102 



CHANNING 



CHANSONS DE GESTES 



for a distance of 2200 yards under the sea. The 

 similar work on the French side seaward, from 

 Sangatte, near Calais, is of about the same length. 

 Thus, about a tenth of the whole distance has 

 been successfully experimented ; and the opinion 



Section of the Bed of the English Channel, showing the 

 proposed tunnel. 



of the engineers engaged is that the work presents 

 exceptionally favourable features for cheap and 

 rapid accomplishment. The original estimate, 

 before experiment showed the way through this 

 favourable stratum of 'gray chalk,' was about 

 10,000,000 ; now that estimate is only 4,000,000. 

 The proposal is to have two single-line tunnels 

 which can be multiplied to any extent side by 

 side as traffic might demand one tunnel ventilat- 

 ing the other, and to work the lines by engines 

 which have been successfully designed and worked 

 experimentally, charged with highly compressed 

 air. In the construction hardly any pumping and 

 no ' timbering ' would be required. The machine 

 which bores takes up any modicum of water 

 with the debris it excavates ; and every turn of it 

 gives out a portion of the air, which, at a pressiire 

 of about 25 Ib. to the inch, is its motive force ( see 

 the article BORING). 



The instruction to the engineers by Sir Edward 

 Watkin, the chairman of the English Tunnel Com- 

 pany, to 'find the "gray chalk" at its outcrop, 

 and never leave it,' would seem to have reduced a 

 work which at one time appeared all but impractic- 

 able to the utmost simplicity and ease of comple- 

 tion. The scheme for a railway tunnel was dis- 

 cussed in 1867 and succeeding years. In 1876 a 

 convention for carrying it out was concluded 

 between the British and French governments, and 

 in the same year boring was begun on the French 

 side ; but the excavations on the English side were 

 stopped by order of the British government, mainly 

 for military reasons. 



Amongst the supporters of such a submarine 

 means of intercourse between England and France 

 have been the late Prince Consort, Mr Cobden, 

 the late and present Lords Derby, the late Lords 

 Beaconsfield and Clarendon, and Mr ^Gladstone. 



The engineers whose names have been associated 

 with various schemes for a Channel Tunnel have 

 been those of Thome de Gamond and Raoul-duval 

 in France ; and William Low, Frederick Bramwell, 

 Francis Brady, John Hawkshaw, and Brunlees in 

 England. 



The experiments near Dover have led to the 

 belief that there is a coal-bed under the Channel. 

 The English Channel Tunnel Company had in 

 1888 already bored to a depth of 950 feet, and 

 proposed going down to 12,000 feet with the view 

 of finding this mineral. 



Channing, WILLIAM ELLERY, a great Ameri- 

 can preacher and writer, was born 7th April 1780, 

 at Newport, Rhode Island. He graduated at 



Harvard in 1798, and in 1803 was ordained minister 

 of a Congregational church in Boston, where his 

 sermons soon became famous for their ' fervour, 

 solemnity, and beauty.' Though never a Trini- 

 tarian, at first he had Calvinistic leanings, but 

 gradually drifted towards what is 

 now known as Unitarianism, 

 although the name itself was re- 

 pugnant to him, and he would 

 gladly have seen liberal theology 

 growing naturally outwards from 

 within the church herself. His 

 famous sermon, preached at the 

 ordination of the Rev. Jared 

 Sparks in 1819, was a fearless and 

 plain definition of the Unitarian 

 position. It involved him in con- 

 troversy, a thing which he natu- 

 rally loathed. To the end of his 

 life he preserved a devoutly Chris- 

 tian heart, shrinking with the 

 delicate instinct of a pious nature 

 from everything cold, one-sided, 

 and dogmatic, whether Unitarian 

 or Trinitarian. As late as 1841 

 I am little of a Unitarian, have little 



he wrote, 



sympathy with the system of Priestley and Bel- 

 sham, and stand aloof from all but those who 

 strive and pray for clearer light.' He had sym- 

 pathy for social and political as well as purely 

 religious progress, advocated temperance and edu- 

 cation, and denounced war and slavery with more 

 than his accustomed eloquence. In 1821 he re- 

 ceived the title of D.D. from Harvard University, 

 and next year he visited Europe, and made the 

 acquaintance of several great English authors, such 

 as Wordsworth and Coleridge, both of whom were 

 strongly impressed in his favour. Coleridge said 

 of him, ' He has the love of wisdom and the 

 wisdom of love.' Among his most popular works 

 were his Essay on National Literature, Remarks on 

 the Character and Writings of John Milton, the 

 Character and Writings of Fenelon, his essay on 

 Negro Slavery, and that on Self-culture. Besides 

 these, he wrote a variety of other essays and 

 treatises, all characterised by vigour, eloquence, 

 pure taste, and a lofty tone of moral earnestness. 

 He died October 2, 1842, at Bennington, Vermont. 

 His works were collected before his death in 5 vols. 

 (Boston, 1841), to which a sixth volume was after- 

 wards added. The American Unitarian Association 

 ( Boston ) has reprinted the whole in a single cheap 

 volume. An interesting memoir of him has been 

 published by his nephew, William Henry Channing 

 (3 vols. Boston, 1848; new ed. 1880). There is 

 also a short Life by Frothingham ( 1887 ). 



Chansons de GestCS, long narrative poems, 

 dealing with warfare and adventure, which were 

 popular in France during the middle ages. Gestes, 

 from the Latin gesta, signified, first, the deeds of 

 a hero, and secondly, the account of these deeds ; 

 the family to which the hero belonged being spoken 

 of as gens de geste. One of these poems, and that 

 the greatest of all, was composed in the llth 

 century namely, the Chanson de Roland, which 

 is treated of in the article ROLAND. Most of the 

 others were produced in the 12th and 13th cen- 

 turies, only a few poems to which the name is 

 strictly applicable having been written after the 

 year 1300 A.D. They were mainly the work of 

 trouveres, and were carried by wandering min- 

 strels, jongleurs and jongleresses, from castle to 

 castle, and from town to town. They are distin- 

 guished from the later Arthurian romances and 

 from the Romans d'Aventures both by their matter 

 and their form. Their subjects are invariably 

 taken from French history, or from what passed 

 as such, and they are written in verses of ten or 



