866 REPOBT — 1887. 



the novelty of his situation, he returned to the shaft without shutting the door. 

 On the 10th he made another attempt, reached the door in safety, passed through 

 and let down a flap valve upon a pipe which passed under the door, pulled up the 

 other rail, closed the door, and then screwed round the rod of a sluice valve on a 

 pipe which passed under the door on the opposite side from the one which was- 

 protected by the flap valve, and returned in triumph to the shaft. 



He was absent on this journey one hour and twenty minutes in total darkness 

 up a small heading, in which he met with iron skips standing on the rails, or 

 overturned by the side of them, lumps of rock or falls from the roof, enough to 

 make the bravest man nervous. It was not, however, till December 6 that the 

 water was all out of the iron pit, and there was then only 2 ft. of water in the 

 heading under tlie river. On the 7th a foreman walked up the heading to the 

 door which Lambert had closed, and found that all the work had been thoroughly 

 dpne, but that the sluice valve having a left-handed screw, Lambert, instead of 

 closing the sluice, had opened it wide, and that accounted for our obtaining no 

 relief from the shutting of this door. By closing the sluice valve we obtained 

 immediate relief, and were able from that time forward to keep the heading dry 

 and to have always one pump in reserve. 



On December 13, 1880, Mr. J. Clarke Hawkshaw and the author, with the 

 principal foreman of the miners, went into the heading into which the great 

 spring had broken, and were able from some little distance to see the point where 

 the timbering had given way, and where the water was pouring in, and arranged 

 for the building of a head wall across the heading to stop back the water from the 

 spring. 



As soon as possible the heading under the river was examined. So far as it 

 was in the Pennant sandstone it was in a fairly good condition, but where on the 

 ascending gradient towards the Gloucestershire side, it passed from the Pennant 

 sandstone to the red marl, the timber had given way, and a great cavity existed 

 nearly 20 ft. high, above the roof of the heading, into which there was great feai" 

 that the river itself might break. 



The total number of men employed when the works were progressing most 

 actively was about 5,000. 



In the construction of the tunnel itself there were no exceptional difficulties 

 except those arising from the quantity of water. 



The mining and lining of the tunnel proper was commenced early in the year 

 1881, and after many difliculties and unforeseen obstacles the whole was completed 

 in April 1885. 



Immediately after Sir John Hawkshaw had taken charge of the works as chief 

 engineer, he decided to lower the gradients under the river by 15 ft. 



On October 10, 1883, being within a week of four years from the time the 

 tunnel had been drowned by the great spring, the heading on the new gradient, 

 15 ft. below the existing heading, tapped nearly at the same point the same spring 

 in much greater volume, but by again sending up the diver the door was closed 

 in this heading, into which the spring had broken, and the works again cleared 

 of water. 



Only three days after this spring flooded the works, one of the largest pumps 

 in the next shaft broke down, and that shaft was also filled with water, and on 

 October 17 a great tidal wave passed up the Bristol Channel, submerging all the 

 low-lying parts of Cardift' and Newport, drowning hundreds of cattle in the 

 marshes near the estuary of the river, passing through the houses inhabited by the 

 men near Caldicot, first reaching the engine tires at the Marsh pit and extinguish- 

 ing them, and then flowed down the Marsh pit in a cataract 110 ft. deep, im- 

 prisoning below eighty-three men who were at work upon the night shift. Being- 

 totally dark, and the whole of the district around the shaft for a width of a 

 quarter of a mile being from 3 ft. to 4 ft. under water, it was with great difficulty 

 that assistance could be sent to the men ; and the water continuing to rise in the 

 finished tunnel and the bottom of the shatt till it reached within 8 ft. of the 

 crown of the arch, the men who had retreated before the rising water in the 

 tunnel had reached a stage in one of the partially finished lengths, where they 



