CANAL UNDER HILLS

Hokitika Guardian, 17 January 1927, Page 4

CANAL UNDER HILLS

TUNNEL, FIVE MILES LONG, THAT COST £12.500,000. (By H. G. Cardozo.) Marseilles, nov. 10. The longest canal tunnel in the world —that which connects Marseilles with the Rhone canal, passing under the Rove hills—has just been tjbened for 'navigation. It measures just under five miles in length : and is 70ft broad with a navigable breadth of ,50ft. I passed through the great canal, which is lit with electricity, in a motor-boat which took three-quarters of an hour to complete the underground portion of its journey. Driven in a perfectly straight line, with not a foot difference anywhere in height or breadth, it is possible to see. from the Marseilles end of the canal, the faint glimmer of sunlight in a half-moon shape from the exit in the famous Etang de Berre. Fifty years ago. with the ided of obviating as far as possible the breakage of freight, tlieye was mooted the idea of using the Rhone and its canal to link with the interior of France so that heavy barges of at least 1,200 tons burden could carry imported Taw materials to the factories.

The great difficulty was the problem of boring the great Hove tunnel so as to secure immediate communication between .Marseilles and the Etang de Bene. This was tackled in 1911, when it was estimated that the work would cost £4,000,000. Actually £25,000,000 has been spent, of which one-half was incurred for the Hove tunnel.

The piercing of the tunnel and the deepening of its approaches have just been completed after 15 years.

Three thousand men. mostly Italians, were engaged in digging the huge trenches leading to the tunnel and in boring the tunnel itself. The magnitude of the task can be realised when it is known that the quantity of'earth and rocks that had to ho parted away was twice as great as that displaced by the railway tunnel under the Simplon Pass, which is nearly three times as long, Muny surprises awaited the engineers. ’ Rock strata were found where it was thought there would, be clay, and in the middle of the tunnel, where it was thought Hint rock would bo found, the boring machines struck a patch of loose earth percolated with water which washed them all away. The underground stream poured out at the rate of 81,000 cubic feet per hour, tearing down the hanks of the tunnel and carrying machinery and cement walls away 'as if they had been of straw. Fresh approach works had to be constructed and the water carried off to the nearest outlet beforo the tunnel could be continued.And now that the Rove tunnel is complete and opened to navigation the Marseilles Chamber of Commerce lias set itself to improve in the Etang de Bon o and in the Rhone Canal the locks and waterwav so that direct communication dm he made from Marseilles to Lyons, and ultimately farther, lor hcavv sea-going barges.

One of the lakes, the Etang de Bolmon, is to he filled in except for the 80ft canal way so as to provide room for transhipment (plays and lor factories. Already a number of soap and oil factories have been installed along the track of the canal. The Rove tunnel not only opens the centre of France to sea-borne goods arriving at Marseilles, hut allows them to reach Switzerland via Geneva, and Alsace and Germany via Mulhouso. The latter town, for instance, is by the new waterway only 490 miles irdm the sea. at Marseilles, while it is 510 miles from the sen at Rotterdam. Similarly the industrial regions of the centre of France around Clmloiis-sur-S tone arc iiow nearer the sea at Mnrsei'les than they are to the ports of Rouen or Dunkirk.

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