Part 49

Finally, a certain day was fixed for the opening, and a great many persons were invited to be present. They found a comfortable station and waiting-room under the sidewalk of Warren Street. They found a passenger car on the track, and a well-lighted tunnel, through which they could walk, and listen to the rumbling of carriages overhead. The tunnel was as dry and comfortable as brick-work and whitewash could make it. Telegraph wires extended from end to end, so that communication could be had at any moment with the engineer; and although the distance was short, the car, in moving along the track, attained considerable speed. They found powerful machinery, capable of forcing thousands of cubic feet of air per minute, and propelling the cars at a rapid rate. The machinery was moved by steam power, and the cars were propelled by the force of the air pressing against them. Whether the tube was five yards in length or five miles, as long as it remained tight the car could be driven by the power of the stationary machinery.

Unfortunately for the rapid prosecution of the enterprise, the Pneumatic Railway was not, for the purpose of carrying passengers, a chartered institution; and up to the time of writing, it has never progressed farther than a single section, between Warren and Murray Streets. Its projectors have full faith in its ultimate success, and certainly the result of their enterprise, so far, has been satisfactory. They claim to be able to drill their tunnels for any distance, under any part of the city, without interfering with business; and they even propose to push their way under the East River, and thus extend their route to Brooklyn. They propose to have stopping-places every half mile, where passengers can be taken up and left, and they promise to run their cars from one end of New York to the other inside of half an hour. They promise that there shall be comfortable weather at all seasons of the year, and are very certain that their route will never be blocked with snow. They assert that collisions are impossible, because their mode of propulsion is such that two cars cannot approach or go from each other on the same track at the same time. One of the great troubles of operating a line of railway by steam is the impossibility of making two trains pass each other on a single track. Many a railway engine-driver has attempted it, but on every occasion he has come to grief, and has generally brought some of his passengers to an unhappy end. On an atmospheric railway the attempt to make such a meeting and passage is, from the nature of things, impossible; consequently accidents from this cause can never occur.

[Sidenote: AN ELEVATED RAILWAY.]

Another atmospheric railway proposed for New York is to be elevated in the air. An iron arch is to be thrown over the streets or avenues, sufficiently high to permit the passage of vehicles beneath it, and sufficiently strong to sustain a great weight. On the top of this archway two large tubes are to be placed, each tube nine or ten feet in diameter, and having a railway track inside, where car-wheels can run. The pneumatic system is to be applied to the propulsion of these cars, very much as it is used to propel the cars on the underground line already described. It would possess most of the advantages of the underground system, and there is no good reason to predict the failure of a line constructed in this way.

Another elevated railway has an iron arch, similar to the one just mentioned; but the roadway is open, and the cars are propelled by steam. Its advocates are sanguine of success, and its opponents say that it would frighten all the horses that come anywhere in sight of it when its trains are in motion. But if the horses choose to get frightened, that is their affair; and the probability is, that they would soon become accustomed to the strange noise, and behave themselves properly. Horses can be accustomed to anything. All that is wanted is proper training.

Somebody has proposed a three-tier railway, having one line or track under ground, another at the surface, and another elevated high in the air. His scheme is a magnificent one, and has a good many advocates; but the probability is, that some of the rival enterprises will be completed before this is adopted, mainly for the reason that the cost of their construction is much less.

Several years ago an underground railway company was chartered, and set about the construction of a line. A little work had been done, and only a little. The route was surveyed and laid out, and the managers of the company set about raising the needed capital. Somehow the desired money was not forthcoming, and up to this time the railway has existed more on paper and in the minds of its advocates than in the locality where it was to be constructed.

[Sidenote: THE VIADUCT RAILWAY.]

A year or so after this line was chartered, another scheme was proposed for making a railway on brick arches, to be known as the Viaduct Railway. It was in the hands of men then in power in New York, and soon after the organization of the company it was announced that a large amount of stock had been taken. The route was surveyed, and maps were published, showing the proposed line of travel. There were many real estate speculations growing out of it, and the supposition is, that the managers of the Viaduct Railway pocketed handsome amounts of money out of these speculations; but somehow the public did not grasp with any confidence the enterprise, which was in the hands of the magnates of the Tammany Ring, and the Viaduct Railroad, at the time I write, exists only on paper.

After this failure to meet the much felt want, the genius of Vanderbilt was brought into action. The commodore, as he was called, was able, by the influence he could bring to bear on the legislature, to secure a charter for an underground railway from City Hall to the upper end of the island. He went at it in a business-like way, and promised that in a few years one could ride under ground from the City Hall to Harlem in twenty minutes.

If Vanderbilt had lived to the age of Methuselah, and continued in vigorous health, he would doubtless have done something for rapid transit whenever he found that it would carry business to his railway. But his grand scheme of several years ago amounted to nothing, and shrewd people suspected that he was satisfied with the existing surface roads.

[Sidenote: SPHERICAL TRANSPORTATION.]

Among the schemes that have been proposed for rapid travel and transportation of freight, there is one which purposes to make use of tubes, either under ground or on the surface, in which spheres or globes shall be placed, and propelled by means of a rapid current of air. The inventor claims that a sphere will move through a tube with very little friction, and can be driven with great rapidity. He would make a tube several feet in diameter, and have his spheres so arranged that they could be opened and filled with freight, then closed, properly fastened, placed in the tube, and started. I believe that he proposes to propel them one or two hundred miles an hour, at comparatively slight expense. For certain kinds of freight this mode of transportation and propulsion might be well enough, but there are things for which it would not answer. Imagine, for example, one of the spheres filled with fresh strawberries in Virginia for transportation to New York. The strawberries would be constantly rolled against each other, so that by the time they reached New York they would be in a condition of jelly.

As a passenger route this line would have great disadvantages. Imagine a man enclosed in a sphere, either doubled or laid out horizontally, to make a journey from New York to Washington. He would be standing alternately on his head and on his feet about one hundred times a minute, and if he went through alive it would be a wonder, and he would be likely to be very much confused; especially if he were not packed tightly in his travelling-box, he would have a rough time of it. Every square inch of his body would be covered with bruises, and, besides, he would have a hard time to breathe, as the supply of air would be exceedingly limited.

I believe the inventor proposes that all parcels going by his route should be tightly packed; consequently, it would be necessary to wrap the passengers and secure them somewhat after the style of an Egyptian mummy, and stow them in their places by means of an hydraulic press. None of this mode of travel for me, if you please.

[Sidenote: PROPULSION BY GUNPOWDER.]

I have heard of a scheme of locomotion in which the inventor proposed to load his passengers into a large cannon, having a bore of three or four yards, and then shoot them to their destination. The journey could be made fast enough, but such a mode of travel is liable to accidents, both on starting and stopping. If one could get off and be well under way without being singed by the powder, he would run a great risk of being somewhat injured when reaching his stopping-place. “It was not the falling,” said a hod-carrier one day, speaking of a tumble of twenty or thirty feet,—“it was not the falling that hurt me, darling, but the stopping so quick at the end.”

XLV.

THE TUNNELS, AND THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD IN LONDON.

DESCRIPTION OF THE LONDON HARBORS—THE CATHARINE DOCK—ENORMOUS STORE-HOUSES—HOW THE TUNNEL WAS BUILT—PLAN OF THE FRENCH ENGINEER, ISAMBERT BRUNEL—HOW THE WORK WAS CHECKED BY A BREAK IN THE BED OF THE THAMES—SIX LIVES LOST—REMARKABLE RESCUE OF THE SON OF MR. BRUNEL—ENORMOUS LABOR AND STRUGGLE AGAINST THE ELEMENTS—TRIUMPH AT LAST—THE MOST REMARKABLE RAILROAD IN THE WORLD—LONDON CROSSED UNDERGROUND BY A SERIES OF TUNNELS—HOW LIGHT AND AIR IS PRODUCED—THE NEWEST IMPROVEMENTS OF THE ROAD—THE CARS PASSING UNDER THE DWELLING OF THE DEAD.

[Sidenote: THE DOCKS OF LONDON.]

The London harbor belongs to the grandest and most interesting ones in the world. Here in vivid writing the history of the English commerce is recorded; from this point, a gigantic net of navigation is spread all over the globe. Voices from all parts of the world, of animals and men; all human races, of every color, from the deepest black to the palest white of the inhabitants on the shores of the White Sea, are met with. Merchandise is taken in here, which has undergone an uninterrupted travel of three-quarters of a year, until at last it found here a preliminary object, and the statistics alone can give an idea of the immense amount of products of all lands, which are unloaded in this harbor, and stored in the enormous magazines. The harbor-basins, where those store-houses are situated, are crowded with boats for unloading the wares, give a refuge to colossi of ships; here the steam-whistles resound; columns of smoke rise to the sky; chains are rattling and cranes are creaking. In those long, extended buildings, which are almost as large as a country town, the merchandise is stored, free of duty until it is put in the market. Oil, wine, tobacco, silk, wood, flour, etc., etc., are stored in innumerable vaults, in the six stories of the monstrous buildings. Steam is in operation to unload the ships, and small railroads allow the wares to be easily transported. The principal of these store-houses are the Catharine-docks, which are easily to be reached from the Tower. It is only separated from this gloomy witness of the reign of tyranny of the Middle Ages, by a street, and here one is astonished at the hubbub which is going on. These docks were opened to the traffic in 1828; in former times, one thousand two hundred and fifty houses, with eleven thousand three hundred inhabitants were found there. The flood-gates which lead to the basin are so deep that, at the time of tide, ships of seven hundred tons (one ton equals forty-two cubic feet) can easily enter and leave. The store-houses have a capacity of one hundred and ten thousand tons. The Catharine steamboat-wharf is especially used as pier for the steamers which come from the continent. A whole series of docks is connected with the Catharine-docks. Among them are the London-docks, with room for two hundred and twenty thousand tons of goods, and a cellar with a capacity of eight million two hundred and twenty-five thousand gallons. The tunnel of the Thames leads from that part of the city which is south of the London-docks, two miles below London Bridge, to Rotherhithe, which lies on the right shore of the Thames.

[Sidenote: HOW THE EXCAVATIONS WERE MADE.]

The Thames flows through the city of London, and divides it into two parts. Many bridges span the river, but they are insufficient in number for the great traffic, and the idea was entertained of constructing a new bridge. It must be so constructed, however, that the largest vessels could pass under it. In order to avoid this, Vesey commenced, at the beginning of this century, to build a tunnel under the Thames, which plan, although it was nearly executed, had to be relinquished in 1809, on account of too many obstacles. In the year 1823, the idea was revived. The French engineer, Isambert Brunel, looking at the keel of a ship, saw how the worms hollowed out their single passages into the ship, by corridors closely adjoining each other, and conceived the idea that a great tunnel might be constructed by proceeding in the same way. He had twelve boxes made without bottom, such as are used for a foundation for water-works. These frames he placed perpendicularly, the one next to the other, and divided each in three parts, by means of traverses, so that he had, in all, thirty-six divisions, which served as points of commencement for the excavations of so many single shafts.

Each one of these divisions was designed for one laborer; it was open in the back and in front, supported by many planks, which were movable. All the frames together were called the shield. This shield was placed before the portions of ground to be excavated; the laborer removed one of the planks, and commenced digging, placed the plank, afterwards, against the sides of the shaft, which had been digged, and supported it in this position by heavy poles; the work was continued in the same way. As soon as the laborer had advanced to the same length in all the three divisions of a frame, it was pushed forward by two dummies, one of which worked at the top, the other at the bottom, into the excavated space.

As soon as the frame had advanced, masons commenced vaulting immediately behind the laborers; the shield, however, protected the earth until the vaults were ready, and the rolls, which now had been built, in their turn served as support for the dummies, by which the single frames were pushed forward. To this so simple means of excavating, London owes her underground railroad, which had long been considered as a work impossible of achievement.

In the year 1824, an action-company was formed for the restoration of the tunnel, and soon the only point where such a work could be commenced, was found. It was between Rotherhithe and Wapping, between London and Greenwich.

[Sidenote: SINKING THE CYLINDERS.]

At this point, the shores of the Thames are one thousand one hundred and forty-four feet apart. The construction was commenced, in 1825, by building a cylinder of brick on the side of Rotherhithe, at a distance from the water of one hundred and fifty-five feet. This cylinder was forty-three feet high, half a foot thick, and had a diameter of fifty-three feet. Over the upper opening, Brunel placed an engine of thirty horse-power, which took the earth and the water from the interior, until, in that way, the cylinder had sunk sixty-six feet deep into the earth. Now he placed a second cylinder within the first, which had a diameter of only sixteen and one-half feet, and sunk it, in the same manner, eighty-two and one-half feet deep. The tunnel now commences from the first cylinder, at a depth of sixty-two and one-half feet; its breadth is thirty-nine and one-half, and its height twenty-three feet, the wall inclusive. The section is formed by two ovals, which touch each other; in that way, two vaulted corridors are made, each of which is almost sixteen and one-half feet high, and has a road for carriages, and one for pedestrians, the one next to the other. Both corridors are united by openings, in which are gas-lights, which lighten them both.

At the beginning of 1826, they commenced the horizontal labor for the tunnel proper, from the bottom of this shaft. They soon came, from a firm, clay soil, to a loose, moist layer of sand, but, some time afterwards, clay was met with again. The construction progressed slowly but steadily; every day two feet were accomplished. On the 80th of June, 1826, the construction reached the bed of the river, and on the 2d of March of the following year, they had advanced four hundred and seventy-five feet, or almost one-third of the length of the tunnel had been completed.

Although the tunnel was constructed with such a decline that at every three hundred and thirty feet, it inclined almost nine and one-half feet, the top of the tunnel approached, at the middle of the river, the bed, by three meters. Till now, every thing had gone on very well, although the obstacles and dangers for the laborers increased the more they approached the bed of the stream. Brunel did not lose his courage, and the increasing danger more than once imperiled his life. With the purpose of examining the bed of the Thames, himself, he went down into the deep with a diving-bell, on the 22d of April, 1827, which bold undertaking he repeated for several days. He found, at several points, the reason why the water trickled through, and, consequently, he sunk there several baskets and bags with clay and lime.

[Sidenote: A FATAL ACCIDENT.]

He purposely dropped several tools, shovels and a hammer, and when the laborers, a few days afterwards, digged out in the tunnel some watery substance, they found every one of the tools. So these tools had worked through the sand and mud beds of twenty-nine feet of the Thames, and to the depth of the tunnel; a very bad indication of the loose substance of the soil. However, the labor was continually pushed forward, when, unfortunately, several large vessels, which had drifted down with the stream, threw their anchors exactly over the tunnel. The consequence was such a violent rush of the water of the Thames, that the engines could not master it longer. All efforts were in vain. The laborers saved themselves, the tunnel was filled, within a quarter of an hour, with water and some thousand tons of sand and mud. This happened on the 18th of May, 1827. Brunel did not lose his courage. Again he went down, in his diving-bell, to the hole which had been made, and, to his great joy, he saw that the masonry had not been harmed, and his shield stood on the same spot where the laborers had left it. He commenced, at once, to repair the damage. With sixty thousand hundredweights of clay, let down in baskets, he filled the hole, and pumped the tunnel dry with several engines. A month after the disaster, the work went on again. This accident, however, seemed to be the beginning of a series of misfortunes, which threatened the continuation of the tunnel. The laborers had lost their courage, by the last disaster, which had almost proved fatal to them. One cry of alarm followed another, when masses of combustible gas filled the interior, and, at the least carelessness with the lamps, exploded, and filled the whole empty space with flames and such a terrible stench that the laborers swooned. However, up to the 12th of January, 1828, they had advanced fifty-three feet farther, when the flood broke, for a second time, through the ceiling. This unfortunate incident was paid for by the lives of six laborers. The son of Brunel was, at that time, in the tunnel; he crept forward, blindly, in the space, which was blacker than night, then the current of water took him up, but, happily, it forced him up into the shaft. This second hole was at a distance of six hundred and twenty-seven feet from the entrance. Again, Brunel went down to the bottom of the river; the tunnel was pumped dry, and it was proved that the masonry had not been damaged.

[Sidenote: OPENING OF THE TUNNEL.]

Now the means for continuing the work commenced to give out, and it was interrupted for seven years. At last, the government supplied the means for its completion. The work commenced anew, but it proceeded very slowly; the bed of the river proved to be so soaked through that a new bed had to be formed; the shield, which, till now, had been used, was damaged, and had to be replaced by another. Three times, again, the water forced its way through the ceiling. However, the work went on, amid the uninterrupted struggles with the obstacles of the soil and the elements, and on the 13th of August, 1841, Isambert Brunel had the satisfaction to walk through the whole length of the tunnel, after continuous struggles and labor of sixteen years! After the entrance and exit of the tunnel had been constructed, the tunnel was opened, with great festivities, for the general traffic.

The gigantic labor took three million five hundred thousand dollars. Everybody passing through it has to pay one penny.

Brunel, the able architect, was made a baronet, by the queen. He died in 1849.

The tunnel, in the beginning, paid so little that those who held bonds were obliged to pay for a part of the repairs, but, in 1865, the tunnel was bought by the East London railroad company, for two hundred thousand pounds, and at the present time, forty railroad-trains are going up and down under the water of the Thames, and effect the communication between Wapping and Rotherhithe, where the great Commercial and West India-docks are found, which are the greatest in the world, and which have room for four hundred and fifty West Indiamen.

[Sidenote: UNDERGROUND RAILROAD.]

The underground railroad in London is the most remarkable one on the globe, as its rails are laid almost entirely in tunnels. It was opened in January, 1863, and was built by the civil engineers, J. Fowler and Mason Johnson, with the purpose of connecting the four most important railroad stations on the north side of the Thames. It commences at the last station of the Great Western road, and terminates in the City. The road has six or seven halts, and is laid above the ground only, where the lots lying in the line of the road, and the buildings on them, could be cheaply purchased; for the greatest part, however, the road is underground, and leads through tunnels, which are lighted by gas. The stations have platforms of a length of two hundred and five feet, and a breadth of ten feet.