CONNECTION OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND BY LAND.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3777, 23 August 1883, Page 4

CONNECTION OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND BY LAND.

An exchange says:—We have become familiarised of late years Avith gigantic projects in cutting Avatenvays through isthmuses and thus shortening sea routes by means of canals, but avo have seldom heard of schemes for stopping great AvatcrAvays by means of artificial isthmuses. Mr j. C King, engineer, has lately published a pamphlet in AA'hich such a thing is advocated in a proposed artificial land connection bctAvcen Great Britain and Ireland at tho Mull of Can tyre. According to this author tho sea between these tAvo points is nineteen miles Avidc, and has a maximum depth of 474 feet. The proposed embankment is calculated at 100 yards wide, the materials to be gathered from the high lands bordering tho coast on cither side the Channel, and could be run down to the sea by means of gravitation alone. In this work Mr King proposes to employ convict labor, of Avhom he calculates some 30,000 might bo available. Tho cost he puts doAvn at £2,000,000, and tho period of construction from tAvo to three years. Tho tolls are, in this scheme, to be raised by tho tolls and land rentals of so important a position as the isthmus Avould become (for a uoav city might be hypothecated) by a proper currency issued under State guarantees for this special object. The advantages which Mr King claims for this scheme are, first, it would probably lessen the depth of the Irish sea by shutting out the great tidal Avavc that rushes with great force through the North Channel, and by this means aid the natural drainage of the land, particularly the marsh land along the coast of Ireland, AA'hich, if raised iv relation to high Avater level so as to run the Avater off, extensive tracks of Avaste land might be brought within tho range of profitable cultivation. It is also claimed in favor of this undertaking that, iv case of Avar, an enemy's fleet could enter the Irish Sea as it exists uoav, and inflict great damage on the Avealthy and defenceless toAvns of the seaboard, aud could escape again without being intei-wcptcd : but if the Irish Sea Avas rendered an immense inland bay by the construction of such an isthmus at its northern outlet, no enemy Avould venture to cuter where their retreat would inevitably be cut off. Mr King must bo a sanguine theorist to broach such a bold and difficult project. It would bo no slight matter to deal Avith an army of 30,000 convicts iv the field, and to house and officer them efficiently. To quarry solid stone .sufficient to fill a sea nearly as Avido as tho Straits of Dover, and deep enough to cover St. Paul's, would bo a.stupendous undertaking. And if all this Avere practicable, is it desirable to close an important watonvay with a solid barrier of stone F To meet this last difficulty the author proposes to Aviden tho Crunan Canal through the Isthmus of Can tyro and to cut another through the Isthmus of Tarbert. AYe have no information by AA'hich to judge of tho amount of land that might be recoverable from tho sea if tho scheme Avere carried out, but it ought to bo considerable to justify so vast an undertaking, even should it be proved reasonably practicable.