THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1100, 15 July 1882, Page 4

THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.

What most astonishes those who visit the boring for the Channel Tunnel is (says the Pall Mall Budget,') first tho complete dryness of tho rock, and, Kcondly, the marvellous ventilation of the long and narrow tunnel (it is Only 7 feet iu diameter), which extends now 1100 yards under the sea, and which as wo are promised, will by Efciter bo fully a mile long. The air

at the head of the boring is far purer and pleasanter to breathe than the air of any London street, and the reason is obvious. It is, in fact the very healthiest sea breeze caught below Shakespeare’s Cliff, and, after compression, conducted thence in a fiveinch iron pipe to the boring machine 1,100 yards off ; there as the machine works, the air escapes —not with a sudded rush and fierce blast, as we remember to have seen it during the Mont Cenis Tunnel, but in the most inoffensive and even agreeable manner. If Colonel Beaumont is right in his belief that the locomotives worked by compressed air, and not exceeding in bulk or weight the ordinary steam locomotives on our railways, will ventilate with equal success the competed tuunel, one of the most difficult problems in connection with the question may be considered to be solved.