156 



TUNNELLING THROUGH VAEIOUS STHATA. 



ing his groat practical ability and acumen. This tunnel is 



through a blue, sandy clay, very wet and very heavy. The 



author remembers his father, who was an assistant of 



Brunei's on that very work, saying that one niglit (Brunei 



had the habit of turning up on the work at od'd times, and 



unlike any other man) a messenger rode up to his house 



l)ost haste, to say that Brunei was in the tunnel, and that 



he had better come down at once. He hurried off' to the 



tunnel, and, as the shortest way of getting down, slid down 



the rope of the shaft. He found Brunei there, who made 



a most thorough examination of the tunnel, as it had been 



constantly reported to him that the arch was too flat. The 



arch in many places was as flat as the ceiling of a room 



at the crown, having settled tremendously. Brunei asked 



what the author's father could suggest as a remedy, and ho 



merely said. Give the arch a foot or two more rise. Brunei, 



who never, if ho could help it, altered his designs, said he 



could not hear of it, and soon afterwards went away ; but a 



day or two later down came an alteration of the drawing, 



showing an arch with greater rise. Why Brunei should at 



that time have taken a fancy to flat arches in tunnels, it is 



impossible to say, as it is almost the only place whore they 



are undoubtedly out of place, especially in heavy ground. 



There are one or two more things unaccountable in Brunei, 



such as his altering from the extreme of costly masonry, 



as on the Bristol and Paddington Railway, to the very 



roughest of random woi'k ; and in his later years he would 



not have any dressing of the stone on jnost of his railway 



bridges. Doubtless the latter served its jjurpose, but 



still it was going from one extreme to the other ; and the 



author has seen the extreme of bad masonry in some of 



Brunei's later railway work ; but, doubtless, like most 



groat men, he was not infallible. It was almost im- 



