Thomé de Gamond's geological observations, although they were certainly sketchy by later standards, were enough to convince him of the feasibility of a mined tunnel under the Channel, and in 1856 he drew up plans for such a work. This was to be a stone affair containing a double set of railroad tracks. It was to stretch twenty-one miles, from Cap Gris-Nez to Eastwear Point, and from these places was to connect, by more than nine miles at each end of sloping access tunnels, with the French and British railway systems. The junctions of the sloping access tunnels and the main tunnel itself were to be marked by wide shafts, about three hundred feet deep, at the bottom of which travelers would encounter the frontier stations of each nation. The line of the main tunnel was to be marked above the surface by a series of twelve small artificial islands made of stone. These were to be surmounted with lighthouses and were to contain ventilating shafts connecting with the tunnel. Thomé de Gamond prudently provided the ventilation shafts in his plans with sea valves, so that in case of war between England and France each nation would have the opportunity of flooding the tunnel on short notice. The tunnel was designed to cross the northern tip of the Varne, a narrow, submerged shelf that lies parallel to the English coast about ten miles off Folkestone, and so close to the surface that at low tide it is only about fifteen feet under water at its highest point. Thomé de Gamond planned to raise the Varne above water level, thus converting it into an artificial island, by building it up with rocks and earth brought to the spot in ships. Through this earth, engineers would dig a great shaft down to the level of the tunnel, so that the horizontal mining of the tunnel as a whole could be carried on from four working faces simultaneously, instead of only two. The great shaft was also to serve as a means of ventilating the tunnel and communicating with it from the outside, and around its apex Thomé de Gamond planned, with a characteristically grand flourish, an international port called the Étoile de Varne, which was to have four outer quays and an interior harbor, as well as amenities such as living quarters for personnel and a first-class lighthouse. As for the shaft leading down to the railway tunnel, according to alternate versions of Thomé de Gamond's plan, it was to be at least 350 feet—and possibly as much as 984 feet—in diameter, and 147 feet deep; and, according to a contemporary account in the Paris newspaper _La Patrie_, "an open station [would be] formed as spacious as the court of the Louvre, where travelers might halt to take air after running a quarter of an hour under the bottom of the Strait." From the bottom of this deep station, trains might also ascend by means of gently spiraling ramps to the surface of the Étoile de Varne, _La Patrie_ reported. The newspaper went on to invite its readers to contemplate the panorama at sea level: