ,sangatte4 ,in the middle of ,august1 the ,government1 having received all the reports from the ,war ,office and the ,board of ,trade on the subject of the tunnel1 caused the rival ,channel-tunnel bills that had been brought before it to be set aside1 and at the same time ,mr4 ,chamberlain announced in the ,house of ,commons that the ,government had decided to propose1 early the following year1 the appointment of a ,joint ,select ,committee of the ,house of ,lords and the ,house of ,commons to dispose of the whole tunnel question as conclusively as possible4 ,in the meantime1 he announced the ,government's intention of publishing a ,blue ,book containing all the principal documents and correspondence concerning the tunnel4 ,the ,blue ,book was issued in ,october1 and once again the wrath of the ,english press fell upon the tunnel project and its promoters4 ,the tone of the press comment was most majestically represented by an editorial in the ,london ,times1 which had started off the press campaign against the project the year before4 ,the ,times wrote that1 unless it was much mistaken1 the publication of the ,blue ,book will be found to have closed the whole question of the ,channel ,tunnel for a long time to come4 ,undermined by land1 overmined at sea1 sluice-ridden at its entrance1 and liable to asphyxiating vapors at intervals1 the ,tunnel will hardly be regarded by nervous travellers as a very pleasant alternative even to the horrors of seasickness4444 ,the whole system of defense must forever be at the mercy of blunderers1 criminals1 and madmen4 ,it is true that we take somewhat similar risks in ordinary railway travelling1 but imagination counts for a good deal in such matters1 and the terrors of the ,channel ,tunnel under an adequate system of defense might easily affect the imagination so strongly as to render the terrors of seasickness insignificant by comparison4 ,caught between the forces of claustrophobia and xenophobia1 ,sir ,edward ,watkin's great tunnel project was just about done for4 ,in ,westminster1 angry citizens exhibited their feelings by smashing all the windows of the ,channel ,tunnel ,company offices there4 ,in the following year1 the promised new investigation into the tunnel question was undertaken by a joint ,parliamentary committee presided over by ,lord ,landsdowne4 ,the committee met fourteen times1 examined forty witnesses1 and asked them fifty-three hundred and ninety-six questions4 ,not unexpectedly1 the witnesses included ,sir ,garnet ,wolseley1 now ,lord ,wolseley4 ,that ,lord ,wolseley in the interim had not changed his opinions on the perilous consequences of a tunnel is evident from his response to just five of the hundreds of questions put to him by the committee members4 #ebcc3 444 ,i think you said that supposing anyone in this room were to go to the barrack gates at any of the forts at ,dover at night and to knock at the door1 the door would at once be opened8--,the wicket would be opened to you4 #ebcd3 ,would it be the case if the person who went there had a hundred men in his company8--,the man inside would not know that he had them1 he would never suspect a hundred men being outside2 but ,i would go further and say1 even supposing that he would not open the barrack gates1 the barrack gates are very easily knocked in4 #ebce3 ,are there any drawbridges there8--,there are1 but they are very seldom1 if ever1 drawn up in ,dover4 #ebcf3 ,you said that if the tunnel were in existence1 it would be necessary that the conditions of life in ,dover should be altered2 would that be one of the conditions which would be altered8--,yes4 #ebcg3 ,and the drawbridges would be up at night8--,the drawbridges would be up at night1 and nobody would be allowed to go in or out after a certain hour4 ,when all the evidence was in1 a majority of the joint ,parliamentary committee sided with the views of ,lord ,wolseley and voted against any ,parliamentary sanction's being given to a ,channel tunnel4 ,sir ,edward ,watkin kept right on promoting his tunnel project for quite a while4 ,by #ahhd--;a year1 incidentally1 when ,lord ,wolseley was called away from the country to command the ,british expeditionary force that arrived too late at ,khartoum to relieve ,general ,gordon--,sir ,edward was still doing his best to bring the ,british ,army around to his viewpoint on the tunnel4 ,a series of contemporary illustrations in the ,london illustrated weekly publication ,the ,graphic records some views of a tunnel party held during that year for a group of ,british ,army officers4 ,one of the engravings shows a number of officers preparing to descend into the tunnel2 the caption reads1 ,i say1 ,dear ,chappie1 if we invade ,france through the ,tunnel1 ,i hope ,i shan't be told off to lead the ,advanced ,guard4 ,the visit was further reported on in an accompanying article by one of a few journalists accompanying the party4 ,from this1 it appears that the condition of the tunnel hadn't improved since the time that ,colonel ,yolland nearly split his head open in it4 ,under foot for a great portion of the way1 the author said1 in describing how the visitors were drawn along the long gallery on canvas-hooded trolleys1 was ankle deep in slush1 and he went on to quote from the report of one of his colleagues3 ,onward to no sound1 save the splashing made by the tall workmen who drew the trolleys tramping through the mud and the drip1 drip1 drip of the water upon the hood above our heads1 we are dragged and pushed 444 under the bed of the ,channel4444 ,sometimes1 in the fitful flashes of light1 the eye rests on falling red rivulets1 like streams of blood1 flowing down the damp walls4 ,so we go on until the electric lamps cease altogether1 and the long1 awful cave is enveloped in a darkness that would be impenetrable but for the glimmer of a few tallow candles stuck into the bare walls of the cutting4 ,at the end of the tunnel the action of the boring machine was briefly demonstrated1 this time by special permission of the ,board of ,trade1 and then the party was escorted out of the tunnel and taken to a good lunch1 presumably at the ,lord ,warden ,hotel4 ,another engraving in the same issue of ,the ,graphic shows members of the same party of officers1 chairs drawn slightly back1 sitting about a luncheon table4 ,the monocled guests1 ranged on each side of a clutter of bottles1 potted ferns1 place cards1 and an interesting variety of glasses--including1 as one can see fairly clearly1 champagne glasses1 claret glasses1 and hock glasses--are being addressed by a bearded speaker4 ,they look dazed4 ,yet while using his best softening-up techniques on the ,army officers1 ,sir ,edward did not let up his fire on his principal opponents among the military4 ,thus1 during #ahhd1 when he reintroduced his ,tunnel ,bill on the floor in ,parliament 7it was rejected by #bbb votes to #hd7 he ridiculed the anti-tunnel generals for publicly confessing an inability to cope with defending a frontier no bigger than the door of the ,house of ,commons4 ,dealing with the question of ,british insularity1 he also introduced the argument that since ,france and ,england had once been united as part of the same continental land mass his opponents1 in refusing to unite them again1 were openly showing distrust of the wisdom of ,providence in having created the connection in the first place4 ,this last assertion really incensed the editors of the ,london ,times1 who had been steadily invoking ,providence as their ally against the tunnel all along4 ,the ,times ran an editorial declaring angrily that no stronger reason could be found for distrusting the whole tunnel scheme than the fact that ,sir ,edward had been reduced to using such an argument4 ,the ,times added1 severely1 ,ordinary people will probably be content to take the world as it appears in historic times4 ,everything that we possess and are--our character1 our language1 our freedom1 our institutions1 our religion1 our unviolated hearths1 and our far-extended ,empire--we owe to the encircling sea2 and when ,englishmen try to penetrate the designs of ,providence they will not seek them in geological speculations1 but will rather thank ,him ,who 'isled us here4' ,sir ,edward1 in his indomitable fashion1 not only pursued his geological speculations but also kept pursuing the tunnel question in ,parliament4 ,in #ahhg1 a year in which he changed the name of the ,submarine ,continental ,railway ,company to that of the ,channel ,tunnel ,company 7he had taken over the long-moribund rival company in #ahhf71 he went on such a powerful campaign on behalf of a new ,channel ,tunnel ,bill that it was defeated in the ,house by only seventy-six votes4 ,in #ahhh1 he tried again1 and even managed to persuade ,mr4 ,gladstone1 now the leader of the ,opposition1 that the ,channel could be tunneled under with propriety4 ,as a result1 ,mr4 ,gladstone1 in ,june #ahhh1 gave his personal support to ,sir ,edward's ,tunnel ,bill and delivered a long ,parliamentary speech on the subject4 ,in this dissertation the venerable statesman1 while taking nothing back about the wisdom of ,providence in placing the ,channel where it was1 said he had now come to feel that a ,channel tunnel could be used without altering in any way our insular character or insular security1 to give us some of the innocent and pacific advantages of a land frontier4 ,but even ,mr4 ,gladstone's support couldn't swing it4 ,parliament would not agree to the tunnel4 ,at last1 after all these setbacks1 ,sir ,edward had to consider the tunnel project as a lost cause1 if only temporarily4 ,he stopped promoting it in #ahid1 having become involved in the meantime in a couple of alternate projects--a railway tunnel between ,scotland and ,ireland and a ship canal in ,ireland between ,dublin and ,galway4 ,also1 in #ahhi1 he had become chairman of a company to erect at ,wembley ,park1 near ,london1 a great iron tower1 modeled on the ,eiffel ,tower1 which was to be known as the ,watkin ,tower4 ,the ,watkin ,tower didn't get very high4 ,only a single stage was completed1 and this was opened to the public in #ahif2 it was demolished eleven years later4 ,sir ,edward ,watkin died at ,northenden1 ,cheshire1 in #aija4 ,illustration3 ,five ,the advent of the ,entente ,cordiale in #aijd provided the basis for the next attempt to revive the tunnel scheme4 ,in #aijg1 the ,english ,channel ,tunnel ,company1 by now under the chairmanship of ,baron ,frederic ,emile d',erlanger1 a banker1 made another attempt to obtain ,parliamentary approval for a tunnel4 ,this time1 the company had the advantage of bringing to bear on its behalf solid engineering studies and twentieth-century technology4 ,the trains in the tunnel were now to be all electric1 and the difficult task of evacuating the spoil from the tunnel during its construction was to be carried out by an ingenious new method1 invented by a ,frenchman named ,philippe ,fougerolles1 of pulverizing it and mixing it with sea water into a soft slurry1 then pumping the slurry out of the tunnel through pipelines4 ,this time1 while all the old arguments for and against the tunnel were being rehashed in ,parliament1 the tunnel promoters came up with a novel proposal designed to demonstrate the benign intentions toward ,england of the ,french ,government and to allay the suspicions of the anti-tunnel faction in ,england4 ,they suggested that the ,french end of the tunnel emerge from the side of a steep cliff on the shore of the ,channel at ,wissant1 not far from ,sangatte4 ,the sole access to the tunnel entrance on the ,french side then would be made through a long horseshoe-shaped railway viaduct extending for some distance out over the sea and doubling back again to join1 a mile or so away from the tunnel entrance1 the ,french coastal rail line4 ,thus1 the ,french suggested1 the ,british fleet would be at liberty to sail up and array itself at any point offshore in a time of national emergency and at its convenience to shell the viaduct and tunnel entrance to smithereens4 ,expounding on the advantages of this plan in the pages of the ,revue ,politique et ,parlementaire1 one of the two principal architects of the #aijg tunnel plan1 ,albert ,sartiaux--the other was the engineer1 ,sir ,francis ,fox--encouragingly pointed out that such a viaduct not only would constitute the most perfect target imaginable for the guns of the ,royal ,navy1 but also would be a magnificent point de vue for tourists4 ,these inducements were insufficient1 however4 ,parliament turned down the tunnel again4 ,and a ,labor ,m4,p4 declared1 ,if the ,channel were tunneled1 the ,army and ,navy estimates would speedily grow beyond the control of the most resolutely prudent financier4 ,old-age pensions would dwindle out of sight1 and a shilling income tax would soon be regarded as the distant dream of an ,arcadian past4 ,just before the ,first ,world ,war1 the ,channel ,tunnel ,company1 headed by ,baron ,frederic ,emile d',erlanger's son1 ,baron ,emile ,beaumont d',erlanger1 embarked on another crusade4 ,in #aiac1 a deputation representing ninety ,m4,p4s favorable to the tunnel scheme visited ,herbert ,asquith1 the ,prime ,minister1 to ask for the ,government's approval for the scheme1 and the ,liberal ,london ,daily ,chronicle1 editorially proclaiming that the advent of the airplane had put an end to ,england's position as an island1 came through with a big pro-tunnel press campaign4 ,however1 the ,times of ,london continued to stick firmly to its ancient position1 and it ran an editorial restating its old arguments against the tunnel and ingeniously adding a new one--that even if there were no real possibility of invasion1 the very existence of the tunnel might even itself lead to a precipitation of war1 if in case of international complications it was considered necessary1 in a possible moment of confusion1 to close the tunnel at the ,dover end4 ,in ,july #aiad1 less than a fortnight before the outbreak of war1 the ,committee of ,imperial ,defense turned the tunnel scheme down again4 ,but the value of a ,channel tunnel as a supply route for the ,allied armies on the ,continent continued to be debated throughout the war1 and when it was over ,marshal ,foch declared publicly that ,if the ,english and the ,french had had a tunnel under the ,channel in #aiad1 the war would have been shortened by at least two years4 ,the ,marshal was promptly made the honorary president of the ,comit ,franais du ,tunnel4 ,in postwar ,england1 the tunnel project began to obtain heavy support in ,parliament4 ,by #aibd1 some four hundred ,m4,p4s--about two-thirds of the ,house--were said to be for it1 and the new ,labor ,prime ,minister1 ,ramsay ,mac,donald1 promised a careful and sympathetic review of the ,government's position on the tunnel4 ,he called all of the four living former ,prime ,ministers--,lord ,balfour1 ,herbert ,asquith1 ,lloyd ,george1 and ,stanley ,baldwin--into consultation on the matter1 as well as the ,committee of ,imperial ,defense4 ,the ,prime ,ministers met for forty minutes and rejected the scheme again1 and ,mac,donald told ,parliament that the ,government felt postwar military developments had tended1 without exception1 to render the ,channel tunnel a more dangerous experiment than ever4 ,winston ,churchill protested the decision4 ,i do not hesitate to say that it was wrong1 he told the ,house4 ,in #aibi1 everybody had a go at the tunnel once more1 and very elaborate engineering studies were made on the subject by well-established engineering firms and were carefully examined by a special ,government committee1 with particular attention being given to the contention of pro-tunnel people that the construction of a ,channel tunnel would provide badly needed work for ,englishmen in depression times4 ,the report of the ,government's committee was1 with a single dissension1 favorable to the construction of the tunnel4 ,but the ,committee of ,imperial ,defense still was to have its say1 and in ,may #aicj it rejected the project4 ,this time the rejection was made primarily on two grounds1 according to a high ,british military man who was later a member of that body4 ,the first of these1 he says1 was the fear of the military that the successful construction of a ,channel tunnel would so adversely affect ,england's ,channel shipping trade that the ,channel ports were likely to fall into ill repair and the harbors to start silting up--dangerous conditions in periods of national emergency2 the second was their fear that if ,britain became involved in another war on the ,continent1 the tunnel would suddenly become a traffic bottleneck through which it would be difficult to move war supplies and equipment quickly and on the massive scale required4 ,a month after this adverse verdict by the military1 a motion was nonetheless put forward in the ,house of ,commons for approval of the tunnel1 and this time such a large group of ,m4,p4s was favorable to the scheme that the motion failed to carry by only seven votes4 ,for most of the thirties1 the tunnel project just drifted along in a dormant state4 ,once every so often1 when things were generally slack1 the press would carry a feature story on it1 and the annual meetings of the ,channel ,tunnel ,company1 still gamely presided over by ,baron ,emile ,beaumont d',erlanger1 were always good for a paragraph tucked somewhere into the financial pages under mildly mocking headlines1 such as ,hope ,eternal1 ,the ,channel ,tunnel ,again1 or1 in one of the popular dailies1 just ,the ,poor ,old ,tunnel4 ,the outbreak of the ,second ,world ,war1 however1 far from putting the ,channel tunnel completely out of sight1 revived the issue1 for a time1 anyway4 ,in ,november #aici the ,french ,chamber of ,deputies passed a resolution calling for the construction of a tunnel2 early in #aidj1 ,prime ,minister ,neville ,chamberlain--the son1 incidentally1 of ,joseph ,chamberlain1 who as president of the ,board of ,trade had ordered the tunnel workings stopped back in the eighties--turned the tunnel project down again in a parliamentary reply4 ,the retreat from ,dunkirk gave pro-tunnel and anti-tunnel people the opportunity of putting forth their arguments about the tunnel once more1 with some variations--with the pro-tunnelers claiming that a ,channel tunnel might have enabled the ,british ,expeditionary ,force to keep a bridgehead in ,france1 and the anti-tunnelers countering that the same tunnel would have given ,german paratroopers the opportunity of seizing the ,english end and using it as a bridgehead for the invasion of ,england4 ,then1 after the fall of ,france1 when the ,germans were busily making preparations for the invasion of ,england1 the question arose among the ,british military as to whether the enemy might not just possibly attempt to reach ,england by surreptitiously tunneling underneath the ,channel4 ,as a consequence1 the ,war ,office called in an eminent ,british civil engineer1 the late ,sir ,william ,halcrow1 and asked him to make a study of the question of whether the ,germans could pull off such a feat4 ,we examined the situation quite carefully and concluded that1 provided we kept reasonably alert1 the ,germans could not dig the tunnel without being detected1 an engineering colleague of ,sir ,william ,halcrow's on the survey said a while ago4 ,he added1 ,their difficulty would lie in the disposal of the spoil4 ,they couldn't get rid of it without our seeing from the air that something peculiar was going on4 ,if they tried to dump the spoil into the sea at night it would have to be done at the turn of the tide1 and the chalk would leave a cloud in the sea that would not be dissipated by daylight4 ,if they pulverized the spoil1 converted it into a slurry1 and pumped it well out to sea1 we would be able to spot the chalk cloud too1 and even if they tried other means of dispersing the spoil the very process of dispersal would call for such extensive installations that we would soon be on to them4 ,in #aidb1 somebody at the ,war ,office had another look into the tunnel situation1 this time for the purpose of finding out if it would be practical for the ,british to start tunneling under the ,channel--the idea presumably being the creation of a supply route to ,france ahead of an ,allied invasion1 with the last leg of the route being completed once the ,allied ,armies had installed themselves on the ,french coast4 ,again1 several prominent ,british civil engineers were called into consultation1 but the subject was abruptly dropped1 without investigation of the problem of disposing of the spoil1 when the engineers estimated that a tunnel probably would take eight years to complete--three years longer than the war then was expected to last4 ,from #aidj on1 the ,british kept a routine watch on their reconnaissance photographs for signs of tunneling on the ,french side1 especially around the site of the still existing shaft of the ,french ,tunnel ,company at ,sangatte4 ,early in #aidd1 ,r4,a4,f4 and ,u4,s4,a4,f4 reconnaissance showed signs of unusual installations being made near ,sangatte1 but these later turned out to be unconnected with subterranean workings4 ,as it happened1 they were launching sites for ,v-#b bombs4 ,the actual handling by the ,germans of the old tunnel shaft during the occupation of ,france was rather peculiar4 ,far from trying to continue the existing tunnel in the early part of the ,occupation1 they treated it in contemptuous fashion1 using the shaft as a dump for old chunks of machinery1 used shell casings1 bits of rubbish1 and broken slabs of concrete4 ,later on1 their attitude changed drastically4 ,they sealed the top of the shaft with a poured-concrete platform4 ,then1 in weirdly romantic fashion1 they built a large rim of fitted stone around the platform to create an ornamental-wall effect1 and added around the well a grass-and-flagstone terrace complete with formal walks and sets of monumental-looking stone steps laid out in symmetrical style4 ,apparently their notion was to bring the tunnel aesthetically into harmony with a military cemetery they installed between the tunnel entrance and the sea4 ,after the war1 the ,channel-tunnel project continued to languish in prewar fashion4 ,if anything1 even less than before was heard in the press about the activities of the ,channel ,tunnel ,company4 ,the company's headquarters at the ,southern ,railway offices at ,london ,bridge were blown up in the blitz1 and all the company's records were destroyed4 ,for some time1 while attempts were made to piece together duplicate lists from ,government files1 the ,channel ,tunnel ,company didn't even know who the majority of its stockholders were1 but that didn't matter too much1 considering the circumstances4 ,baron ,emile ,beaumont d',erlanger1 the chairman1 had died in #aici1 and his place on the ,board was taken by his nephew1 ,leo d',erlanger1 also a banker4 ,leo d',erlanger1 now a spry1 elegant1 silver-haired gentleman in his sixties1 brightly confesses to having had little interest in the tunnel until about twelve years ago4 ,i was brought up in a home where the ,channel tunnel was a family religion1 and1 to tell the truth1 ,i didn't give it too much thought1 he says4 ,my grandfather used to talk about it when ,i came back for the holidays from ,eton4 ',politics1' they all used to say4 ',the only reason why the tunnel isn't built is politics4' ,i never paid much attention4 ,i thought it was an old dodo and never had anything to do with it in my ,uncle ,emile's lifetime4 ,when he died and ,i took over1 ,i used to look forward with dread to the annual general meetings4 ,i had nothing to say4 ,i considered the whole thing moribund4 ,for a few years we met1 ,i remember1 at the ,charing ,cross ,hotel1 which belonged to the ,southern ,railway a successor to ,sir ,edward ,watkin's ,south-,eastern ,railway1 and the secretary was an elderly retired man by the name of ,cramp1 who once had something to do with the ,southern ,railway1 ,i think4 ,we used to have difficulty in getting a quorum4 ,i suppose we would manage to get four or five people to turn up4 ,however1 the lost-cause atmosphere began to undergo a change in #aidh1 when ,sir ,herbert ,walker1 the former general manager of the ,southern ,railway1 which was taken over by ,british ,railways in the nationalization program of that year1 acted temporarily as chairman of the ,channel ,tunnel ,company4 ,walker came to believe that the ,channel-tunnel scheme could be a practical one in the postwar era1 and he brought it to life again4 ,largely as a result of his persuasions1 a ,parliamentary study group began to look into the tunnel question once more1 and the ,channel ,tunnel ,company's lobbyists once more set about building up pro-tunnel opinion among ,m4,p4s4 ,it was just like old times for the pro-tunnelers1 but with one significant difference4 ,by the mid-fifties1 it became clear that in the emerging age of rockets bearing nuclear warheads the traditional strategic arguments of the ,british military against the construction of a ,channel tunnel would no longer have the same force that they had once had4 ,and as for the old fears of military conscription in peacetime and high taxes1 they had long ago been realized without a tunnel4 ,it was therefore an event to make the hearts of all pro-tunnelers beat fast when1 one day in ,february #aiee1 in the ,house of ,commons1 ,harold ,macmillan1 then ,minister of ,defense1 in answer to a parliamentary question as to whether the ,government would have objections of a military nature to raise against a ,channel tunnel1 replied1 ,scarcely at all4 ,this seemed like a green light to ,d',erlanger1 but for a while he couldn't quite decide what to do after seeing it flash on4 ,early in #aief1 however1 he went to see ,paul ,leroy-,beaulieu1 who was a director of the ,french ,tunnel ,company--the ,socit ,concessionnaire du ,chemin de ,fer ,sous-marin entre la ,france et l',angleterre--and the grandson of ,michel ,chevalier1 who had founded the company in #ahge4 ,d',erlanger suggested that1 since the tunnel was a common ancestral interest1 the two of them have another try at promoting it4 ,leroy-,beaulieu agreed1 and he suggested that as the ,suez ,canal ,company's concession in ,egypt was due to run out in #aifh1 and might not be renewed1 the ,suez ,company might possibly be interested in turning to a ,channel tunnel as its next project4 ,sure enough1 the principals of the ,suez ,company1 whose headquarters were in ,paris1 were interested in the idea1 but the sudden seizure of the ,canal by ,colonel ,nasser in ,july of that year kept them too distracted to pursue the tunnel project just then4 ,in the meantime1 quite independently of these tunnel developments in ,paris and ,london1 two young international lawyers in ,new ,york1 ,frank ,davidson and ,cyril ,means1 ,jr41 became intrigued by the possibility of a tunnel between ,england and ,france4 ,davidson and ,means happened to have good connections in ,wall ,street1 and after they established contact with the two existing tunnel companies by letter1 ,means went over to ,london and ,paris early in ,february of #aieg to investigate the tunnel situation and to offer the tunnel people there--and the ,suez ,canal ,company--the chance of obtaining some substantial ,american financial backing for the construction of a tunnel if it proved to be a practical proposition4 ,the tunnel people in ,europe showed varying degrees of interest in the proposal1 and to strengthen their position1 ,davidson and ,means1 with another friend1 an engineer1 ,arnaud de ,vitry d',avancourt1 formed a ,new ,york corporation called ,technical ,studies1 ,inc41 with the announced purpose of financing technical investigations and promoting the construction of a ,channel tunnel4 ,in ,april #aieg1 the ,suez ,canal ,company1 which by then had given up any hope of regaining control of the ,canal1 jumped into the tunnel picture by announcing that it intended to collaborate with the ,english and ,french tunnel companies to have made a very detailed geological survey of the ,channel bed to determine the practicability of a tunnel4 ,the tunnel came into the news again4 ,when1 at the seventy-sixth annual meeting of the ,channel ,tunnel ,company1 in ,london1 ,d',erlanger got up to confirm the latest development1 he did so not before the usual handful of disillusioned shareholders1 but in a room packed with people who had suddenly rediscovered and dusted off old ,channel ,tunnel ,company stock certificates4 ,a correspondent from the ,times of ,london who was present reported of the stockholders' reaction to the speech of the company's chairman on the possibilities of seriously reviving the tunnel project that it took only a few minutes to excite their minds to a pleasurable pitch and that at least one member of ,mr4 d',erlanger's audience darted out in the middle of his speech to instruct his broker to buy in shares4 ,according to the ,times1 the only note of doubt was struck by a stockholder at the end of the meeting1 which lasted half an hour3 ,mr4 ,john ,elliott1 who bought his shares for a song almost1 asked where the company's workings were4 ,did they really exist8 ,he had visited ,dover1 and neither police1 shopkeepers1 nor the county surveyor could tell him where they were4 ,he suggested that the board prove their existence by escorting a nominated half-dozen shareholders on an eye-witness excursion4 ,little attention was paid to the objector4 ,the ,times reported that other shareholders pooh-poohed his scepticism1 and the meeting broke up4 ,it was a far cry from the days of ,sir ,edward ,watkin's special trains to ,dover for tunnel parties4 ,however1 the price of ,channel ,tunnel ,company stock1 which had been available for years on the ,london ,stock ,exchange for as low as sixpence1 rose to more than ten shillings by the day of the meeting and shortly thereafter rose rapidly1 until by ,may #bj it reached twenty-six shillings and ninepence--six shillings and ninepence more than the price of the first ,channel ,tunnel ,company stock in #ahgf4 ,the ,british press1 on the whole1 reacted to the latest tunnel development in tolerant fashion4 ,there was1 however1 a spirited discussion of the subject in an article in the ,daily ,telegraph in the spring of #aieg1 marked by an attack on the whole scheme by ,major-,general ,sir ,edward ,spears4 ,general ,spears wrote that although powerful interests now appeared to be backing the construction of a ,channel tunnel1 the objections raised to the project in the past were as valid as ever4 ,such a tunnel would bind this island to the ,continent irrevocably and would soon link our fate to that of our ,continental neighbors1 he asserted1 and he added that if the new scheme were persisted in1 steps should be taken to enlighten the public before the ,government was committed to approving it4 ,general ,spears's position was supported by ,lord ,montgomery4 ,choosing ,trafalgar ,day as the most appropriate time to express himself on the subject1 ,lord ,montgomery said at a ,navy ,league luncheon in ,october of #aieg1 ,there is talk these days of a ,channel tunnel4 ,strategically it would weaken us4 ,why give up one of our greatest assets--our island home--and make things easier for our enemies8 ,the ,channel tunnel is a wildcat scheme and ,i am wholeheartedly opposed to it4444 ,i hope that the ,navy ,league will have nothing to do with it4 ,however1 by ,trafalgar ,day the pro-tunnelers were hard at it1 too4 ,in ,july #aieg1 the four main interests involved in the scheme--the ,english and ,french ,channel-tunnel companies1 the ,suez ,canal ,company and ,technical ,studies--had combined to create an organization called the ,channel ,tunnel ,study ,group to contract for modern technical surveys of the whole tunnel question4 ,the new group is said to have spent over a million dollars on having these surveys made4 ,the studies included a very detailed survey of the ,channel bed with modern electronic geophysical equipment and deep rock borings and sea-bottom samples made across the neck of the ,channel1 as well as microscopic examination of these rock samples to determine their microfossil composition and probable position in the strata from which they were taken4 ,curiously enough1 while the geological survey was under way1 somebody on the project took the trouble to inquire into the old ,french hydrographic surveys for a ,channel tunnel1 and after some diligent searching he turned up1 in a dusty waiting room of a disused ,paris suburban railroad station1 where it had been stored for an age1 a collection of thousands of the sea-bottom samples made in the ,french ,channel-tunnel surveys of #ahge and #ahgf4 ,all of the samples were found neatly packed away in test tubes and ticketed1 and the searchers even uncovered a case of the geological specimens that ,thom de ,gamond himself had recovered in #ahee by his naked plunges to the bottom of the ,channel in the neighborhood of the ,varne4 ,the geologists weren't interested in going by way of the ,varne any more1 but many of the old #ahge-gf samples were taken away for microfossil examination as part of a check on how the results of the old surveys compared with the new4 ,except for some variations relating to the extent of the cretaceous outcrop in the middle of the ,channel1 the findings tallied nicely4 ,the new ,study ,group had a number of other elaborate surveys made1 too1 on the economic and engineering problems involved in the creation and operation of a ,channel tunnel or an equivalent means of cross-,channel transport4 ,besides developing plans for a bored tunnel--the projected double-rail tunnel1 interconnected at intervals by cross-passages1 is essentially a modern version of ,william ,low's plan of the #ahfjs1 with an extra small service tunnel being added between the main tunnels--the ,study ,group's engineering consultants developed in detail schemes for a ,channel bridge1 an immersed railway tube1 an immersed road tube1 a combined immersed tube with two railway tracks1 and a four-way road system on two levels4 ,the bridge proposed would be an enormous affair with approximately #adb piers and with four main spans in the center of the ,strait each #ihd feet long4 ,these spans would tower a maximum of #bfb-a_/b feet above sea level to allow the largest ships in the world to pass underneath with plenty of room to spare4 ,the bridge would take no longer to build than a road tunnel1 but it would cost about twice as much1 and in addition it would be expensive and difficult to maintain and would present a hazard to navigation4 ,the immersed tube proposed for either rail or road traffic 7but not both7 probably would cost about the same as a bored tunnel and might be constructed in four years4 ,a combined road-rail tube would take about the same time to build1 but would be more expensive even than a bridge4 ,among the best-known schemes for a combined tube is that of a ,frenchman1 ,andr ,basdevant1 who has proposed one with a four-lane highway and a two-track rail line4 ,this scheme would pretty much run along the old ,cap ,gris-,nez-,folkestone route of ,thom de ,gamond1 and it would even have1 like most of ,thom de ,gamond's schemes1 an artificial island in mid-channel on the ,varne4 ,as for the latest scheme for a laid1 rather than a bored1 tube1 it would be no different from ,thom de ,gamond's plan in #ahcd for a submerged tube1 and as in that old plan a trench would be dug1 by operations conducted at the surface1 across the ,channel bottom to receive the tube1 which would be prefabricated in sections and towed out to sea to be laid down in the trench a section at a time4 ,this time the digging of the trench would be carried out from a huge above-surface working platform1 something like an aircraft-carrier deck on sets of two-hundred-foot-high stilts1 that would jack itself up and move on across the ,channel as the work progressed4 ,from these and other surveys1 the ,study ,group concluded by ,march #aifj that the best means of linking ,britain and ,france would be by a rail tunnel1 either bored or immersed1 which1 while avoiding the difficult ventilation problems of a long road tunnel1 would make for convenient transport of cars and trucks by a piggyback system4 ,it further proposed that the tunnel be operated jointly by the ,british and ,french ,government-run railways under a long lease from an international company yet to be formed1 and that only the bare tunnel itself be privately financed1 with the ,british and ,french state-run railways providing the installations1 terminals1 and rolling stock at a cost of some twenty million pounds4 ,when ,d',erlanger announced the ,study ,group's proposals1 calling all the latest tunnel laborings a last glorious effort to get this through1 the ,british press received the news with big headlines on the front pages but with considerable indignation on its editorial pages4 ,the core of the objections was not of a military nature but had to do with the number of financial concessions that the tunnel people were asking from the ,british and ,french ,governments 7that is1 taxpayers7 as a basis for going ahead with the scheme4 ,the general attitude of the press was that the ,british ,government should have nothing to do with some of the financial concessions asked4 ,there were a good many references1 all very familiar to a reader of the press attacks during the tunnel uproar back in the eighties1 to promoters1 and the tone of editorial reaction was fairly well typified by a sarcastic article in ,the ,economist entitled ,pie ,under the ,sea4 ,and the ,times ran an editorial declaring snappily that1 as the proposals stood1 the light at the end of the tunnel would be either bright gold for the private owners of the #bj million of equity capital or ,bright ,red for the ,anglo-,french taxpayer4 ,then1 shortly afterward1 the tunnel came under public attack by ,eoin ,c4 ,mekie1 chairman of ,silver ,city ,airways1 which in the years since the ,second ,world ,war has ferried more than three hundred thousand cars and a million and a half passengers by air to and from the ,continent4 ,mekie denounced the tunnel scheme as commercial folly and described it as a feat of engineering which is already made obsolete by the speed of modern technical advances4 ,other attacks were made1 too1 from the enthusiasts over the future of ,hovercraft1 the heavier-than-air craft1 still in the experimental stage1 which ride on a cushion of air2 and from1 not unexpectedly1 ,channel shipping and ferry interests4 ,then ,viscount ,montgomery1 in a newspaper interview1 returned to the attack on the tunnel on the ground of its undermining what he called our island strategy4 ,he also observed in particular1 when asked about the feasibility of blowing the tunnel up in case of war or threatened war1 ,the lessons of history show that things that ought to be blown up never are1 as ,guy ,fawkes discovered4 ,and ,major-,general ,spears in the spring of #aifj gave fuller vent to his anti-tunnel views in a pamphlet that he wrote and had circulated privately4 ,its general tenor was set by ,general ,spears's assertion that the ,channel saved us in #aidj and may well save us again1 and that ,the ,british people need no tunnels4 ,and he asked1 ,who would have believed that in the last war the ,germans would not have destroyed the enormously important bridge over the ,rhine at ,remagen8 ,but they failed to do so4 ,to all such criticism as this1 the ,channel-tunnel people reacted not with the kind of broadsides that ,sir ,edward ,watkin would have let loose in the heyday of the ,channel-tunnel controversy but by hiring a public-relations outfit headed by a man called ,e4 ,d4 ,o',brien1 a former publicity director for the ,conservative party1 who is said to be known among his colleagues as ,champagne ,toby4 ,o',brien's champagne appears to be weaker stuff than ,sir ,edward ,watkin's2 the pro-tunnel publicity his outfit puts out seems to consist of things like a small booklet called ,channel ,tunnel1 the ,facts1 which an ,o',brien assistant has described as a sort of child's guide1 in ,q4 and ,a4 form1 you know1 about the tunnel4 ,as soon as the ,british press fell on the promoters for making the demands they did for ,government financial guarantees1 the promoters came up with a set of counter-proposals4 ,they offered to finance not only the tunnel itself but also the terminals and approaches on both sides2 they further proposed leasing the tunnel directly to the two governments1 thus avoiding the earlier requirement of governmental guarantee of the bonds4 ,when the subject of constructing a ,channel tunnel will come up for a decision one way or the other before the ,british ,cabinet and ,parliament again nobody seems willing to predict1 and what the ,cabinet will decide nobody seems willing to predict1 either4 ,however1 ,d',erlanger1 who says that he would consider another tunnel thumbs down by the ,british ,government or ,parliament a negation of progress1 is always happy to talk about the benefits a ,channel tunnel would confer upon ,europe4 ,you have fifty million people on this side of the ,channel and two hundred million plus on the ,continental side4 ,if you join them by a small hyphen1 ,i think it must facilitate trade on both sides1 he says4 ,i like to think of the tunnel as a kind of engagement ring that would bind ,britain's ,outer ,seven into a workable marriage with the six countries of the ,common ,market4 ,think of shipping goods from ,rome to ,birmingham or from ,edinburgh to ,bordeaux without breaking bulk1 and at half the cost6 ,it's high time ,europe had a manifestation of progress along the lines of the ,st4 ,lawrence ,seaway1 and ,i think a ,channel tunnel would be the great civil-engineering feat of the century for ,europe4 ,in the meantime1 with all the brave words1 and all the money poured into the project1 the ,channel ,tunnel ,company still has something of a phantom air about it4 ,it doesn't have a regular staff--,d',erlanger is a busy ,city banker--and it has no real office of its own4 ,d',erlanger's banking headquarters are at the investment house of which he is a partner1 ,philip ,hill1 ,higginson1 ,erlangers1 ,ltd41 along ,moorgate1 but no ,channel ,tunnel ,company records are kept there4 ,the nearest thing to a headquarters for the ,channel ,tunnel ,company is a set of ,victorian offices on ,broad ,street ,place1 in the ,city1 occupied by a firm of secretaries called ,w4 ,h4 ,stentiford ,co4 ,these offices are reached by a very ancient and slow ironwork-gate lift1 and a sign in the corridor shows that ,w4 ,h4 ,stentiford ,co4 is the representative of an astonishing variety of companies1 including the ,channel ,tunnel ,company1 ,ltd41 and a number of outfits with such exotic corporate names as the ,tea ,share ,trust1 ,ltd41 ,uruwira ,minerals1 ,ltd41 ,dominion ,keep 7,klerksdorp1 ,ltd471 and ,klerksdorp ,consolidated ,goldfields1 ,ltd4 ,inside1 amid a clutter of ticking clocks1 great ledgers1 old safes emblazoned with peeling coats of arms1 great piles of papers1 and trays of teacups1 a small staff of round-shouldered retainers toils away vicariously over the affairs of these far-flung organizations--making up accounts and annual or quarterly statements1 filling out and recording stock certificates1 answering letters1 and so on4 ,all this clerkly activity is presided over by an eminently respectable and precisely mannered man by the name of ,p4 ,s4 ,elliston1 who also arranges board meetings for his many client companies in a room set aside at ,stentiford's for the purpose4 ,mr4 ,elliston's organization took on the ,channel ,tunnel ,company in the early forties1 and all its annual meetings since #aidg have been held at ,stentiford's1 with ,mr4 ,elliston present in his capacity of representative of his firm of secretaries4 ,mr4 ,elliston finds things changed a bit from the time when the ,channel ,tunnel ,company first became one of his firm's clients4 ,in those old days1 he says1 the whole annual meeting could generally be disposed of in between five and ten minutes1 with only a couple of directors being present--,mr4 ,elliston having thoughtfully bought one share of ,channel ,tunnel ,company stock to enable himself to vote in case no other shareholder besides a couple of directors could be persuaded to turn up to make a quorum of three4 ,now1 he says1 it may sometimes take twenty-five minutes or even as long as forty-five minutes to transact necessary business4 ,as for ,channel ,tunnel ,company stock1 it has fluctuated all the way from sixpence to fifty shillings--its price one day in #aiei at a time when the company's balance sheet showed a cash balance of just #afa4 ,the price of the stock at the time this book was written was about twenty-two shillings1 and the company's cash in hand 7in #aifa it issued a little more stock to keep going7 was #ia1cea and a few shillings4 ,owing to the wartime destruction of its records and the difficulty of tracking down all the old transactions1 the ,channel ,tunnel ,company still doesn't know who all its stockholders are1 and1 conversely1 there are quite a few people scattered about who probably aren't aware that they are company stockholders4 ,mr4 ,elliston describes the last fifteen years or so of the company's history as containing several periods where there was very keen interest in the tunnel scheme1 especially in #aieg and #aieh1 with ,stentiford's being subjected1 he says1 to a persistent spate of enquiries1 including calls from newspaper reporters and letters from schoolboys asking why the tunnel was never built4 ,some time ago1 when ,i was in ,england1 ,i decided to take a trip down to the coast between ,folkestone and ,dover to the scene of the violent tunnel controversy of the eighties4 ,i had heard that the shaft of the old ,shakespeare ,cliff gallery in which ,sir ,edward ,watkin did so much of his promoting and entertaining1 as well as tunneling1 had been sealed off many years ago1 but ,i was aware that the ,abbots ,cliff gallery1 or part of it1 still existed4 ,through the good offices of ,leo d',erlanger and ,harold ,j4 ,b4 ,harding1 the vice-president of the ,institution of ,civil ,engineers1 who has directed many of the latest technical surveys on the proposed ,channel tunnel1 ,i arranged to go down one day from ,london to ,folkestone and to be taken into the old ,abbots ,cliff tunnel4 ,written permission had to be obtained from the ,government for the visit1 and the necessary arrangements had to be made well in advance with officials of ,british ,railways1 the present owner1 representing the ,crown1 of the coastal lands once the domain of ,sir ,edward ,watkin's ,south-,eastern ,railway ,company4 ,harding explained to me that since the tunnel entrance was kept locked up and lay in a not readily accessible part of the cliffs facing the sea1 it would be practical for me to make the visit only under fairly good weather conditions1 and then under the escort of people equipped with lamps and the means of opening up the tunnel entrance4 ,you may get a bit wet and a bit dirty1 so don't wear a good suit1 ,harding added1 and he went on to say that he had seen to it that ,i would be shown around the tunnel by a civil engineer named ,kenneth ,w4 ,adams1 from the district office of ,british ,railways at ,ashford1 ,kent--,adams being1 in ,harding's words1 a keen engineer who has become something of a hobbyist on the old tunnel workings4 ,wearing an old suit1 ,i duly took a train early one fair morning in autumn1 from ,charing ,cross1 and when ,i got off at ,folkestone ,central ,station1 ,adams1 a stocky1 cheerful man who seemed to be about forty1 was waiting for me4 ,he had a little car waiting outside the station1 and when he got into it1 he introduced me to an assistant sitting in the driver's seat named ,jack ,burgess4 ,jack's grandfather was a surface worker at the tunnel workings at ,shakespeare ,cliff1 ,adams said as ,burgess started the car up4 ,jack was just telling me that he remembers his grandfather telling him1 when he was a boy1 about ,lord ,palmerston coming down to visit the tunnel in #ahha4 ,the old chap remembered that the food that was brought into the tunnel for parties of visitors from the ,lord ,warden ,hotel at ,dover came in hay boxes--that is1 in big wicker boxes interlined with a thick layer of hay to keep the food warm4 ,burgess drove us through the outer part of ,folkestone toward the sea at a pretty good clip1 with the little car buzzing away like a high-speed sewing machine1 and in a very little time1 after climbing up a long1 gentle slope by the back of the cliffs1 we drew up on the heights of ,east ,cliff1 a kind of promontory within ,eastwear ,bay1 which lies to the north-east of ,folkestone ,harbor4 ,there1 in two broad curves to the left and right of us1 the precipitous face of the white chalk cliffs gleamed1 like huge ruined walls with grassed-over rubble piled about their base1 in hazy sunlight4 ,far below us1 and stretching away into the haze1 lay the ,channel1 gray and1 for the time being1 pretty calm4 ,a hundred feet or so from where our car stopped was a massive round stone tower1 its sides tapering in toward the top like a child's sand castle2 two similar towers lay some distance from us in the direction of ,folkestone4 ,these1 ,adams explained1 were ,martello towers1 formerly cannon-bearing fortifications that were installed in prominent places all along the ,dover-,folkestone coastal area during the invasion scares early in the nineteenth century to repel surprise landings by the troops of ,napoleon ,bonaparte4 7,the three ,martello towers comprised the main artillery defenses of ,folkestone ,harbor even as late in the century as the time of the great tunnel controversy in the eighties47 ,then he pointed to the cliffs stretching to the north-east4 ,you see that large white building on top of the cliff almost at the very end of the bay8 ,that's ,abbots ,cliff1 and the tunnel is at the base of it1 he said4 ,we'll take you down that way in a couple of minutes1 but first ,i'd like to show you something that may interest you4 ,we walked a short distance down a path by ,east ,cliff to a point where we could see1 as we couldn't previously1 the rail line that ran along the coast1 partly through rail tunnels piercing the cliffs1 and partly over the land that rose above their base4 ,then ,adams pointed out to me something jutting horizontally out of the chalk cliffs a little above and to the side of the railroad cutting4 ,it was a large and long-rusted collection of wheels1 gears1 and cams1 all compounded together into the shape of some fantastic ,dadaist engine4 ,what you see there is the remains of the last machine ever tried out for boring a ,channel tunnel1 ,adams said4 ,that's the ,whittaker boring machine1 an electrically driven affair1 powered by a steam-driven generator1 and it was tried out here after the ,first ,world ,war4 ,actually1 it was developed by the ,royal ,engineers for mining under the ,german lines1 and in #aiai ,sir ,percy ,tempest1 who was chief engineer of the ,south ,east ,chatham ,railway--an amalgamation of the ,south-,eastern ,railway and the ,london1 ,chatham ,dover ,railway1 which in turn1 by further amalgamation with other lines1 became the ,southern ,railway--thought it might do for the ,channel tunnel4 ,in #aiai he asked permission from the ,board of ,trade to drive a new heading from the old ,number ,three ventilating shaft at the eastern end of ,shakespeare ,cliff a little way under the foreshore1 and got it1 but he changed his mind and decided to try the machine in the chalk down here4 ,the ,whittaker machine cut a tunnel twelve feet in diameter1 and some time between #aiba and #aibd they drove a heading into the chalk1 just at the point where it's sticking out now1 for some four hundred feet4 ,they never quite removed the machine from the heading when they were finished1 but it was maintained right up to the outbreak of the ,second ,world ,war1 when it became derelict4 ,adams and ,i walked back to the car4 ,as we did so1 he revealed himself as being pro-tunnel4 ,it's a tragic thing1 this tunnel business1 ,i think4 ,if the tunnel had been built forty or fifty years ago1 just think of what an asset to ,europe it would have been1 he said4 ,we packed ourselves in1 and ,burgess drove us down a very rough1 narrow road to the level of the railroad line4 ,there1 by a maintenance shed1 a small1 thin workman was waiting for us4 ,he was wearing an old cloth peaked cap1 a white duffel coat1 and rubber knee boots1 and by his feet he had ready-lighted ,tilley lamps--similar in appearance to miners' lamps but operated by kerosene under pressure1 like a ,primus stove4 ,adams and ,burgess jumped out of the car1 and ,burgess unlocked and opened up the rear trunk4 ,i got out of the car1 too4 ,then the workman1 whom ,adams addressed as ,jim1 disappeared briefly into the shed and came out with a pile of knee boots1 which he began flinging into the car trunk4 ,we'll be needing these1 ,adams remarked to me4 ,next ,jim brought out an enormous wrench1 at least two feet long1 and slung that on top of the protesting rubber boots1 and then he came up with an armful of duffel coats1 which he handed around4 ,we put them on and all of us got into the car2 the little workman wordlessly1 with a wide gaptoothed grin1 squeezed into the back seat with me and settled back with the two big lighted ,tilley lamps on his lap4 ,the lamps gave off a gentle roaring sound1 like subdued blowtorches1 and they gave off heat that warmed the whole back of the car4 ,we drove off down a narrow1 steep1 tortuously winding1 and very rugged road1 through a kind of wilderness of concrete rubble and piles of old heavy wooden construction beams1 toward the base of the cliffs1 and when we finally got there1 we continued along the wide top of a concrete sea wall for a considerable distance until the wall suddenly narrowed and the car could go no farther4 ,we all got out1 and ,adams1 ,burgess1 and ,i took off our shoes and put on the knee boots that ,burgess got out of the trunk2 and1 with ,jim and ,burgess leading the way and bearing between them the glowing ,tilley lamps and the giant wrench1 we continued on foot along the sea wall1 now as narrow as the sidewalk of a small city street4 ,the chalk cliffs towered perhaps a couple of hundred feet above us4 ,the tunnel is about three-quarters of a mile ahead along the sea wall1 ,adams remarked as he walked beside me1 and as we went along he explained that his primary job at ,british ,railways was the design of sea defenses between ,folkestone and ,dover to combat erosion4 ,it's a good job you didn't pick a later time in the year to visit the tunnel1 he went on4 ,this sea wall would hardly be negotiable on foot when the water's rough1 and in winter1 with the sou'westers blowing in especially1 we have some real shockers4 ,after another fifteen minutes or so of walking along an area where the cliffs rose back beyond a sort of terrace formed by old landslides--the railway line ran along this terrace in the open--,adams told me that the tunnel entrance was not far off4 ,a few hundred feet farther on1 we finally reached it--a small recessed place in the grassy rubble at the base of the cliff terrace and1 set into it1 a four-foot-square door of rough1 thick wood encased by a frame of very old and very heavy timbers4 ,the door was hinged with heavy gate hinges and secured not by a padlock but by a very large metal nut1 which ,jim now attacked with his great wrench4 ,as he wrestled with it1 ,adams1 smiling1 remarked that the entrance wasn't a very big one1 considering the size of the ,channel-tunnel project4 ,i once brought a ,canadian executive1 a rather impressive-looking fellow1 down here by request1 in '#eg1 ,i think it was1 he recalled4 ,it seemed very important to him to inspect the entrance to the tunnel4 ,when ,i took him along the sea wall and showed him this entrance1 he took a look at it and just burst out laughing4 ,i asked him what was up4 ,he went on laughing1 and finally he told me why4 ,he said he was employed by a large ,american oil company1 and that his company had sent him over here to spy out the possibility of buying up land for filling stations near the entrance to the proposed ,channel tunnel4 ,actually1 of course1 nobody knows precisely where a new tunnel would come out on the ,english side1 and it would be very doubtful whether they would make use of any of the old workings4 ,the little workman unloosened the nut1 and1 with various groans and creaks1 the door to the tunnel allowed itself to be pulled and shouldered open4 ,then1 one by one1 we stooped down and entered the tunnel through the small opening4 ,when my eyes adjusted themselves from the light of day to the light of the ,tilley lamps we had brought with us1 ,i found that we were standing in a square-timbered heading perhaps six feet high and about the same in width4 ,the floor1 like the roof1 was timbered1 and from the roof1 as well as from parts of the sides of the heading1 a pale fungus growth drooped down4 ,the atmosphere was pretty dank4 ,just inside the entrance1 either hanging from big rough nails protruding from the wooden walls or lying to one side on the floor1 there was a clutter of various objects--rusty chains1 augers1 lengths of decaying rope1 candles1 and a couple of lobster pots1 the presence of which ,adams explained to me4 ,they get washed up from time to time1 and our lads1 when they find them1 put them in here for safekeeping1 he said4 ,slowly we made our way into the tunnel4 ,there was room for a set of narrow-gauge rail tracks1 but most of the thin rails had been torn up1 and a number of them lay piled to our right by the wall4 ,on the left1 untracked and abandoned1 lay one of the rail trolleys that obviously had been used for hauling out spoil4 ,the little rusted wheels on which it rested were of clearly ,victorian design1 with spokes elaborately arranged in curlicued fashion4 ,this is the access heading we're in1 ,adams told me as we found our way along1 heads down4 ,the chalk carted out from the ,beaumont boring machine was taken through here and dumped right into the sea outside the entrance4 ,but this access heading wasn't the first to be built2 it was dug by hand from the direction in which we're going1 from the bottom of a vertical shaft sunk from the level of the ,south-,eastern ,railway line seventy-four feet up above this concrete lining we're coming to now4 ,as you see-- ,adams took a ,tilley lamp from ,burgess and flashed it on the roof of the concrete lining--the shaft has been closed up long ago4 ,now we'll go on4 ,this first stretch is taking us in a northerly direction4 ,after going a short distance1 we came to another concrete lining4 ,this1 ,adams said1 was to reinforce the tunnel at the point where it passed underneath the railway line4 ,we went on again1 this time walking on a dirt floor1 and then we came to a timbered junction1 from which the tunnel branched off again to the right in the north-east direction that was originally intended to bring it into line with the gallery at ,shakespeare ,cliff1 while to the left there was a low-roofed chamber that probably once housed a siding and a maintenance workshop for the ,beaumont boring machine4 ,then1 walking now on half-rotted planks1 in the warm light of the restlessly moving ,tilley lamps1 we entered the circular1 unlined tunnel of ,lower ,chalk--a smooth1 light-gray cavern1 seven feet in diameter1 that stretched far ahead to disappear into darkness4 ,our footing was slippery1 and a small stream of water ran in the direction from which we had come in a rough gutter cut in the chalk1 but the tunnel at this point seemed surprisingly dry for a hole that had lain unlined for some eighty years1 and the stream of water draining away didn't seem to me to be really any greater than the one in the ,orangeburg pipe that drains seepage from under the cellar of my summer house in ,connecticut4 ,we had gone only a little way along the chalk tunnel when ,adams1 walking ahead of me1 began flashing his light along the wall and then stopped and motioned me to come and look at the spot where he had focused his lamp4 ,i did so and saw1 cut into the chalk in crude lettering1 the following inscription3 ,,this ,,tunnel ,,was ,,bugn ,,in #ahhj ,,william ,,sharp ,however1 this was not exactly how the inscription went1 for its author1 after finishing it1 obviously had decided that ,,bugn didn't look right1 and1 being unable to erase the incision1 he had had another go at it1 inscribing the second try to one side and partly over the first1 so that the intended begun now came out like ,,begubnugn4 ,but with all the crudeness of the inscription1 the author had been careful with the lettering1 even to point of conscientiously incising serifs on the ,ts and ,es4 ,while the light played about the inscription1 ,i could see clearly1 on the tunnel face1 the ringlike marks left by individual revolutions of the cutting head of the ,beaumont boring machine4 ,after a few moments we moved on again1 and eventually1 after trudging over ground that became increasingly slippery1 we came to a point where some of the chalk had given way1 filling the tunnel about a quarter of the way up with debris4 ,adams said that the going got a bit better later on but that we were likely to find ourselves in water over our knee boots if we went any farther4 ,at that point1 impressed with the sight of all the fallen rock about and by the realization that we were in a seven-foot hole at least a quarter of a mile inside a huge cliff on a deserted stretch of coast1 ,i felt as though ,i had seen enough4 ,i suddenly realized what a smart idea ,sir ,edward ,watkin had had in providing visitors with that champagne lift while they were well under the sea4 ,so we turned back again and slowly1 in silence1 made our way out of ,sir ,edward's first tunnel4 ,when ,i stepped through the tunnel entrance into the light1 it seemed very noisy outside4 ,sea gulls were shrieking overhead1 and the ,channel waves were roaring and heaving insistently4 ,i had a slight headache1 and ,i mentioned this to ,adams4 ,oh1 yes1 ,i have the same thing1 he said4 ,although the air in the tunnel is remarkably fresh1 considering the length of time it's been locked up and the fact that there's only one entrance1 there isn't quite as much oxygen in it as one might want4 ,jim began to lock up the entrance again1 and while he was doing so1 ,adams suggested that we might see if we could spot the entrance shaft on the plateau above us4 ,we climbed up the cliffside1 and after a while we located it1 a filled-in depression resting in a mass of bramble bushes4 ,we waded through the bushes and stood over the remains of ,number ,one shaft1 still feeling a bit headachy4 ,as we stood there1 we picked and ate a few blackberries still left on the bushes from summer4 ,they're quite good1 ,adams said4 ,after we had had some lunch in ,folkestone1 ,adams suggested that before ,i went back to ,london ,i might want to take a look at the site of the old ,number ,two shaft and the main tunnel at ,shakespeare ,cliff1 even though the ,number ,two shaft and the ,number ,three ventilating shaft had been long ago closed up4 ,i was agreeable to that1 and ,burgess drove us1 by way of ,dover1 to a point along a back road1 from which we could walk to the top of ,shakespeare ,cliff from the land side4 ,while ,burgess stayed in the little car1 ,adams and ,i set off up a long slope to the cliff head1 walking along the edge of a harrowed field1 the soil of which seemed to be riddled with the kind of large flints typical of the ,upper ,chalk layer4 ,on the way up1 ,adams told me what had happened to the main tunnel and shaft after the workings were finally stopped by the ,board of ,trade4 ,everything stopped dead at the tunnel workings until #ahib1 ,adams said4 ,by then1 ,sir ,edward ,watkin knew he was beaten on the ,channel tunnel1 so he tried a different kind of tunneling1 and the ,south-,eastern ,railway engineers began boring for coal a matter of a few yards away from the tunnel shaft4 ,they went down to #b1bbb feet with their boring1 at which level they met a four-foot seam of good-quality coal1 and the company obtained authority by an act of ,parliament to mine for coal under the foreshore4 ,as for the ,channel-tunnel shaft itself1 it was abandoned in #aijb and filled up with breeze--ashes and slag--from the colliery1 and the ,number ,three ventilation shaft at the eastern end of ,shakespeare ,cliff was also filled with breeze in the same year4 ,but the colliery never paid off any better than the tunnel project4 ,it ran into trouble around #aijg or #aijh1 and then the owners decided they'd have a try at getting iron ore out of the workings1 and so all the mineral mining rights were bought by the ,channel ,steel ,company1 but the iron mining didn't prosper any more than the coal mining4 ,the ,channel ,steel ,company went into voluntary liquidation in #aieb1 and all the mining rights passed to the original freeholders1 who are now the ,british ,government4 ,adams and ,i climbed over a wooden fence stile1 and after a couple of more minutes of uphill walking we arrived at the top of ,shakespeare ,cliff4 ,we approached to a point near the edge and kneeled in the tall grass1 buffeted by a strong afternoon wind that struck us squarely in the face4 ,it was a magnificent view4 ,the ,channel lay very far below us1 and although ,i could not see the coast of ,france because of the haze--,adams said that on a fine day anybody could see clearly the clock tower outside ,boulogne--,i could see shipping scudding along in whitecaps in the middle of the ,strait4 ,to the left of us1 not far away1 lay the ,admiralty ,pier at ,dover1 the one that once had the great gun which the ,illustrated ,london ,news had imaginatively depicted in the act of blowing the tunnel entrance to pieces at the first sign of a ,french invasion of ,england through the tunnel4 ,then1 on hands and knees1 we crawled against the pommeling wind to the very edge of the cliff1 and lying on our stomachs peered straight down upon the site of the ,shakespeare ,cliff tunnel4 ,i still had traces of the headache ,i had picked up while creeping around in the depths of the ,abbots ,cliff tunnel and it was a dizzying change for me now to peer three hundred feet down a sheer cliff face1 but it was worth it1 even though there was nothing so startling to see4 ,far below us lay a plateau with a couple of railway sidings on it4 ,there were no buildings about1 and certainly nothing that resembled any trace of a mine entrance4 ,british ,railways had to build a sea wall around the whole ,shakespeare ,cliff area a few years ago because of the erosion from the ,channel1 and when we were doing that we cleaned out all the old mine workings1 ,adams said4 ,one of the last buildings to go was a shed that the old custodian of the works used to live in4 ,his name was ,charlie ,gatehouse4 ,he died about ten years ago at the age of ninety4 ,he had worked as a timberman on both the ,abbots ,cliff and ,shakespeare ,cliff tunnels1 and he took up the first sod when they dug the shaft down here4 ,he used to tell about how one day ,mr4 ,gladstone came down into the tunnel4 ,then ,adams pointed out to me exactly where the entrance to ,number ,two shaft had been4 ,it lay by the third rain puddle to the left near one of the sidings4 ,i enjoyed the thought of having its location fixed in my mind1 and ,i believe ,mr4 ,adams did1 too4 ,we gazed down silently4 ,just imagine1 if the ,board of ,trade hadn't stopped the works1 a man might have been able to go right on to ,vladivostock without getting out of his train1 ,adams said after a while4 ,and he added earnestly1 ,but ,i think they'll build the tunnel yet4 ,since my visit to the tunnel1 the tendency of events has been to reinforce the brave hopes of ,adams and his fellow pro-tunnelers4 ,to be sure1 while even the most dedicated of tunnel promoters may be prone to his black moments while pondering the nature and the effects of traditional ,british insularity--one of the most distinguished1 ,sir ,ivone ,kirkpatrick1 the president of the ,tunnel ,study ,group1 a while ago observed with some touch of bitterness that it seemed as though men may be flying to the moon before ,britons can make a reasonable surface journey to ,paris--,britain's decision to seek full membership in the ,european ,common ,market1 and the agreement of the ,french and ,british ,governments to hold official talks on the construction of either a tunnel or a bridge across the ,channel1 have given the pro-tunnelers more solid reason for hope than perhaps has ever existed in the ranks of these visionaries in a century and a half4 ,in the past1 it was never possible for proponents of the tunnel to advance their cause with any success so long as their advocacy was not based on the prior existence of any profound change in ,britain's traditional economic and strategic special and separate place in ,europe1 or of any change in the peculiar ,british sense of being an island people apart4 ,but now such changes have taken place1 or are in the process of taking place4 ,britain's strategic position has been profoundly altered by the advent of nuclear and rocket armaments4 ,her political and economic position has been as profoundly altered by the withering away of the ,british ,empire and by the successful emergence of a new ,european commonwealth in the form of the ,common ,market4 ,and the ancient ,british sense of being an island race apart seems to have been steadily eroded by a strange kind of rootlessness1 partly arising out of ,britain's altered place in the world1 and as a general accompaniment of the intrusion of such uninsular influences as the jet airplane1 commercial television1 high-powered advertising1 expense-account living1 and the spread of installment buying4 ,notwithstanding all her misgivings on the subject of committing herself to abandonment of her ancient aloofness from the ,continent1 ,britain can hardly ignore the implications of the relentless march of that process once described by the ,duke of ,wellington over a century ago in the heyday of the sailing ship1 when he observed that ,britain and the ,continent were rapidly becoming joined by an isthmus of steam4 ,now that so many of the conditions that have made for ,england's traditional economic1 military1 and cultural insularity have gradually subsided1 like the ancient ,wealden ,island that once lay in what is now the ,strait of ,dover1 the question of connecting ,britain physically to the ,continent is at last in the realm of practical political possibility4 ,in spite of all her misgivings about the abandonment of her privileged relationships with the countries of the ,british ,commonwealth1 it seems as though ,britain has no choice ahead but to throw in her lot with the ,common ,market1 which has proved itself to be such an astonishing success in its four years of existence4 ,since #aieh1 when the special trade arrangements between the countries of the ,european ,economic ,community went into effect1 up to #aifj1 their industrial production increased by #bb per cent1 while ,britain's industrial production increased only #aa per cent4 ,and it has been estimated that by #aigj the ,gross ,national ,product of the ,common ,market countries will double that of #aifa4 ,this estimate does not take into account ,britain's joining the ,common ,market1 either2 when she does so1 as it seems she must1 the ,common ,market boom will be a spectacular one2 the member countries will then be serving a market of more than #bjj million people4 ,precisely what ,britain's entry into the ,common ,market would mean in terms of increased commercial intercourse between ,britain and the ,continent no one knows1 but the increase plainly would be enormous1 and considering this potentiality1 proponents of the ,channel tunnel are not backward in claiming that ,britain's present cross-,channel transportation facilities are grossly inadequate to meet the demands ahead4 ,they are even inadequate1 the pro-tunnelers claim1 for coping with ,britain's present needs4 ,as things stand1 some #h million passengers and about #djj1jjj vehicles cross the ,channel in a year4 ,of these1 #c4c million passengers and about #ajj1jjj vehicles go by air4 ,most of this traffic crisscrosses the ,channel in the four peak summer months and results in severe bottlenecks in the existing means of communication4 7,a motorist who wishes to take his car abroad either by air or sea-ferry during the peak season must book a passage some months ahead of time1 and if he can't make it on the assigned date he runs the risk1 as one of the tunnel promoters has put it1 of being marooned on this island for several more months47 ,even without taking into account ,britain's probable entry into the ,common ,market1 the number of vehicles crossing ,britain and the ,continent probably will double itself by #aife4 ,the ,channel ,tunnel ,study ,group people claim that neither the existing air nor sea-ferry services are equipped to handle anything like this potential load4 ,they estimate that without construction of a tunnel1 the ,british and ,french ,governments1 through their nationalized rail and air lines1 will be obliged to spend some #ij1jjj1jjj in the next five years to replace or expand existing transport facilities if they are to keep up with the increase in cross-,channel traffic expected in that time without ,britain's participation in the ,common ,market4 ,as for the capacity of the tunnel1 the promoters claim that all the road vehicles that crossed the ,channel in #aifj could easily be carried through the tunnel in three or four days4 ,as for the transporting of merchandise1 #aa1jjj1jjj tons of it are now being moved across the ,channel in a year1 most of this in bulk form--coal1 for example--which it would not be practical to send through a tunnel4 ,but of this freight1 well over a million tons of nonbulk goods could1 the ,study ,group declares1 be sent by tunnel1 and at about half the rates now prevailing4 ,taking into account such economic advantages1 the great boon to tourism that they believe a tunnel would represent1 and the intangible psychological impetus that they claim a fixed link between ,france and ,britain would give to the dream of a politically as well as economically united ,europe1 the pro-tunnelers believe that the construction of their railway under the ,channel would be just about the greatest thing to happen to ,britain in this century4 ,the ,channel ,tunnel ,study ,group people1 as it turned out late last year1 are not alone in their ambitions for a physical connection between ,france and ,britain4 ,last fall1 when the ,french and ,british ,governments decided--on ,british initiative--to negotiate with each other on a fixed connection between the two countries1 it became clear that a dark horse had been entered in the ,channel sweepstakes with the publicizing of the new proposal for a cross-,channel bridge made by a new ,french company that is headed by ,jules ,moch1 a former ,french ,minister of ,interior4 ,the bridge proposed by the new ,french company would be a multipurpose affair of steel capable of carrying not only two railroad lines but five lanes of motor traffic and even two bicycle tracks4 ,it would extend between ,dover and a point near ,calais4 ,its width would be #aae feet and its height #bcj feet1 allowing 7as the ,tunnel ,study ,group's proposed bridge scheme would7 ample clearance for the largest ocean liners afloat4 ,its length would be #ba miles2 it would rest on #afd concrete piles #fe feet in diameter and sunk #ffj feet apart4 ,motorists would travel along it1 without any speed limit1 at a peak rate of #e1jjj vehicles an hour1 and an average toll of about #bb4ej per car4 ,the bridge would take between four and six years to construct1 and as for the cost1 that would run to about #fcj1jjj1jjj--or #bff1jjj1jjj more than the estimated cost of a rail tunnel4 ,despite some backing that the new ,french bridge group appears to have established for its scheme among ,french commercial circles1 the chances are that the ,british ,government1 as representatives of a maritime nation1 will have a number of objections to this plan for spanning the ,channel4 ,a principal objection--a technical one that has confounded all the ,channel bridge planners from ,thom de ,gamond's day onward--is the hazard to navigation within the ,strait of ,dover that a bridge would create4 ,the ,english ,channel is one of the most heavily trafficked sea lanes in the world1 and considering the violent state of wind and sea within the ,strait of ,dover for much of the year--as well as the heavy ,channel fogs--insuring safe passage between the piers of such a bridge for all the thousands of ships that pass through the ,strait every year1 in all weathers1 would pose formidable problems even in the era of radar4 ,also1 the ,channel-tunnel advocates1 who already have considered a bridge and pretty much rejected the idea because of its high cost1 point to other difficulties standing in the way of the bridge idea--for example1 the requirements of international law1 which would make necessary a special treaty signed by all countries 7including ,russia7 presently sending ships through the ,channel before such an obstruction to navigation could be constructed2 the difficulties1 with all the bad weather1 of keeping such an enormous structure in good repair2 and the dangers of ,channel gales to light ,european cars traversing the bridge4 7,the ,french bridge advocates claim that they could reduce the winds buffeting traffic to a quarter of their intensity by installing deflectors on the sides of the traffic lanes2 to this the tunnel advocates counter that boxing cars in traffic lanes for some twenty-one miles would create a psychological sense of confinement that drivers would find far more intimidating than riding on a train under the sea47 ,but the main objection to the bridge is its cost4 ,it could only be built with the help of substantial government subsidies1 and the experience of the pro-tunnelers is that such subsidies are almost impossible to obtain4 ,whatever the merits of the two schemes1 they are certain to be considered in quite a different atmosphere now than they were back in the seventies1 when1 according to the observations that ,sir ,garnet ,wolseley subsequently made to ,sir ,archibald ,alison's scientific committee that investigated the tunnel question1 the tunnel scheme was 444 looked upon as fanciful and unfeasible4 ,it was not then regarded as having entered within the zone or scope of practical undertakings4 ,no one believed that it would ever be made and1 if mentioned1 it always raised a smile1 as does now any reference to flying machines as substitutes for railways4 ,on ,august #bh1 #aifa1 things somehow seemed to come full circle when the ,london ,times1 which had started all the opposition in the press to the tunnel eighty years earlier1 devoted a leading editorial to discussion of the subject of a fixed connection between ,france and ,britain4 ,the ,times started out in familiar fashion for a tunnel editorial by quoting from ,shakespeare's ,this royal throne speech1 but then it went on to concede in stately fashion that times had changed and that ,britain must soon decide whether to leap over the wall1 to become a part of ,europe4 ,the ,times discussed the merits of the latest tunnel and bridge schemes in tones of expository reasonableness1 without committing itself to either one scheme or the other1 and without accusing the would-be moat-crossers1 as of old1 of flaunting the will of ,providence4 ,and the ,times wound up its editorial on a meaningful note by observing1 in reference to the quotations with which the editorial had been prefaced1 that while ,shakespeare had the first words1 ,john ,donne deserved the last3 ,no man is an island1 entire of itself4 ,to which all the tunnel dreamers1 after all their years of adversity in the face of the insular ,british character1 reasonably can say ,amen4 ,about the ,author ,,thomas ,,whiteside was born in ,england in #aiah at ,berwick-upon-,tweed1 on the ,scottish border4 ,after working as a newspaperman in ,canada1 he came to this country in #aidj4 ,he is a ,united ,states citizen4 ,after wartime service with the ,office of ,war ,information1 he worked as a reporter for ,the ,new ,republic1 and for some years he has been a writer for ,the ,new ,yorker4 ,mr4 ,whiteside is married to a ,french-born wife and has three children4 ,they live in ,greenwich ,village4 ,he is the author of ,the ,relaxed ,sell1 published in #aied4