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By CHARLES RICHARDSON. 



Bead on Tuesday, June 28th, 1887. 



TUB first conception of making a Tunnel under the 

 Severn came into the winter's mind in 18G2 or 1863, 

 at the time when he was constantly engaged on the Severn, 

 during the erection of the Now Passage Ferry piers, which 

 were then being constructed for the Bristol and South Wales 

 Union Railway. 



The idea liaving once entered his mind, he could not help 

 being struck with the different local facts, which all ap- 

 peared to have a most favourable bearing on the scheme. 

 The facts wore these : — At the point where ho proposed to 

 cross, it was manifest, in the first place, that, out of a high- 

 water breadth of 2^ miles, two miles of the river bottom were 

 dry at low water, and could bo walked over. Secondly that 

 the strata along these two miles of low-water rocks wci-e 

 horizontal and of a water-resisting character, and altogether 

 most favourable for tunnelling purposes. Thirdly, that the 

 deep channel of the Shoots had been cut through a very 

 hard and close rock. And, lastly, but not least in import- 

 ance, that the Severn waters are heavily charged with mud, 

 and also — as the writer had the means of positively knowing, 



49 K 



