FOR ENGLISH CHANNEL

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 37, 13 February 1930, Page 24

FOR ENGLISH CHANNEL

NOVEL TUBE PLANNED Bridging the English Channel, a per ennial. problem among inventors and marine engineers, who have produced innumerable schemes for its accomplish ment, 'is given a new solution by a French inventor, who would construct a tube across the straits between the surface and the channel bed, writes the Paris correspondent of the San Fran cisco "Chronicle." The inventor is M. Prevost de Saint Cyr, whose idea has the unusual attrac tion that all parts of the submerged tube can be put in place from the surface. In. its ensemble, this new invention is constituted by a tube made of rein forced concrete, reposing upon pillars of stone upon, the two shores, and also in the sea all the wayacross the straits This tube is then lowered into the water to a depth of twenty metres, leaving the space entirely free for navigation, while the space underneath will give free passage for marine currents and the migrations of fish. The tube proper is constructed in sections that are 900 tc 1500 feet long AU this work is done on the shore without resorting to a dry dock. Once put in place, the sections are joined together provisionally by tight-fitting couplings and then, within the tube is constructed the definite partition wall of reinforced concrete, which makes of it all a veritable monolith. The inventor thinks that he has worked out several important departures from previous methods in marine engineering while working on the scheme that makes it entirely feasible