TO CUT CHANNEL TUNNEL.

Colonist, Volume LVIII, Issue 14540, 18 October 1917, Page 2

TO CUT CHANNEL TUNNEL.

IN THIRTY-i'lViS 33AYS,

A machine for tuniieliLiir' the English' Channel in 35 days has been ■ brought to ■the - attention of to-: j;:\itisii Government by Mr John K. Hencken, a civil engineer, of hh tk 'A :>nue } who -states that he has official approval of hisl scheme, says the "Daily"iSspress." The scheme contemplates boring four tunnels by means or eight machines! that will cut .through earth and roclci at the rate of 100 ft. per hour; and provides not only for a trackway in each tunnel, but a driveway along which' motor-lorries could 'be., driven from! England to the supply bases in France. Mr. Hencken's plan would release most or the shipping now used between htigland and France, tiras making available Jor other nsea more tlian could be buile in the shipyards of the woi-id in several years. He ofiers to finance "the scheme by floating a bond issue, wiiieii could be paid off within a few years, and then to make the tunnels a present to Jiri,tam and France by the United States and states that he lias the sanction oi" tiie American Government m making this offer. to

Mr Hencken's plan is to have eight of his machines in use, under engineers of the three, nations concerned —one machine at each end of tiie four tunnels, and another set boring the approaches at the same time. In describing his -machine, Mr Mencken says it consists of a' series of swingiiuKhammers rotated at a peripheral speed of about- 500 ft. a second, striking several hundred thousand blows a nnnute on ising the material "from sin in ureatising the nitaerial "from oin. in greatest dimensions down to impalpable powder." i