822 ST. GOTUARD RAILWAY AND TUNNEL. STANLEY, ARTHUR P. 



kilogramme of dynamite that was used corre- 

 sponded with a cubic metre of rock that was 

 removed. The work was interfered with at 

 times by the infiltration of water, which, how- 

 ever, did not produce the inconvenience with 

 dynamite that it would have done if powder 

 had been depended upon ; by rocks of excep- 

 tional hardness, and by a bed of disintegrating 

 rocks about twenty-six hundred metres from 

 the north end of the tunnel, the danger from 

 which, after the ordinary propping with tim- 

 bers, with iron girders, and with blocks of 

 stone, had failed, was finally overcome by means 

 of an arch of masonry three metres or ten 

 feet thick. 



M. Colladon, the inventor of the compressed- 

 air motor that was used, has informed the 

 French Academy of Sciences that the most 

 efficacious means employed to speed the work 

 of excavation were the diking of the torrents 

 and the application of water collected in aque- 

 ducts as a moving power to turbine-wheels re- 

 quiring high falls; the adoption of air-com- 

 pressors, that worked with great rapidity ; the 

 cooling of the air in the compressors at the 

 moment of compression, by the injection of 

 water in a fine spray ; the use of dynamite ; and 

 the plan, which was followed from the be- 

 ginning, of carrying on the excavations from 

 the top of the tunnel down. By the aid of 

 these improved methods the advance through 

 the rocks was made with double the speed that 

 the engineers in charge had been able to attain 

 in boring the tunnel of Mont Cenis. It is esti- 

 mated that, notwithstanding its greater length, 

 the tunnel of St. Gothard will have cost, when 

 completed, considerably less than that of Mont 

 Cenis. 



The great tunnel is not the only extraordi- 

 nary work of engineering that distinguishes the 

 St. Gothard Railway. Fifty other tunnels oc- 

 cur on the line from the Lake of Zug to the 

 Italian frontier, a distance of two hundred 

 kilometres, or about one hundred and twenty 

 miles, along the wild valleys of the Reuss and 

 the Tessin Rivers. These tunnels have a total 

 length of twenty kilometres, and some of them 

 are singly as long as fifteen hundred or two 

 thousand metres. Seven of them are of a 

 form peculiar to this road, being spiral, or 

 doubled upon themselves in the shape of a 

 screw. Between Brunnen and Fluellen, where 

 it skirts the Lake of the Four Cantons, a dis- 

 tance of twelve kilometres, the road is subter- 

 ranean for 5,256 metres, or nearly half the 

 way. The road then follows the valley of the 

 Reuss to the mouth of the grand tunnel. At 

 Erstfeld, the station for the locomotives of the 

 mountain line, begin, with the ascent, the 

 works that give the new road a special origi- 

 nality. Between Erstfeld and Goeschenen are 

 sixteen tunnels, occupying more than seven 

 kilometres in a distance of twenty-nine kilo- 

 metres. Four of these tunnels are more than 

 a kilometre in length, and one only of them is 

 straight. The other three tunnels are helio- 



coidal or spiral, receiving a shape which is 

 made necessary by the shape and narrowness 

 of the valley of the Reuss. Generally, ab- 

 rupt ascents in railroads are overcome by mak- 

 ing long curves so proportioned in length to 

 the height to be surmounted that the grade 

 need not be steeper than a common locomotive 

 is able to ascend. This is not possible here, 

 for the valley does not afford sufficient space, 

 and there are no lateral valleys. The road is 

 therefore doubled upon itself, like a winding 

 stair, and the difference in grade is surmount- 

 ed within a tunnel. The St. Gothard Railway 

 thus rises, in the neighborhood of Wasen, one 

 hundred and thirty-six metres, by means of 

 the three spiral tunnels of Pfaffensprung (1,460 

 metres), Wattingen (1,090 metres), and Leggis- 

 tein (1,095 metres), and follows on the grade 

 prescribed by the international commission of 

 the interested states, the valley of the Reuss. 

 The curve of the spirals is of four hundred 

 metres radius, and the grade under ground 

 is from '023 metre to '026 metre to the 

 metre. Between Airolo and Lugano on Lago 

 Maggiore, on the other side of the great 

 tunnel, are four other spiral tunnels, in all of 

 which the curves return upon each other. 

 Between Dazio and Faido are the returning 

 spirals of Freggio and Prato, and farther on, 

 between Lavorno and Giornico, are the return- 

 ing spirals of Piano-Tondo and Travi, better 

 known as the tunnels of Biaschina. Each of 

 these four great heliocoidal tunnels is about 

 fifteen hundred metres long, and the sharpest 

 of their curves has a radius of three hundred 

 metres. The twenty-six tunnels of this south- 

 ern division have a total length of eight kilo- 

 metres, or about one sixth of the whole length 

 of this part of the line. To these great works 

 might be added forty-five principal bridges, 

 having spans of from twenty-five to seventy- 

 seven metres; nine viaducts; seven galleries 

 with special protection against avalanches and 

 floods ; and the great cut, 2,240 metres long, 

 between the tunnel of Stalvedro and the bridge 

 of Sordo, from which 215,000 cubic metres of 

 materials have been removed. 



STANLEY, AETHUR PENEHTN, D. D., LL. D., 

 Dean of Westminster, and a well-known writer, 

 was born at Alderley, Cheshire, England, De- 

 cember 13, 1815 ; died at the Deanery, London, 

 July 18, 1881. He was the second son of Ed- 

 ward Stanley, Bishop of Norwich, and nephew 

 of the first Baron Stanley of Alderley. The 

 Dean was very proud of the Welsh blood in 

 his veins. " If there is any brilliancy and vi- 

 vacity in my family," he said to an American 

 friend, " I attribute it to the fact that my grand- 

 father, a Cheshire squire, had the good sense 

 to marry a bright, mercurial Welshwoman, from 

 whom we have inherited a share of the Celtic 

 fire." This grandmother, wife of Sir John 

 Thomas Stanley, was Mary, daughter of Hugh 

 Owen, of Penrhyn. At the age of fourteen, 

 he entered the famous Rugby School, and re- 

 mained there five years. During this time he 



