ENGINEERING. 



247 



as to grade and direction proved surprisingly 

 accurate, and the deviation was almost infini- 

 tesimal. It is proposed to connect the tunnel 

 with Andermatt by a sloping tunnel 700 metres 

 in length. Andermatt lies almost exactly mid- 

 way between Goeschenen and Airolo. This 

 slight extension of the scheme would, it is 

 thought, not only prove profitable by increas- 

 ing the receipts, but would make the ventila- 

 tion of the main bore as good as could be de- 

 sired, and also prove extremely useful in case 

 the tunnel should cave in and become tempo- 

 rarily impassable on either side. 



The Mont Cenis route passed through the same 

 soft stratum of decomposed feldspar and gyp- 

 suin which proved so serious an obstacle in 

 boring the St. Gothard Tunnel, crossing it in 

 an open cutting in the Replat section, near 

 Mod;ine. The sides of this excavation have 

 been continually crumbling, and the cutting 

 has only been kept clear at great expense and 

 by the exercise of constant vigilance. The cut- 

 ting is consequently being replaced by a tunnel 

 1,583 metres in length, which outers the moun- 

 tain, about 1,000 metres from the mouth of the 

 great Frejus Tunnel, and joins the latter about 

 600 metres from its terminus. The Colladon 

 machinery and perforators, worked by com- 

 pressed air, have been used in boring this tun- 

 nel. 



A ne\v tunnel, which is being made through 

 the Arlberg, is intended to connect the Swiss 

 and Austrian rail road systems without crossing 

 German territory, and requiring to use a link be- 

 longing to the German system, as at present. 

 This tunnel, which is intended for a double line, 

 will be six and one half miles in length. The 

 railroad line will follow the right bank of the 

 Inn, passing Innspruck, Landeck, and Bludenz. 

 A shaft is to be sunk from the height of 1,540 

 feet near the middle of the tunnel, to accelerate 

 the boring, and to secure the ventilation of the 

 tunnel. 



A ship-canal across Cape Cod is a project 

 which has been brought forward from time to 

 time ever since the first settlement of the Ameri- 

 can colonies. During the War of the Revolution 

 a military commission examined the ground and 

 reported in favor of such a cutting. In the next 

 war its need was strongly felt, and in the suc- 

 ceeding period the route was surveyed, first by 

 order of the Commonwealth authorities, from 

 1818 to 1824, and then by command of the Fed- 

 eral Government. The latter survey was care- 

 I fully made by Major Perrault, an engineer of 

 the army, in 1825, who reported the results to 

 Congress the following year. In 1828 the Board 

 of International Improvement adopted a route 

 and plans, and the Government was about to 

 execute the project ; but it was abandoned, to- 

 gether with other public works, upon the ad- 

 vent of a new Administration, with a different 

 policy regarding internal improvements. In 

 1860 the Massachusetts government revived 

 the scheme, and obtained a favorable report 

 upon it from the Coast Survey. After lying 



dormant for twenty years more, the project has 

 been taken up as a commercial enterprise, and 

 the canal is being made by private means. An 

 association of Boston and New York capitalists 

 obtained an unexpired charter granted for this 

 object, purchased a strip across the isthmus 

 1,000 feet in width, and arranged with con- 

 tractors to commence the cutting immediately, 

 and complete the canal in two years. The en- 

 gineer is George H. Titcomb, with whom P. 

 Elbert Nostraud is associated as assistant en- 

 gineer. 



The canal is to pierce the interior neck of 

 Cape Cod at its narrowest part, connecting 

 Buzzard's Bay, the deep indentation in the 

 southern coast of New England, which gives to 

 Cape Cod its peninsular form, to the arm of 

 Cape Cod Bay, called Barnstable Bay, which 

 hollows the other shore directly opposite the 

 extremity of Buzzard's Bay. The route of the 

 canal is marked out by nature, Two shallow 

 watercourses, the Monument and Scusset Riv- 

 ers, coincide with a line straight across the isth- 

 mus at its narrowest point for seven eighths 

 of the way across. The summit of the ridge 

 which divides them is only 35 feet above the 

 average low-water level of the bays on each 

 side. This narrow ridge crosses the route, 

 whicli follows northeast and southwest bear- 

 ings, five miles from the Buzzard's Bay en- 

 trance. The length of the canal will be a little 

 less than eight miles. The material to be re- 

 moved is .very easy of excavation, consisting 

 principally of gravel. The canal is to have the 

 depth at mean tide-level of 25 feet, a surface 

 width at mean tide of 225 feet, and at bottom 

 of 66 feet. Its width at bottom is six feet less 

 and its depth one foot less than the Suez Canal. 

 The New Amsterdam Canal is 21 feet broader 

 at bottom, and two feet shallower; the Caledo- 

 nia Canal is not within 16 feet as broad nor 

 within five feet as deep. The capital stock of 

 the joint-stock company which is digging this 

 canal is $8,000,000, of which $1,500,000 was 

 paid in at the commencement. The actual dis- 

 tance saved to coasting-vessels by the Cape Cod 

 Canal will be 90 miles; the saving in time at 

 least eight hours. The advantages of this route 

 will prove much greater and the saving more, 

 owing to the storms and fogs encountered in 

 rounding Cape Cod. The canal will afford a 

 safe and protected passage between New York 

 and Boston; and the Sound steamers, which now 

 transfer their passengers at Stonington and Fall 

 River, will be able to sail, just as smoothly, all 

 the way to Boston Harbor. The navigation 

 around this most dangerous point along the At- 

 lantic coast is of immense magnitude. This 

 coasting traffic, it is estimated, employs 40,000 

 vessels annually, carrying cargoes of $600,000,- 

 000 aggregate value. The saving in insurance, 

 time, wages, etc., which the canal will effect at 

 the start is calculated to amount to $1,500,000 

 a year. The tonnage which is expected to pass 

 through it the first year is 4,000,003 tons. The 

 canal will facilitate commercial intercourse not 



