1875.] The Channel Tunnel. 493 
A floating cabin was designed by M. Alexandrovski, 
which, instead of being attached to a pivot, as in the Besse- 
mer saloon, floated in a kind of tank placed amidships 
between the engines. This invention, it is said, was tested 
by the Grand Duke Constantine, in his capacity as head of 
the Naval Department, with a perfectly satisfactory result. 
All efforts to shake the cabin proving utterly unsuccessful, 
the pitching as well as the rolling motion of the vessel 
being completely counteracted. A combination of both the 
Bessemer and Alexandrovski plans was also recently pro- 
posed by Mr. A. Allen, of Scarborough, the object of which 
was to give a steady saloon cabin or gun deck at sea. 
This cabin was to be constructed of two spherical segments, 
the outer segment or dock being fixed in the ship, and the 
inner segment being floated on a film of water in the dock, 
like one basin floated in another, the inner one or cabin 
being maintained at its proper height by being supported 
on a centre pillar passing up a conical passage in its centre, 
and which would allow 20 degrees of roll on either side, or 
40 degrees in all. 
We have now to consider the several plans proposed for 
conveying trains across the Channel by huge ferry steamers. 
In the Exhibition of 1862, a proposition by Mr. Evan Leigh 
for conveying trains across the Straits of Dover on board 
large ferry boats or rafts was exhibited by means of models, 
but it does not appear that his project ever found any sub- 
stantial supporters. 
In 1865 a company was formed to place on the Channel a 
line of steamers from Dover to Calais, so large that the 
railway trains should run on board them, and there bodily 
remain to be run out again on the other side after crossing 
the Channel, and which, by their magnitude, it was expected, 
would ride over the waves without putting the passengers to 
the slightest inconvenience. The miseries hitherto inevi- 
table to this passage Had, it was remarked, been chiefly en- 
tailed by the restriction to boats of a size proportioned to 
the shallowness of the water on either shore. The new pier 
at Dover has overcome that objection on this side, and it 
was rumoured that the French Government had granted a 
concession for the requisite extension of that at Calais on 
the other side. Such a scheme was indeed before Parlia- 
ment in 1866, and was originated by Mr. J. Fowler, whose 
proposal was to construct steamers one-third longer than 
the vessels on the Kingstown and Holyhead service, and 
their decks were to be roofed over so as to protect the trains 
during the passage. The proposed dimensions of these 
