26 REPORT— 1882. 



accurate surveys ; but the beneficial influence of a large sheet of water 

 within the African desert could hardly be matter of doubt. 



It is with a feeling not unmixed with regret that I have to record 

 the completion of a new Eddystone Lighthouse, in substitution for the 

 chef-cVwuvre of engineering erected by John Smeaton more than 100 

 years ago. The condemnation of that structure was not, however, the 

 consequence of any fault of construction, but was caused by inroads of 

 the sea upon the rock supporting it. The new lighthouse, designed and 

 executed by Mr., now Sir, James Douglass, engineer of Trinity House, 

 has been erected in the incredibly short time of less than two years, and 

 bids fair to be worthy of its famed predecessor. Its height above high 

 water is 130 feet, as compared with 72 feet (the height of Smeaton's 

 structure), which gives its powerful light a considerably increased range. 

 The system originally suggested by Sir William Thomson some years ago, 

 of distinguishing one light from another by flashes following at varied 

 intervals, has been adopted by the Elder Brethren in this as in other 

 recent lights in the modified form introduced by Dr. John Hopkinson, in 

 which the principle is applied to revolving lights, so as to obtain a 

 greater amount of light in the flash. 



The geological difliculties which for some time threatened the accom- 

 plishment of the St. Gothard Tunnel have been happily overcome, and 

 this second and most important sub- Alpine thoroughfare now connects 

 the Italian railway system with that of Switzerland and the south of 

 Germany, whereby Genoa will be constituted the shipping port for those 

 parts. 



Whether we shall be able to connect the English with the French 

 I'ailway system by moans of a tunnel below the English Channel is 

 a question that appears dependent, at this moment, rather upon military 

 and political than technical and financial considerations. The occurrence 

 of a stratum of impervious grey chalk, at a convenient depth below the 

 bed of the Channel, minimises the engineering difficulties in the way, and 

 must influence the financial question involved. The protest lately raised 

 against its accomplishment can hardly be looked upon as a public verdict, 

 but seems to be the result of a natural desire to pause, pending the institu- 

 tion of careful inquiries. Such inquiries have lately been made by a Royal 

 scientific Commission, and will be referred for further consideration to a 

 mixed Parliamentary Committee, upon whose Report it must depend 

 whether the natural spirit of commercial enterprise has to yield in this 

 instance to political and military considerations. Whether the Channel 

 Tunnel is constructed or not, the plan proposed some years ago by Mr. 

 John Fowler of connecting England and France by means of a ferry boat 

 capable of taking railway trains would be a desideratum justified by the 

 ever-increasing intercommunication between this and Continental countries. 



The public inconvenience arising through the obstruction to traffic 

 by a sheet of water is well illustrated by the circumstance that both 

 the estuaries of the Severn and of the Mersey are being undermined in 



