EUROPE TO AFRICA TUNNEL DISCUSSED AT PARIS ACADEMY

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6867, 23 March 1929, Page 17 (Supplement)

EUROPE TO AFRICA TUNNEL DISCUSSED AT PARIS ACADEMY

WOULD PRESENT VERY DIFFICULT PROELEMS OF CONSTRUCTION. The question of a tunnel between Africa and Europe was discussed, though not for tho first time, at the Paris Academy of Sciences, by C. Ibanez do Ibcro, who had made a study of a previous plan for a line from Paris to Dakar. Thc proposed tunnel would bo built under the Starits of Gibraltar, and it is predicted that the passage through it would take from 30 to 45 minutes (says the ‘Literary Digest’). One of tho outstanding advantages foreseen would be that it. would open new and swift communications between Europe. Africa, and South America. Attention is called to tho fact also that through a linking up with the Capc-to-Cairo and Trans-sab arian lines a new way would be made open between Western Europe, Africa and the Ear East. That tho tunnel will present some very difficult problems of construction is obvious from the following in ‘La Science Moderne’ (Pans): “The construction of a tunnel under the Straits of Gibraltar is not without its difficulties. While tho Straits of Dover are due to the slow erosion of an isthmus, to no great depth, tffioso of Gibraltar result from a cataclysm, a fracture; and the bottom, instead of being at 200 ft., as with the Straits of Dover, is at 3,000 ft. Again, at Gibraltar, tho compact rock bottom i 3 hard to work, while at Dover it. is slaty shale, easily worked, and sail enough not to fall in. “What would be the route of the tunnel? The narrowest part of the straits can not be used —that from Punta de Guadalmcsi to Punta do Cores (eight and a-half miles as the crow flies) For it would then be necessary to go’ down below 2,700 ft. In the Bale do Vaqucros, near Tarifa, at iangicis, thc depths are much less—l.2ooft. at most. But, on tho contrary, the tunnel would have to bo 33 miles long. „bo thc Spanish engineer prefers tho former route. “Three galleries would be excavated; first, an auxiliary line 10ft. in diameter, below that of the tunnel itself, which would be worked through transverse tunnels, for getting rid of the water and debris. Thc two other galleries arc to be used for a double line of tracks: they will be of circular section, each about 15ft. in diameter, and connected at intervals by cross passages. There will be automatic ventilation, and the debris will be pulverised and removed in the form of liquid mud bv pumping it out. . '"“Tho passage will l>e effected m SOmin. to 45inin. When necessary, as manv as 120 trains a day can bo taken care" of, with load of 120,000 tons. H work would require five or six years, and would cost 300 to 500 million pesetas (10 to 16 million pounds). This tunnel would open up rapid communications between Europe, Africa, and South America. With connections with the Cape-to-Cairo and Trans-Saharian lines a new route will be possiblo between Western Europe, Africa, and tho Par East. The advantages are evident for France and Spain from the point of view of their operations in Morocco.”