place of the upper gorges of the Reuss, the valley of Urseren, of the
Oberalp, and of the Furka. Geschenen has now the calm tranquility of old
age. But during the nine years that it took to bore the great tunnel,
what juvenile activity there was here, what feverish eagerness in this
village, crowded, inundated, overflowed by workmen from Italy, from
Tessin, from Germany and France! One would have thought that out of that
dark hole, dug out in the mountain, they were bringing nuggets of gold.

On all the roads nothing was to be seen but bands of workmen arriving,
with miners' lamps hung to their old soldier's knapsacks. Nobody could
tell how they were all to be lodged. One double bed was occupied in
succession by twenty-four men in twenty-four hours. Some of the workmen
set up their establishments in barns; in all directions movable canteens
sprung up, built all awry and hardly holding together, and in mean
sheds, doubtful, bad-looking places, the dishonest merchant hastened to
sell his adulterated brandy....

The St. Gothard tunnel is about one and two-third miles longer than that
of Mount Cenis, and more than three miles longer than that of Arlberg.
While the train is passing with a dull rumbling sound under these
gloomy vaults, let us explain how the great work of boring the Alps was
accomplished.

The mechanical work of perforation was begun simultaneously on the north
and south sides of the mountain, working toward the same point, so as to
meet toward the middle of the boring. The waters of the Reuss and the
Tessin supplied the necessary motive power for working the screws
attached to machinery for compressing the air. The borers applied to the
rock the piston of a cylinder made to rotate with great rapidity by the
pressure of air reduced to one-twentieth of its ordinary volume; then
when they had made holes sufficiently deep, they withdrew the machines
and charged the mines with dynamite. Immediately after the explosion,
streams of wholesome air were liberated which dissipated the smoke; then
the debris was cleared away, and the borers returned to their place. The
same work was thus carried on day and night, for nine years.

On the Geschenen side all went well; but on the other side, on the
Italian slope, unforseen obstacles and difficulties had to be overcome.
Instead of having to encounter the solid rock, they found themselves
among a moving soil formed by the deposit of glaciers and broken by
streams of wate