THE LONGEST TUNNEL.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 4924, 11 January 1926, Page 2

THE LONGEST TUNNEL.

MOVING A RIVER 45 MILES. PROVISION OF ELECTRIC POWER. A gigantic engineering enterprise, which the American engineers claim to be an even bigger undertaking than the building of the Panama Canal, is now going on.

To provide electricajl power for the farms and cities of California. the Southern California Edison Company is driving a series of tunnels 86 mil,Os long, and costing about near the summit of the lofty Kaiser Range.

The San Joaquin River and Big. Creek are to be diverted from their courses, and their waters stored in twtilve reservoirs able to hold 734,000! acres a, foot deep ; and from these the water is to be dropped down the mountains through a, chain of 19 power stations, which will be able to. generate 1,400,000 hofse-power of electricity.

The Florence Lake tunnel, the firstpart of this tremendous task, has been practically completed: it has employed 1700 men for four years. It is the longest tunnel in the world (14 miles) and will divert the San Joaquin River 45 miles from its course. The tunnel has been driven through ■ a, mountain of granite 9000 feet above the plains, and the tunnellere have spent long winters, shut in by snowdrifts.