CHANNEL TUNNEL.

Patea Mail, 13 November 1880, Page 4

CHANNEL TUNNEL.

The following information with regard to the Channel tunnel is from the report of the directors of the South-Eastern Railway: “The experiments made by the French engineers, after great pains and trouble, tend to show that the geological measures arc not oifly in the same position, but are of the same thickness on the same side of the channel, and that the stratum known as 1 old grey clialk ’ in England, and ‘ crai-dc Rouen’ in Franco, is impervious to water, and is without lissurcs. These arc the foundation facts in this interesting question, for if a tunnel can be made without pumping or timbering, and entirely from side to side, through the grey chalk, than an apparently formidable and even hopeless work becomes matter of close calculation. As the researches of the French engineers confirm the view for years past taken on your behalf—viz., that the proper point of departure for any future tunnel is at the outcrop of the grey chalk on the SouthEastern line, between Folkestone and Dover, and not at St Margaret’s Bay to 1 lie cast of Dover, where the grey chalk, dipping to the northward, dose not crop out—your directors have deemed it advisable to make arrangements for a series of important experiments, which, so far, have shown favourable results, and further proceedings will from time to time be reported to you. ”