At seven o’clock on the Sunday morning a train started from each end laden with invited guests to witness the final operation. Amid many huzzas they disappeared into the dark, yawning mouths of the great bore. When each party reached the heading the machines were already at work. Only a foot of rock stood between those who had journeyed up from Airolo and the others who had travelled from Göschenen. The distinction of making the breach a thousand feet under the village of Andermatt nestling in the sunshine on the mountain slopes, and with the little lake of Sella 3000 feet above one’s head, was given to two Piedmontese workmen, Neccaraviglia and Chisso, who had toiled in the Cenis, and afterwards in the Gotthard, since its very commencement. The last charges were rammed home, and at 11.45 on the Sunday morning eight rumbling detonations heralded the piercing of St. Gotthard. Ere the smoke had cleared away the men sprang forward. There was the final breach, about three feet in diameter. Engineer Bossi sprang through the gap, and emotionally embraced his confrere on the other side, followed by his workmen, who shook hands with their comrades. It was a strange scene in the depths of the Alps, and the wild vivas of those assembled, to the memory of Louis Favre, reverberated weirdly down the shaft on either side. The excavations of the works to the full dimensions and the lining up of the last section proceeded with great rapidity, and on May 22, 1882, amid great festivity, the tunnel was declared open. It had taken ten years to complete, but had Favre been left to his own devices, and had he not been exposed to financial harassing and intrigue, and had not his successor Hellwag been driven from his post, it would have been finished in the time the engineer contemplated. At that time Favre’s skill, pluck and unflagging devotion to his task were not appreciated, but recognition of his genius was afterwards extended by the erection of a monument to his memory at the Airolo entrance to the tunnel. It is safe to assert that it was due to his enterprise and grim determination in the face of adversity that the St. Gotthard tunnel became an accomplished fact, and resulted in the reduction of the journey between Northern Europe and Italy by thirty-six hours. In addition to the tunnel, 172 miles of line had to be built to connect the Swiss with the Italian railway systems. From the body of this frowning clump 31,800,000 cubic feet of rock were torn by means of 2,200,000 pounds of dynamite.