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260

HIS MANLY DEFENCE.

CHAP. XIV.

with emotion, replied,-"Yes, my lord, I do call it honest. And I will ask your lordship, whom I served for many years as your enginewright at the Killingworth collieries, when did you ever know me to do anything that was not honest and honourable? You know what the collieries were when I went there, and you know what they were when I left them. Did you ever hear that I was found wanting when honest services were wanted, or when duty called me? Let your lordship but fairly consider the circumstances of the case, and I feel persuaded you will admit that my conduct has been equally honest throughout in this matter." He then briefly but clearly stated the history of the application to Parliament for the act, which was so satisfactory to the Committee that they passed the preamble of the bill without further objection. Lord Wharncliffe requested that the Committee would permit his observations, together with Mr. Stephenson's reply, to be erased from the record of the evidence, which, as an acknowledgment of his error, was permitted: Lord Kenyon and several other members of the Committee afterwards came up to Mr. Stephenson, shook him by the hand, and congratulated him on the manly way in which he had vindicated himself in the course of the inquiry.

In conducting this project to a successful issue, Mr. Stephenson had much opposition and many strong prejudices to encounter. Predictions were confidently made in many quarters, that the line could never succeed. It was declared, that the utmost engineering skill could not construct a railway through such a country of hills and hard rocks; and it was maintained that, even if the railway were practicable, it could only be formed at so enormous a cost as to prevent it from ever remunerating the proprietors.

During the progress of the works, as the Summit Tunnel, near Littleborough, was approaching completion, the alarming rumour was spread abroad in Manchester that the tunnel had fallen in and buried a number of workmen in the ruins. The last arch had been keyed in, and the work was all but finished, when the accident occurred which was

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thus exaggerated by the lying tongue of rumour. invert had given way through the irregular pressure of the surrounding earth and rock at a part of the tunnel

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The Littleborough Tunnel. (The Walsden End.)

where a
"fault" had occurred in the strata. A party of
the directors accompanied the engineer to inspect the scene
of the accident. They entered the tunnel's mouth preceded
by upwards of fifty navvies, each bearing a torch. This
extraordinary subterranean viaduct had occupied the
labours of above a thousand men during nearly four years.
Besides excavating the arch out of the solid rock, they had
used 23,000,000 of bricks, and 8000 tons of Roman cement.
Thirteen stationary engines, and about 100 horses, had
also been employed in drawing the earth and stone out of
the shafts. The entire length of the tunnel was 2869 yards,
or nearly a mile and three quarters,-exceeding the famous
Kilsby Tunnel by 471 yards.

262

ANOTHER "FRIGHTFUL ACCIDENT."

CHAP. XIV.

After walking a distance of about half a mile, the inspecting party arrived at the scene of the "frightful accident,” about which so much alarm had been spread in Manchester. All that was visible was a certain unevenness of the ground, which had been forced up by the invert under it giving way; thus the ballast had been loosened, the drain running along the centre of the road had been displaced, and small pools of water stood about. But the whole of the walls and the roof were as perfect there as in any other part of the tunnel. Mr. Stephenson explained the cause of the accident: the blue shale, he said, through which the excavation passed at that point, was considered so hard and firm, as to render it unnecessary to build the invert very strong there. But shale is always a deceptive material. Subjected to the influence of the atmosphere, it gives but a treacherous support. In this case, falling away like quioklime, it had left the lip of the invert alone to support the pressure of the arch above, and hence its springing inwards and upwards. Mr. Stephenson directed the attention of the visitors to the completeness of the arch overhead, where not the slightest fracture or yielding could be detected. Speaking of the work, in the course of the same day, he said, "I will stake my character, my head, if that tunnel ever give way, so as to cause danger to any of the public passing through it. Taking it as a whole, I don't think there is such another piece of work in the world. It is the greatest work that has yet been done of this kind, and there has been less repairing than is usual,—though an engineer might well be beaten in his calculations, for he cannot beforehand see into those little fractured parts of the earth he may meet with." As Mr. Stephenson had promised, the invert was put in; and the tunnel was made perfectly safe.

The North Midland Railway was a favourite line of Mr. Stephenson's for several reasons. Its works were of a formidable character; it passed through a rich mining district, in which it opened up many valuable coal-fields, and it formed part of the great main line of communication between London and Edinburgh. The line was originally projected

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by gentlemen interested in the London and Birmingham Railway. Their intention was to carry the latter railway from Rugby to Leeds; but, finding themselves anticipated in part by the projection of the Midland Counties line from Rugby to Derby, they confined themselves to the district between Derby and Leeds. The projectors appointed Mr. Stephenson to examine the country, and lay out the best line; and after a careful survey, he reported the result to a public meeting held at Leeds, in September, 1835; and the result was, the approval of the line as laid out by him. A subscription list was at once opened, and Mr. John Marshall, one of the most public-spirited and influential manufacturers of Leeds, having put his name down for 35,000l., the shares were soon taken and the project was fairly launched. The act was obtained in 1836, and the first ground was broken in February, 1837.

Although the North Midland Railway was only one of the many great works of the same kind executed at that time, it was enough of itself to be the achievement of a life. Compare it, for example, with Napoleon's much-vaunted military road over the Simplon, and it will at once be seen how greatly it excels that work, not only in the constructive skill displayed in it, but also in its cost and magnitude, and the amount of labour employed in its formation. The road of the Simplon is 45 miles in length; the North Midland Railway 72 miles. The former has 50 bridges and 5 tunnels, measuring together 1338 feet in length; the latter has 200 bridges and 7 tunnels, measuring together 11,400 feet, or about 2 miles. The former cost about 720,000l. sterling, the latter above 3,000,000l. Napoleon's grand military road was constructed in six years, at the public cost of the two great kingdoms of France and Italy; while Stephenson's much more magnificent railway was formed in about three years, by a company of private merchants and capitalists out of their own funds, and under their own superintendence. And if the name of the Chevalier Fabbroni has been honoured for the design and construction of the military road across the Simplon, how much higher ought the name of George

264

NORTH MIDLAND LINE.

CHAP. XIV.

Stephenson to rank as the engineer and architect of the North Midland, the Manchester and Leeds, the Liverpool and Manchester, and many other equally gigantic works of great public utility!

It is scarcely necessary that we should give any account in detail of the North Midland works. The making of one tunnel so much resembles the making of another,—the building of bridges and viaducts, no matter how extensive, so much resembles the building of others,—the cutting out of “ dirt,” the blasting of rocks, and the wheeling of the excavation into embankments, is so much a matter of mere time and hard work,—that it is quite unnecessary for us to detain the reader by any attempt at their description. Of course there were the usual difficulties to encounter and overcome,-but the railway engineer regarded these as mere matters of course, and would probably have been disappointed if they had not presented themselves. On the Midland, as on other lines, water was the great enemy to be fought against,—water in the Claycross and other tunnels,—water in the boggy or sandy foundations of bridges,—and water in cuttings and embankments. As an illustration of the difficulties of bridge building, we may mention the case of the five arch bridge over the Derwent, where it took two years' work, night and day, to get in the foundations of the piers alone. Another curious illustration of the mischief done by water in cuttings, may be briefly mentioned. At a part of the North Midland line, near Ambergate, it was necessary to pass along a hillside in a cutting a few yards deep. As the cutting proceeded, a seam of shale was cut across, lying at an inclination of 6 to 1; and very shortly, the water getting behind the bed of shale, the whole mass of earth along the hill above began to move down across the line of excavation,-completely upsetting the estimates of the contractor, who, instead of fifty thousand cubic yards, found that he had about five hundred thousand to remove; the execution of this part of the railway occupying fifteen months instead of two.

As a curiosity in construction, we may also mention a very delicate piece of work executed on the same line at Bull

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