CHAPTER II.
UNDER THE RIVER.
Happilyno one lost his life.
The men retreated before the advancing wave, and as they went they met Brunel. But the great engineer could do nothing just then, except, like them, to retreat. The lights yet remaining flashed on the roaring water, and then suddenly went out in darkness.
The foot of the staircase was reached, and it was found thronged with the retreating workers. Higher and higher grew the surging flood; Brunel ordered great speed; and scarcely were the men’s feet off the lower stair when it was torn away.
On gaining the top, cries were heard; some calling for a rope, others for a boat. Some one was below in the water! Brunel himself slipped down an iron rod, another followed, and each fastening a rope to the body of a man they found in the flood, he was soondrawn out of danger. On calling the roll, every worker answered to his name. No life was lost.
So far, good; but what was to be done now? The tunnel was full of water. To pump it dry was impossible, for the tide poured in from the Thames.
Again the diving-bell was used, and the hole was found in the bed of the river. To stop it bags of clay, with hazel sticks, were employed; and so difficult was the task that three thousand bags were utilised in the process, and more than a month elapsed before the water was subdued. Two months more passed before the earth washed in was removed, and Brunel could examine the work.
He found it for the most part quite sound, though near the shield it had been shorn of half its thickness of bricks. The chain of the shield was snapped in twain, and irons belonging to the same apparatus had been forced into the earth.
The men now proceeded with their task, and exhibited a cool courage deserving of all praise. Earth and water frequently fell; foul gases pervaded the stifling air, and sometimes exploded, or catching fire, they would now and again dance over the water; and again and again labourers would be carried away insensible from the poisonous atmosphere. Complaints, such as skin eruptions, sickness, and headaches, were common. Yet, in spite of every difficulty, the men worked on in that damp and dripping and fœtid mine, haunted ever with the dread of another flood.
And it came. On the 12th of August, 1828, some fifteen months after the previous disaster, the ground bulged out, a large quantity fell, and a violent rush of water followed; one man being washed out of his cell to the wooden staging behind.
THE THAMES TUNNEL.
THE THAMES TUNNEL.
The flow was so great that Brunel ordered all to retire. The water rose so fast that when they had retreated a few feet it was up to their waists, and finally Brunel had to swim to the stairs, and the rush of water carried him up the shaft. Unhappily, abouthalf-a-dozen lives were lost at this catastrophe, and those who were rescued—about a dozen in number—were extricated in an exhausted or fainting state. The roar of the water in the shaft made a deafening noise; the news soon spread, and the scene became very distressing as the relatives of the men arrived.
Once more the hole in the bed of the Thames had to be stopped. Down went the diving-bell, but it had to descend twice before the gap was discovered. It was a hole some seven feet long, and four thousand tons of earth, chiefly bags of clay, were used in filling it. Again the tunnel was entered, and again the intrepid engineer found the work sound.
But, alas, another difficulty had presented itself—one more difficult to conquer even than stopping up huge holes in the bed of the Thames. The tunnel was being cut by a Company, and its money had gone; nay, more, its confidence had well nigh gone also. Work could not proceed without money, and for seven years silence and desolation reigned in those unfinished halls beneath the river.
Then the Government agreed to advance money, and work was again commenced. But it proceeded very slowly, some weeks less than a foot being cut, during others again three feet nine inches. The ground was in fact a fluid mud, and the bed of the river had to be artificially formed before the excavation could proceed in comparative safety. Further, the tunnel was far deeper than any other work in the neighbourhood, and all the water drained there—a difficulty which was obviated by the construction of a shaft on the other side of the river.
The shield had also to be replaced. It had been so battered about by the flood that another was necessary. As it kept up the earth above, and also in front, the change was both arduous and perilous. But it was accomplished without loss of life.
Three more irruptions of water occurred: the third in August, 1837, the fourth in November, 1837, andthe fifth in March, 1838. But the engineer was more prepared for Father Thames’ unpleasant visits, and a platform had been constructed by which the men could escape. Unhappily, one life was lost, however, on the fourth occasion. A great rush of soil also occurred in April, 1840, accompanied by a sinking of the shore at Wapping over some seven hundred feet of surface. Happily this occurred at low tide, and the chasm was filled with gravel and bags of clay before the river rose high.
At length, on the 13th of August, 1841, Brunel descended the shaft at Wapping, and entering a small cutting, passed through the shield in the tunnel, amidst the cheers of the workmen. After all these years of arduous toil, of anxious solicitude, and of hair-breadth escapes, the end was near, and a passage under the Thames was cut. It was not completed and open to the public, however, until the 25th of March, 1843, and then for foot passengers only.
The approaches for carriages remained to be constructed, and would have been expensive works. They were to be immense circular roads, but they were never made. Perhaps that deficiency contributed to the commercial failure of the great engineering enterprise. In any case, the tunnel never paid; the Company dissolved; and the tunnel passed over to the East London Railway, who run trains through it. Its length is 1300 feet, while between it and the river there is a thickness of soil of some fifteen feet.
Though a failure as a business, yet the tunnel was a great engineering triumph. It was a marvel of perseverance, and of determined, arduous, skilful toil against overwhelming difficulties. Eighteen years passed before it was completed; and if the seven be deducted during which the work was stopped, still eleven remain as the period of its construction. Work occupying such a length of time must be costly. Could it be shortened? Would tunnel-making machinery be developed and improved so as to expedite the labour of years?