CHAP. XVI. THE SUMMIT TUNNEL. 329 



history of the application to Parliament for the Act, 

 which was so satisfactory to the Committee that they 

 passed the preamble of the Bill without further objection. 

 Lord Wharncliffe requested that the Committee would 

 permit his observations, together with Mr. Stephenson's 

 reply, to be erased from the record of the evidence, 

 which, as an acknowledgment of his error, was per- 

 mitted. Lord Kenyon and several other members of 

 the Committee afterwards came up to Mr. Stephenson, 

 shook him by the hand, and congratulated him on the 

 manly way in which he had vindicated himself in the 

 course of the inquiry. 



In conducting this project to an issue, Mr. Stephenson 

 had much opposition and many prejudices to encounter. 

 Predictions were confidently made in many quarters 

 that the line could never succeed. It was declared that 

 the utmost engineering skill could not construct a rail- 

 way through such a country of hills and hard rocks ; 

 and it was maintained that, even if the railway were 

 practicable, it could only be formed at an altogether 

 ruinous cost to the proprietors. 



During the progress of the works, as the Summit 

 Tunnel, near Littleborough, was .approaching comple- 

 tion, the rumour was spread abroad in Manchester that 

 the tunnel had fallen in and buried a number of the 

 workmen. The last arch had been keyed in, and the 

 work was all but finished, when the accident occurred 

 which was thus exaggerated by. the lying tongue of 

 rumour. An invert had given way through the irre- 

 gular pressure of the surrounding earth and rock at a 

 part of the tunnel where a " fault " had occurred in the 

 strata. A party of the directors accompanied the engi- 

 neer to inspect the scene of the accident. They entered 

 the tunnel's mouth preceded by upwards of fifty navvies, 

 each bearing a torch. 



After walking a distance of about half a mile, the 

 inspecting party arrived at the scene of the " frightful 



