hills in a manner strictly analogous to the ordinary method of executing a tunnel by sinking shafts at intervals and driving headings therefrom. Many rivers find thus a course underground. In Asia Minor one of the rivers on the route of the Mersina railway extension pierces a hill by means of a natural tunnel, whilst a little south at Seleucia another river flows through a tunnel, 20 ft. wide and 23 ft. high, cut 1600 years ago through rock so hard that the chisel marks are still discernible. The Mammoth Cave of Kentucky and the Peak caves of Derbyshire are examples of natural tunnelling. Mineral springs bring up vast quantities of matter in solution. It has been estimated that the Old Well Spring at Bath has discharged since the beginning of the 19th century solids equivalent to the excavation of a 6 ft. by 3 ft. heading 9 m. long; and yet the water is perfectly clear and the daily flow is only the 150th part of that pumped out of the great railway tunnel under the Severn. Tunnelling is also carried on to an enormous extent by the action of the sea. Where the Atlantic rollers break on the west coast of Ireland, or on the seaboard of the western Highlands of Scotland, numberless caves and tunnels have been formed in the cliffs, beside which artificial tunnelling operations appear insignificant. The most gigantic sub aqueous demolition hitherto carried out by man was the blowing up in 1885 of Flood Rock, a mass about 9 acres in extent, near Long Island Sound, New York. To effect this gigantic work by a single instantaneous blast a shaft was sunk 64 ft. below sea-level, from the bottom of which 4 m. of tunnels or galleries were driven so as to completely honeycomb the rock. The roof rock ranged from 10 ft. to 24 ft. in thickness, and was supported by 467 pillars 15 ft. square; 13,286 holes, averaging 9 ft. in length and 3 ins. in diameter, were drilled in the pillars and roof. About 80,000 cub. yds. of rock were excavated in the galleries and 275,000 remained to be blasted away. The holes were charged with 110 tons of “rackarock,” a more powerful explosive than gunpowder, which was fired by electricity, when the sea was lifted 100 ft. over the whole area of the rock. Where natural forces effect analogous results, the holes are bored and the headings driven by the chemical and mechanical action of the rain and sea, and the explosive force is obtained by the expansive action of air locked up in the fissures of the rock and compressed to many tons per square foot by impact from the waves. Artificial breakwaters have often been thus tunnelled into by the sea, the compressed air blowing out the blocks and the waves carrying away the débris.
With so many examples of natural caves and tunnels in existence it is not to be wondered at that tunnelling was one of the earliest Works undertaken by man, first for dwellings and tombs, then for quarrying and mining, and finally for water-supply, drainage, and other requirements of civilization. A Theban king on ascending the throne began at once to drive the tunnel which was to form his final resting-place, and persevered with the work until death. The tomb of Mineptah at Thebes was driven at a slope for a distance of 350 ft. into the hill, when a shaft was sunk and the tunnel projected a farther length of about 300 ft., and enlarged into a chamber for the sarcophagus. Tunnelling on a large scale was also carried on at the rock temples of Nubia and of India, and the architectural features of the entrances to some of these temples might be studied with advantage by the designers of modern tunnel fronts. Flinders Petrie has traced the method of underground quarrying followed by the Egyptians opposite the Pyramids. Parallel galleries about 20 ft. square were driven into the rock and cross galleries cut, so that a hall 300 to 400 ft. wide was formed, with a roof supported by rows of pillars 20 ft. square and 20 ft. apart. Blocks of stone were removed by the workmen cutting grooves all round them, and, where the stone was not required for use, but merely had to be removed to form a gallery, the grooves were wide enough for a man to stand up in. Where granite, diorite and other hard stone had to be cut the work was done by tube drills and by saws supplied with corundum, or other hard gritty material, and water-the drills leaving a core of rock exactly like that of the modern diamond drill. As instances of ancient tunnels through soft ground and requiring masonry arching, reference may be made to the vaulted drain under the south-east palace of Nimrod and to the brick arched tunnel, 12 ft. high and 15 ft. wide, under the Euphrates. In Algeria, Switzerland, and wherever the Romans Went, 'remains of tunnels for roads, drains and Water-supply are found. Pliny refers to the tunnel constructed for the drainage of Lake Fucino as the greatest public work of the time. It was by far the longest tunnel in the world, being more than m. in length, and was driven under Monte Salviano, which necessitated shafts no less than 400 ft. in depth. Forty shafts and a number of “cuniculi,” or inclined galleries, were sunk, and the excavated material was drawn up in copper pails, of about ten gallons capacity, by windlasses. The tunnel was designed to be 10 ft. high by 6 ft. wide, but its actual cross section varied. It is stated that 30,000 labourers were occupied eleven years in its construction. With modern appliances such a tunnel could be driven from the two ends without intermediate shafts in eleven months.
No practical advance was made on the tunnelling methods of
the Romans until gunpowder came into use. Old engravings
of mining operations early in the 17th century show that
excavation was still accomplished by pickaxes or hammer and
chisel, and that wood fires were lighted at the ends of the
headings to split and soften the rock in advance (see fig. 1),
(From Agricola's De re metallica, Basel, 1621.)
Fig. 1.—Method of mining, 1621. Crude methods of ventilation by shaking cloths in the headings and by placing inclined boards at the top of the shafts are also on record. In 1766 a tunnel 9 ft. wide, 12 ft. high and 2880 yds. long was begun on the Grand Trunk Canal, England, and completed eleven years later; and this was followed by many others. On the introduction of railways tunnelling became one of the ordinary incidents of a contractor's work; probably upwards of 4000 railway tunnels have been executed.
Tunnelling under Rivers and Harbours.—In 1825 Marc Isambard Brunel began, and in 1843 completed, the 'Thames tunnel between Rotherhithe and Wapping now used by the East London railway. He employed a peculiar “shield,” made of timber, in several independent sections. Part of the ground penetrated was almost liquid mud, and the cost of the tunnel was about £1300 per lineal yard. In 1818 he took out a patent for a tunnelling process, which included a shield, and which mentioned cast iron as a surrounding wall. His shield foreshadowed the modern shield, which is substituted for the ordinary timber work of the tunnel, holds up the earth of excavation, affords space within its shelter for building the permanent walls, overlaps these Walls in telescope fashion, and is moved forward by pushing against their front ends. The advantages of cast-iron walls are that they have great strength
