At length, on the 13th of August, 1841, Brunel descended the shaft at Wapping, and entering a small cutting, passed through the shield in the tunnel, amidst the cheers of the workmen. After all these years of arduous toil, of anxious solicitude, and of hair-breadth escapes, the end was near, and a passage under the Thames was cut. It was not completed and open to the public, however, until the 25th of March, 1843, and then for foot passengers only. The approaches for carriages remained to be constructed, and would have been expensive works. They were to be immense circular roads, but they were never made. Perhaps that deficiency contributed to the commercial failure of the great engineering enterprise. In any case, the tunnel never paid; the Company dissolved; and the tunnel passed over to the East London Railway, who run trains through it. Its length is 1300 feet, while between it and the river there is a thickness of soil of some fifteen feet. Though a failure as a business, yet the tunnel was a great engineering triumph. It was a marvel of perseverance, and of determined, arduous, skilful toil against overwhelming difficulties. Eighteen years passed before it was completed; and if the seven be deducted during which the work was stopped, still eleven remain as the period of its construction. Work occupying such a length of time must be costly. Could it be shortened? Would tunnel-making machinery be developed and improved so as to expedite the labour of years? CHAPTER III. THROUGH THE ALPS. “Cut through the Alps? It is an impossibility; and it would never pay!” “Yet they are about to do it. Sommeiller, an engineer, has invented, or obtained, a rock-boring machine which promises to lighten the labour considerably; and then, of course, they will shatter great quantities of earth by explosives.” “And what part of the Alps?” “Through Mont Cenis. The tunnel will be about 7½ miles long, and the mountain over it will rise 5400 feet at one point.” “And when do they expect to finish it?” “I cannot say. They will begin on the southern—that is, the Italian—side first, and later on the French side. Through the tunnel will pass one of the principal routes from the West to the East.” This conversation, we may suppose, took place in 1857, the year when the tunnel was commenced. For four years hand work was used, though blasting was in operation from the first; but in 1861 drilling by machinery was brought into play, and the rate of progress became much greater.