€ 
1878. ] 283 {Chevalier. 
gratification of members of the Society, who may desire to know the views 
of Mr. Chevalier, in regard to the submarine railroad, but find it less irk- 
some to read or listen to them in their mother tongue than in the French. 
IT avail myself of this opportunity to express my regret that though I 
have been for a much longer period than my friend Mr. Chevalier, a mem- 
ber of the Society, I have so far written nothing that seemed to me worthy 
of presentation and of preservation in their records. I-am not, however, the 
less sensible on that account, of the compliment paid me in 1833, when I 
was elected one of its members. 
Respectfully yours, 
Moncure Robinson.’’ 
Railway under the English Channel. Address of the President, M. 
Michael Chevalier. Translated by Mr. J. P. Keating, of Philadelphia. 
(Read before the American Philosophical Society, Jan. 4, 1878.) 
GENTLEMEN: We have deferred until to-day calling you to a general 
meeting from our desire to render ourseives competent to furnish you with 
information requisite for the solution of a problem traced out for us in our 
laws themselves, and which may be this way stated. 
Is a submarine railway between France and England practicable with- 
out encountering extraordinary difficulties involving immense expenditure ? 
We desired that the studies to which we have applied ourselves ever 
since the passage of the act allotting the work to us, should be pushed so 
far as to enable us in this meeting to give you an idea of the nature and 
character of the material to be traversed in order to effect the subterranean 
passage from one shore of the Channel to the other. 
It was our duty, moreover, to examine if its stratification was continu- 
ous, without presenting fissures or crevices in any appreciable number, or 
in any menacing proportions, whereby the sea water could penetrate into 
the works. It was no less interesting to know whether the bed of the in- 
tended tunnel was in its composition sufficiently impermeable to guarantee 
us from any irruption of the great masses of water which are alike our 
greatest obstacle and our greatest danger. 
The work of the year 1876 has been devoted, like that of 1875, to the 
most minute explorations, both of the surrounding region of country, and 
of the bed of the Channel itself. These explorations, carried on conform- 
ably to the most approved methods, and with every care which science 
could suggest, have afforded a mass of results which it was necessary, in 
order to render them available, to group together, and mark out distinctly 
in sundry plans and charts. These plans, containing all that is essential to 
the subject matter, have been distributed among you. You have also re- 
ceived reports, to the number of four, in which are set forth the different 
methods of exploration that have been pursued. In these reports the con- 
clusions derived from the studies are strictly deduced, and you are thus 
enabled to judge whether the conclusions are satisfactory. 
