1878
THE ST. GOTHARD TUNNEL--I DESCRIBE IT FOR HARPER’S MAGAZINE--
ITS COST--A GREAT SCARE IN THE TUNNEL.
_October, 1878._--The great tunnel through the St. Gothard Alps is
reaching completion. Nothing like it was ever accomplished before in
the world. It happens that Mr. Hellwag, the chief engineer of the
stupendous undertaking, is a personal friend, and he gave me every
facility for visiting it. His courtesy and hints have helped me in
preparing my article for Harper’s (October) Magazine. Hellwag is
already famous as the builder of the tunnels for the Brenner pass. He
is also the inventor of the Auger, or Spiral tunnel system, by which
railway trains reach high elevations up tunnel slopes, winding around
and up the inside of mountains. He gave me letters and permits to go
everywhere, and, so far as I know, I am the first American to have been
inside the tunnel.
The undertaking of this tunnel is something vast. It takes the surplus
cash of three governments to build it, Italy, Germany and Switzerland.
The line reaches from Lake Luzern in Switzerland to Lake Maggiore in
Italy, one hundred and eight miles. One hundred and twenty thousand
feet of this is tunneled through mountains of granite. The longest
tunnel in the series is 48,936 feet. Few of the smaller tunnels are
less than 7,000 feet long.
It was thought one hundred and eighty-seven million francs would pay
for it, but two hundred and eighty-nine millions are now required.
It is the usual blundering in figures that comes with most public
enterprises. This particular blundering has bankrupted thousands of
innocent people who have bought shares. The extra money is now raised,
however, and the awful barrier of granite peaks and fields of snow and
ice, between Italy and Switzerland, is to be overcome by skill of man.
There was no road over the Gothard for five hundred years, and not
until a century ago was a vehicle of any kind ever seen up there.
Even now, the wagon road is one of great peril, as I have myself
experienced, a whole sledge load of us once barely missing being
overwhelmed by an avalanche that fell a hundred feet ahead of us. There
were granite boulders in that slide of snow, big as our horses, and the
thing fell without a warning, and with a crash that was stupendous.
Many lives have been lost in this pass; half the year, even now, it
is abandoned entirely to the winds that howl among its mountains of
desolation.
The tunnel was not quite finished when I was there. The boring
machines inside are worked by compressed air, furnished by enormous
air compressors outside. These also force air in for ventilation. They
compress air also for the peculiar locomotives that are moved by air,
not steam.
My guide and I got on the front platform of one of these air engines,
and were shot into the tunnel for miles through a black cloud of smoke
and gas that I thought would kill me, or cause me to fall off the
engine. It was Cimmerian darkness. The engineer said: “You shall now
see a glimpse of the bowels of hell.” I saw nothing for miles, and
then suddenly we came to the weird lights, the big air machines boring
into the granite walls, and the half-naked workmen. It was a gruesome
picture in there, with the yellow lights, the racket of the machines,
and the occasional explosion of dynamite. The water in places burst
from the rocks in streams as big as my arm, and with force enough to
knock the workmen from their feet. At one spot, the torrent broke
through fine crevices, at the rate of four thousand gallons a minute. A
special canal was made under the railroad tracks, to carry this river
of water out of the tunnel.
I was greatly impressed, not only by the scene inside, but to think
that at that moment avalanches were falling five thousand feet above
our heads, storms were raging among the cold peaks up there, and a
rapid mountain river was rushing right along over us. It seemed a
perilous place. Indeed, it was often feared that some mighty torrent
might be struck suddenly, some day, and destroy every life in the
tunnel.
Far in, where the compressed air left the pipes, the ventilation seemed
better, but it would kill most men to stay in there at all for any
length of time. It is well known that the health of these unfortunate
workmen is being ruined. An early death stares every one of them in the
face.
Something is always threatening to happen, and my conductor relates an
incident that shows how easily alarm sets in. He was one day walking
along in the half darkness, inspecting something near the mouth of the
tunnel, when he heard far behind him what sounded like the tramping of
a herd of buffalo, or the bursting of a torrent. Suddenly, he saw quick
moving lights and heard human voices. Whatever it could be, exploding
gas, demons, or torrent, it was rushing towards him like an avalanche.
He jumped into a niche at the side of the tunnel, to save his life.
Then he heard the cry, “The _mine_, the _mine!_ run for your life!”
He, too, then ran till he broke down and saw the terrible army of
half-naked, begrimed men, with the coal lamps on their heads, rush by
him in terror. A jutting rock had saved his life, but the herd of men,
still screaming “gas,” “the mine,” “run, run!” tumbled over each other
and tramped each other down, till the mouth of the tunnel was reached.
When my informant picked himself up, and went down to the company’s
offices, he found the whole crowd gesticulating and talking loudly.
There had been no “explosion”--no “mine”--no “gas.” It was simply a
_strike_. The leaders had adopted this plan to scare everybody out of
the tunnel.
The next day, and the next, the strikers refused to either work or
disperse. They were trying “the dog in the manger” system of the United
States strikers, neither working nor letting work. A regiment of
militia was sent there, and, unlike American militia, did their duty.
A very few musket volleys, and the poor, deluded strikers went away,
though a good many staid there in their blood.