470 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Speaking of tariff barriers recalls the fact that the sections 

 for the ends of the tube were made in different places those for 

 the Canada end in Hamilton, and for the United States end in 

 Detroit so as to avoid the payment of duty. 



To Joseph Hobson, a native Canadian, is due, more than to 

 any other man, the successful completion of this great work. He 

 was its architect, designer, and builder, and though his proposals 

 did not, at the outset, meet with much encouragement from en- 

 gineers, the result fully justifies the confidence reposed in him by 

 Sir Henry Tyler, President of the Grand Trunk ; Sir Joseph Hick- 

 son, its former general manager ; and Mr. Seargeant, Sir Joseph's 

 successor, all of whom ably seconded Mr. Hobson. It is a fact 

 worthy of note that Mr. Hobson received all his professional 



FIG. 6. ENTRANCE TO TUNNEL. 



training on the continent of America, never having been farther 

 east than the city of Quebec. He is a member of the Institutes 

 of Civil Engineers of England, America, and Canada, and has 

 established his right to rank among the first engineers of the 

 world. 



The successful completion of the St. Clair Tunnel will doubt- 

 less be followed by the construction of many similar works. In 

 1872, when the Great Western Railway of Canada now a part of 

 the Grand Trunk was an independent line, tests were made for 

 a tunnel under the Detroit River, and a drainage tunnel excavated 

 for some distance. Quicksand was met, and, the shield and iron 

 tube not having been adopted for tunnel work, it had to be aban- 

 doned. The project has been revived, and if, on fuller investiga- 

 tion, the conditions are found favorable and the work carried out, 



