CHAP. XIII. KILSBY TUNNEL. 245 suddenly gave way, a deluge of water burst in, and the party of workmen with the utmost difficulty escaped with their lives. They were only saved by means of a raft on which they were towed by one of the engineers swimming, with the rope in his mouth, to the lower end of the shaft, out of which they were safely lifted to the daylight. The works were of course at that point immediately stopped Pumping engines were erected for the purpose of draining off the water, but for a long time it prevailed, and some times even rose in the shaft. It was then thought expedient to run a drift along the heading from the south end of the tunnel, in order to drain off the water in that way. The drift had nearly reached the sand bed, when, one day that the engineer, his assistants, and the workmen were clustered about its open entrance, they heard a sudden roar as of distant thunder. It was hoped that the water had burst in-for all the workmen were out of the drift, 246 KILSBY TUNNEL. CHAP. XIII. and that the sand bed would now drain itself off in a natural way. Instead of which, very little water made its appearance; and on examining the inner end of the drift, it was found that the loud noise had been caused by the sudden discharge into it of an immense mass of sand, which had completely choked up the passage, and prevented the water from draining off. The engineer now found that there was nothing for it but numerous additional shafts and pumping engines placed over the line of the tunnel where it crossed the quicksand. But this involved a large additional expenditure, and it was necessary to obtain the sanction of the board of directors before it could be adopted. As for the contractor, he abandoned the work in despair, and died shortly after: it was said the anxiety killed him. The directors, in their perplexity, called to their aid certain engineers of the highest eminence at that day, who declared against the practicability of prosecuting the work, and advised its abandonment. The Company's engineers, on the other hand, strongly urged its prosecution, and their plan was at length adopted by a majority of the directors. A line of pumping-engines, having an aggregate power of 160 horses, was erected at short intervals over the quicksand, and in the direction of the tunnel; shafts were simultaneously sunk down through the sand; and the pumping went on for eight continuous months, until the tunnel at that part was completed. It was found that the water, with which the bed of sand extending over many miles was charged, was to a certain extent held back by the particles of the sand itself, and that it could only percolate through at a certain average rate. It appeared in its flow to take a slanting direction to the suction of the pumps, the angle of inclination depending upon the coarseness or fineness of the sand, and regulating the time of the flow. Hence the distribution of the pumping power at short intervals along the line of the tunnel had a much greater effect than the concentration of that power at any one spot. In short, the water had found its master; and protected by the pumps, which cleared for the work CHAP. XIII. KILSBY TUNNEL. 247 men a space for their operations, in the midst, as it were, of two almost perpendicular walls of water and sand on either side, they proceeded with the building of the tunnel at numerous points. Every exertion was used to wall in this dangerous part as quickly as possible; the excavators and bricklayers working night and day until the work was finished. Even while under the protection of the immense pumping power above described, it often happened that the bricks were scarcely covered with cement ready for the setting, ere they were washed quite clean by the streams of water which poured down overhead. The workmen were accordingly under the necessity of holding over their work large whisks of straw and other appliances to protect the bricks and cement at the moment of setting. The quantity of water pumped out of the sand bed during the eight months of incessant pumping, averaged two thousand gallons per minute, raised from an average depth of 120 feet. It is difficult to form an adequate idea of the bulk of the water thus raised, but it may be stated that if allowed to flow for three hours only, it would fill a lake one acre square to the depth of one foot, and if allowed to flow for one entire day it would fill the lake to over eight feet in depth, or sufficient to float vessels of a hundred tons burthen. The water pumped out of the tunnel during the entire period of the works, would nearly be equivalent to the contents of the Thames at high water, between London and Woolwich. It is a curious circumstance, that notwithstanding the quantity of water pumped out, the level of the surface in the tunnel was only lowered about two and a half to three inches per week, proving the vast extent of the quicksand, which probably extended along the entire ridge of land under which the railway passed. The labourers who executed these formidable works were in many respects a remarkable class. The " railway navvies," as they were called, were men drawn by the attraction of good wages from all parts of the kingdom; and they were ready for any sort of hard work. Many of the labourers employed on the Liverpool line were Irish, others were 248 RAILWAY "NAVVIES." CHAP. XIII. from the Northumberland and Durham railways, where they had been accustomed to similar work; and some of the best came from the fen districts of Lincoln and Cambridge where they had been trained to execute works of excavation and embankment. These old practitioners formed the nucleus of a skilled manipulation and aptitude, which rendered them of indispensable utility in the immense undertakings of the period. Their expertness in all sorts of earthwork, in embanking, boring, and well-sinking—their practical knowledge of the nature of soils and rocks, the tenacity of clays, and the porosity of certain stratifications— were very great; and, rough-looking as they were, many of them were as important in their own department as the contractor or the engineer. During the railway-making period the navvy wandered about from one public work to another-apparently belonging to no country and having no home. He usually wore a white felt hat, the brim turned up all round—a headdress since become fashionable,-a velveteen or jean square-tailed coat, a scarlet plush waistcoat with little black spots, and a bright-coloured handkerchief round his herculean neck, when, as often happened, it was not left entirely bare. His corduroy breeches were retained in position by a leathern strap round the waist, and tied and buttoned at the knee, displaying beneath a solid calf and foot firmly encased in strong high-laced boots. Joining together in a "butty gang," some ten or twelve of these men would take a contract to cut out and remove so much "dirt”—so they denominated earth-cutting-fixing their price according to the character of the "stuff,” and the distance to which it had to be wheeled and tipped. The contract taken, every man put himself to his mettle: if any was found skulking, or not putting forth his full working power, he was ejected from the gang. Their powers of endurance were extraordinary. In times of emergency they would work for twelve and even sixteen hours, with only short intervals for meals; and the quantity of flesh-meat which they consumed was something enormous; but it was to their bones and CHAP. XIII. ENGLISH AND FRENCH "NAVVIES." 249 muscles what coke is to the locomotive-the means of keeping up the steam. When railway-making extended to France, the English contractors for the works took with them gangs of English navvies, with the usual plant, which included wheelbarrows. These the English navvy was accustomed to run out continuously, loaded with some three to four hundredweight of stuff, piled so high that he could barely see over the summit of the load the gang-board along which he wheeled his barrow; whereas the French navvy was contented with half the weight. Indeed, the French navvies on one occasion struck work because of the size of the barrows, and there was a dangerous émeute, which was only quelled by the aid of the military. The consequence was that the big barrows were abandoned to the English workmen, who earned nearly double the wages of the Frenchmen. The manner in which they stood to their work was matter of great surprise and wonderment to the French country people, who came crowding round them in their blouses, and, after gazing admiringly at their expert handling of the pick and mattock, and the immense loads of "dirt" which they wheeled out, would exclaim to each other, "Mon Dieu, voila! voila ces Anglais, comme ils travaillent!" [Goodness gracious! look at these Englishmen! see how they work!] Such were the indefatigable labourers who executed the great undertakings of the railway era. |