340 



ENGINEERING. 



professors offer in sober earnestness to achieve 

 physical miracles the possibility of which in the 

 nearest past was not yet dreamed of. These 

 schemes aim at nothing less than to alter the 

 form of continents and modify the character 

 of climates ; to create navigable channels across 

 the bosom of continents, and to burrow dry 

 paths underneath the surging tide of the sea ; 

 to turn parching deserts into watery gulfs, and 

 to join a landlocked sea to the ocean system 

 by a rushing artificial river. It is most likely 

 that none of these ambitious projects will be 

 carried out in the early future. 



Captain Eoudaire's scheme of flooding a por- 

 tion of the Desert of Sahara with the waters 

 of the Mediterranean is still advanced as a pro- 

 ject which presents no extraordinary engineer- 

 ing difficulties, and which will produce a radi- 

 cal improvement in the climate and soil of the 

 surrounding country. A similar plan is warmly 

 advocated by General Fremont for reclaiming 

 a portion of the desert land of the great "West. 

 By making two cuttings leading in from the 

 Gulf of California, it is believed that the de- 

 pression of the alkali desert will be sub- 

 merged, giving a sea-coast to Arizona and 

 changing the arid region around into smiling 

 corn-fields. The now almost completed St. 

 Gothard Tunnel does not seem to invite the 

 restless spirit of modern enterprise to repose ; 

 for a scheme for a still longer tunnel under the 

 Simplon Pass is being pressed, while some pro- 

 pose to bore a passage directly through the 

 mass of Mont Blanc. The improvements in 

 tunneling processes, and the accomplishment 

 of longer and longer bores through all kinds of 

 rock, render the proposal of a tunnel for the 

 passage of masted vessels under the mountains 

 of Panama only a question of stock subscrip- 

 tions and profits, and deprive of its extrava- 

 gant or visionary character the scheme of car- 

 rying a railway under the British Channel. 

 The engineers are still groping in the chalk 

 ledges under the Straits of Dover for the 

 shortest and best course for the projected tun- 

 nel. The air is so full of schemes for new ship- 

 canals and harbor-excavations that the actual 

 progress from year to year in these most im- 

 portant requisites of commercial development 

 is apt to be lost sight of. The modern engi- 

 neer can make a harbor where none exists, 

 and, with titanic walls against which the tem- 

 pestuous ocean-surges boom and beat and are 

 broken, he marks his line and compels the 

 sweeping tide to obey the command of thus 

 far and no farther. He can also hollow deep, 

 long channels in the underlying rock, and float 

 the laden sea-craft on the tidal waters within 

 the walls of inland cities. Paris and St. Pe- 

 tersburg are thus to be made seaports. The 

 long-projected scheme of an American inter- 

 oceanic canal will in a few years be an ac- 

 complished fact, unless the still more startling 

 but demonstrably less difficult project of a 

 ship railway approves itself a commercial ven- 

 ture of better promise. Ship-canals are pro- 



posed in the United States through the States 

 of Maryland and Delaware, to connect nav- 

 igable waters. A more important project is 

 being considered in Canada for a ship-canal 

 to connect Lake Huron and Lake Ontario, 

 which would greatly shorten the distance be- 

 tween the northwestern wheat-lands and Liv- 

 erpool, and reduce the cost of transport. The 

 successful construction of bridges across the 

 broad estuaries of the Tay and the Severn, 

 which are to be followed by one across the 

 Frith of Forth, and the sinking of their mas- ' 

 sive cylindrical piers in the midst of tremen- 

 dous tidal currents, encourage the belief that 

 the scheme, recently broached by V6rard de 

 Sainte-Anne, of a colossal viaduct across the 

 English Channel from Cape Grisnez to Folke- 

 stone, may some day be realized. The enor- 

 mous public works projected in France by 

 M. de Freycinet seem to meet with public ap- 

 proval, and will probably receive legislative 

 sanction in their entirety. His schemes for 

 railway and canal extension and harbor im- 

 provement involve the labor of many years 

 and the expenditure of thousands of millions. 

 The railway network is to be developed be- 

 yond that of any other country. A great 

 number of light or narrow-gauge roads are to 

 be constructed as feeders to the main lines. 

 An improvement which is urgently called for 

 by the French public is a ship-canal through 

 the north of France, from Creil-sur-Oise to 

 Beauvais, Amiens, and Albert, with two large 

 branches. 



The completion of the great Severn railway 

 bridge, over the estuary of the Severn at Lyd- 

 ney, supplies a link whose want has long been 

 felt in the railway communications of England. 

 The only means of intercommunication for 

 the inhabitants of the districts separated by the 

 Severn River, below Gloucester, has been the 

 irregular and dangerous passage by ferry-boats. 

 The new Severn Bridge Railway furnishes the 

 desiderated connection, and affords an outlet for 

 the iron-ore and coal-production of the Forest 

 of Dean and South Wales, allowing of their 

 easy transshipment from the cars to vessels 

 in the Gloucester and Berkeley Canal. The 

 scheme of this bridge and railway was con- 

 ceived by G. W. Keeling, who while engaged 

 in a survey of the river in 1859 came to the 

 conclusion that the best and most economical 

 site for a bridge was at this point, where the 

 channel never varies, and where firm founda- 

 tions are found at no great depth. Several 

 other projects for bridges to meet the pressing 

 demand for communication were advanced and 

 subsequently abandoned, two of them after re- 

 ceiving the authorization of Parliament. Mr. 

 Keeling, in conjunction with G. W. Owen, 

 brought forward the project for the present 

 bridge in 1870 ; but it was not until 1872 that 

 it attracted sufficient financial support and was 

 authorized by Parliament. The plan, as now 

 carried out, consists of a railroad about five 

 miles long connecting with the Severn and 



