been for some years, steadily increasing at the
rate of ten per cent per annum.

Three plans have been proposed to effect
the desired object.

The first, which naturally grows out of the
instinctive cry for larger steamers, can scarcely
be called a plan for a continuous railway. It is
proposed to employ very large steam-vessels
of a peculiar build, on to which the trains
shall be run bodily. The ferry vessel will
then steam across to the opposite side, where
the train will be run off it and on to the
shore line. All trouble and discomfort attendant
even on a change of carriage will be
avoided. A truck may be loaded in London
and, untouched by the way, be unloaded in
Paris.

At first sight this seems a sufficiently
ingenious plan. Mr. Scott Russell has clearly
demonstrated its practicability on a considerable
scale, by the example of the Lake of Constance:
across whose occasionally stormy waters
heavy trains have been successfully ferried daily
for some months.

But, unfortunately, the running of the trains
on to the steam-vessels, the running of them off
again, the lashings on the one side and the casting
loose on the other, must occupy a considerable
time. And the question of time is one that
in this matter must be steadily kept in view.
Again, this plan does not get rid of the Channel,
and it may reasonably be argued that the
difficulties arising from tempest, fog, or other
delay and danger-bringing causes, would be
incomparably greater in the Channel than on
the Boden See. After all, then, the ferry plan,
though in many respects a good remedy, is a
partial one only: while the expense of
constructing harbours of sufficient magnitude, and
of building steamers fitted for the great strain
they would be called upon to bear, would be
very large.

Is it possible to construct a really continuous
railway between France and England? And
is it possible to do the work at a cost admitting
of a remunerative profit? These are the two
questions to which it is of importance to obtain
satisfactory replies.

An eminent French engineer proposed some
years ago a magnificent scheme for the
construction of no less a work than a railway
bridge across the Straits of Dover. Ingenious
calculations, elaborate plans, and
highly-coloured drawings, have not been
wanting to attract public attention to this scheme.
Royal personages are reported to have looked
upon it with favour. It received close and
careful attention from experts and others
interested in the matter. But, however pleasant
the prospect of being able to cross the Channel
with no break of gauge, with no apprehension
of sea-sickness, and with no burrowing or
tunnelling in the dark, the plan developed
formidable difficulties when it came to be
practically examined; the closer the criticism, the
more serious and obvious the objections. In
the first place the engineering difficulties were
found to be of a most startling description. For
the purposes of the ordinary navigation, such a
bridge must be at least two hundred feet above
high-water mark. The piers, which would
have to be carried up some four hundred feet,
would require to be strong enough to withstand,
not only the weight and vibration of the
traffic, but the violence of the most furious
winter storms. In addition to these piers (in
themselves a serious addition to the difficulties of
a navigation already sufficiently overcrowded
and hazardous), the engineer proposed the
construction in mid-channel of an island and port of
refuge: the existence of which, in such a situation,
would probably have proved a fruitful
source of trouble and danger to passing vessels.
Apart from these considerations, the question
of cost, by no means to be lost sight of even
in the consideration of magnificent proposals
such as this, was found to be decidedly against
the adoption of the plan, or any modification
it. Piers four hundred feet high, artificial
islands, harbours of refuge out at sea, and
divers works on a similarly grand scale, are not
to be constructed for nothing: especially, when
the distance to be spanned is some
four-and-twenty miles. Even supposing the
engineering difficulties to be surmounted and with
the wonderful examples we have before us, it
seems difficult to believe that there is practically
any limit to engineering achievements then it
became a question whether the over-channel
railway bridge could ever be successful,
commercially. The estimated cost of such a bridge
was some fifty millions sterling: so hopeless a
sum that the plan was speedily relegated to the
limbo of abortive projects.

If you have to cross the sea in a railway
carriage, and can neither cross on the water in
a ferry vessel, nor over the water on a bridge,
the only remaining way lies either in the water,
or under the water.

To cross in the water would necessitate the
sinking of a tube or tubes. Of that operation the
practicability is, to say the least, doubtful.
Even when you had got your tube to the
bottom of the sea, its troubles would only
begin. It would always be liable to external
injury; and it would be next to impossible to
protect it from continual leakage. Continual
leakage would in no long time prove fatal to its
usefulness, and, finally, to its existence.

What, then, about passing under the water?
What, in a word, about tunnelling below the
bed of the Channel from coast to coast?

The conditions on which the success of such
an enterprise depend, are comparatively few
and simple. The first condition relates to the
geological formation in which the work would
have to be done.

It has frequently been pointed out, and there
appears to be no difference of opinion on the
subject, that there are to be found, on opposite
sides of the Channel, tracts of coast presenting
geological features almost identical. The
English coast between Deal and Folkestone,
for instance, corresponds in every particular
with three miles of the French coast, a
little to the westward of Calais. That the