Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

THE STORY OF THE SEVERN TUNNEL. 85 by flinging into the cavity a mass of clay. It was fortunate for all concerned that the water broke in before the heading under the river was completed. Had the water had a clear run an immense amount of damage would have been done. About this time a system of electric lighting was introduced into the works. This may serve as a reminder to the reader that in the early ’eighties the lighting and ventilation of tunnels were but primitive as compared with the methods of to-day, and that drilling machines and explosives had not been brought to their high pitch of present perfection. In short, the driving of a second Severn Tunnel of equal length would not now be nearly so difficult a matter as it was then, thanks to mechanical improvements and to the capa- bilities of the Greathead shield. On the whole very satisfactory progress was made during this year, by the end of which the heading under the river was completed. Early in 1882 the telephone was Telephones installed between the offices on installed. both sides of the Severn. On the first day that it was in use it enabled a foreman at one end to over- hear what a discontented ganger—quite un- aware of the telephone’s powers—said in the cabin at the other end, and to dismiss him before he could cause mischief among the men. In December a somewhat laughable inci- dent, which might easily have had. serious results, occurred. At a point under the river some water had been im- A pounded in a heading by a Laughable Incident *a“ °* timber, and when pur- posely released flowed down the heading. One of the men, on seeing it, shouted that the river had broken in again, and in a moment panic seized everybody. A disorderly stampede to the shaft took place, the men throwing down their tools and trip- ping each other up in their haste. Then the pit ponies, alarmed by the conduct of their masters, also stampeded, treading on the bodies of prostrate men, for whom in their terror they had lost their usual respect. For- tunately none of the 300 or 400 men were injured, and beyond the loss of sundry articles of clothing left behind in the hurry, and merciless chaffing by the rest of the workmen, nobody was any the worse for the scare. A few months later, however, a fresh item was added to the list of real disasters. This was a second irruption of the Great Spring, which drowned out all the sub-river workings. Lambert was again called in to close the drainage heading door, and after three weeks of hard pumping the tunnel was free of water, and the spring imprisoned once more. Meanwhile misfortune had overtaken the Gloucestershire works. On the night of Octo- ber 17, 1882, an unusually high spring tide, increased by a strong south- westerly gale, swept up the Tidal Severn estuary, and overflowed , ,, ■ floods the the sea wall near the Marsh Tunnel. Pit. It came as a solid wall of water five or six feet high, flooded the cot- tages on the low ground, and rushed down the unprotected mouth of the øhaft, sweeping away and drowning a poor fellow who was climbing the ladder at the time. The men at the spot made desperate efforts to raise a rampart round the pit to stem the flood, and succeeded. As the sub-river portion of the tunnel was already full of water from the Great Spring, the salt water gained quickly on the eighty-three men working in the heading to the east of Marsh Pit, which had not yet reached daylight. They were obliged to re- treat up the incline, and take refuge on a stage. The water rose at the bottom of the shaft to within a few feet of the crown of the tunnel, and then the inflow was checked. A boat was hastily procured and lowered, and early next morning the last of the imprisoned men was brought safely “ to bank.” The tidal wave had worked inland for more