404 REPORT— 1882. 



The Channel Tunnel. 

 By J. Clarke Hawkshaw, JI/.J.., F.G.S., M.I.C.E. 



[A communication ordered by the General Committee to be printed in extcnscr 



among the Reports.] 



[Plates V., VI., VII.] 



This year the Channel Tunnel Company sought to obtain powers from 

 Parliament to enable it to make a tunnel to connect this country with 

 France, by a railway beneath the Channel, and it deposited plans and pre- 

 pared a Bill for the purpose. The South Eastern Railway Company did 

 likewise. Neither Company obtained a hearing before Parliament, but 

 there have been preliminary inquiries by the Government, the results of 

 which are that they have announced their intention of submitting the 

 whole question to a Select Committee of both Houses, to be appointed 

 early in the next session of Parliament. 



The Channel Tunnel Company had proposed to make a tunnel begin- 

 ning in Dover and passing beneath the shore line, about two miles 

 eastwards of that town, at Fan Hole, near the South Foreland. 



The South Eastern Railway Company's plans showed a tunnel begin- 

 ning at the west end of the uudercliff which lies between Folkestone and 

 Abbot's Cliff, and which was to pass beneath the shore line, near Shake- 

 speare Cliff, to the west of Dover. 



A Submarine Continental Railway Company was incorporated this 

 year to purchase certain works belonging to the South Eastern Railway, 

 consisting of two shafts, sunk on the foi-eshore, near Abbot's Cliff and 

 Shakespeai^e Cliff, in the lower beds of the chalk, and a mile or there- 

 abouts of headings driven in the lowest beds of the same formation. 

 Nearly everything that has been heard during the last twelve months 

 about a Channel Tunnel has emanated from this Company, who maintain 

 that the part of the coast on which the South Eastern Railway Com- 

 pany's works lie is the only place from which the tunnel can be made. 



The Channel Tunnel Company has remained silent, relying on au 

 opportunity of proving its case before a Parliamentary Committee. That, 

 hitherto has been denied to it ; but the following facts may show that 

 the Channel Tunnel Company's proposal is worthy of consideration, and 

 that the question has not at all been settled by the South Eastern Rail- 

 way Company's operations. 



The Channel Tunnel Company was incorporated ten years ago — in 

 January, 1872 — when it had already existed in the less ambitious form of 

 a Committee for four years, viz., from 1868 to 1872, and it comprises 

 among its supporters and advisers those who, nearly seventeen years ago, 

 carried out the first practical investigations, both geological and engineer- 

 ing, which were undertaken with a view to ascertain where and how a 

 tunnel could be made beneath the Channel. Geological surveys were 

 then made which determined the identity of the beds on the two sides 

 of the Channel. The continuity of the same beds across the bottom of 

 the Channel was determined by a sounding apparatus, which brought up 

 specimens from the bottom. The thickness of the chalk was ascertained 

 by borings 500 feet deep, made through it on the tiro coasts; and a 

 machine, made by Mr. Brunton, for excavating chalk was tested, and 

 was found to work as rapidly and as efficiently as the machine lately used 



