THE GIGANTIC SEVERN TUNNEL.

It was owing to that confidence that Sir John Hawkshaw afterwards entrusted him with that triumph of engineering skill and perseverance, the Severn Tunnel. The extraordinary difficulty that beset this gigantic undertaking, and the magnificent success achieved, are now matters of history. Mr Walker with great litary skill, has left a book, written wholly by his own pen, upon this portion of his work, and so realistically is the story told that it leaves unpon the mind of the reader almost as vivid a picture of the dangers and difficulties encountered as they probably did upon the mind of Mr Walker, though no one but he and those closely connected with him can have any conception of the vastness of the responsibility of it. One such experience as that, said Mr Walker was enough for any man's lifetime, and the Severn Tunnel, with its ever varying and strangely-contorted strata, and the dangers of floods above and floods below, fully satisfied him in subaqueous work. And as one reads the thrilling experience related by Mr Walker himself in his own book upon the great work he successfully acheived, this is easily understandable. No page of romance, or fiction of the imagination, ever exceeded in interest the story of the battle waged by resolute men, of whom Mr Walker was the directing spirit, in boring that gerat tube which at present time lies underneath the Severn's mightly flood. That work will ever remain a monument of engineering pluck and skill. Indelibly impressed upon that undertaking is Mr Walker's name. When the Great Western Railway Company determined in 1871 to construct the tunnel, Mr Walker was one of those who sent a tender for the work, and had the directors listened to Sir John Hawkshaw, Mr Wlaker would have been entrusted with the contract. The directors, cautious men, thought that Mr Walker, equally cautious, had allowed too great a margin for contingencies. Which was right subsequent events prooved. Thinking, however, they could do the work cheaper themselves, they let out two small contracts. Things, however, dragged, so that in 1879, when what was called the rival scheme, the Severn Bridge, commenced the same year, was completed, the only work done at the tunnel was the sinking of five shafts and the diving of about two miles of small heading. And it seemed as if the bridge was the only one of the rival projects that would ever see completion.

MR. WALKER'S DAUNTLESS ENERGY MERITED SUCCESS.

At the luncheon given on the day of the opening of the bridge, the Chairman of the Great Western Railway Company was among the guests, and he jocularly invited the company to pay a visit to the tunnel and take a walk under the river, though he informed them that perhaps they might get a little wet. How true that joke was he never dreamt. By his side was Mr Richardson, the originator of the tunnel, and on that very morning this gentleman had received intelligence that a great spring had been tapped on the western side of the tunnel, and the pumps had been overpowered and the works drowned. So vast was the spring that the little river Neddern, and almost every well for a distance of more than five miles from the tunnel, became thoroughly dry. It was, said Mr Walker, a melancholy result of seven years' work, and settled the question completely as to who had undervalued the amount to be estimated for contingencies. Sir John Hawkshaw was then asked to take the whole charge of the works, and he consented subject to his being allowed to select his own contractor. This was assented to. and accordingly, Sir John immeadeately placed the work in the hands of Mr T. A. Wlker. Arrangements were made at once to pump out the gigantic spring which had flooded the workings, but difficulty after difficulty arose that would have daunted any but the stout heart of Mr Walker. Yet in spite of all these we find Mr Walker cooly, in the face of the mightiest responsibility, experimenting with the clays of the neighbourhood to find whether they were of good enough quality to make bricks to build engine-houses and cottages for his labourers. The pumping went on with no success for a whole year, when at last the defect which had given all the trouble was discovered. No one, said Mr Walker in writin of this afterwards, buit those who have been engaged in such a struggle can imagine the delight at the victory which it had taken twelve months to win. The the pumping proceeded with a view to exhaust the great spring, and Mr Walker, always thoughful, provided hospitals, mission-rooms, and Sunday Schools for the colony he had brought around him. In January, 1881, however, a new and unpleasant danger threatened to undo all the work that had been done. This was a great snow storm, which cut off the supply of coal from teh collieries. All the coal in the neighbourhood was borrowed, and as last resourse all the timber that could be got was cut up to keep the pumping engines going. This difficulty had hardly been surmounted when a fresh one arose in the shape of a disaffection amongst the men, and for four days from the 21st of May the works were deserted. The day after the strike the great timber pier at Black Rock, Portskewett, was burned, and there were not wanting people to say it was the work of the strikers. But Mr Walker's sense of justice and magnanimity led him to labour to proove that it was no so, and other causes beyond his disaffcetd men must be looked for as having given rise to the catastrophe. The water from the great spring had hardly been conquered when that which was most dreaded of all, sea water, broke in from above. With a rare ingenuity, Mr Walker, in order to find where the hole was, set men to wade at low water. This was without avail for a long time, so he put a number of men to join hands and walk the whole area. This was successful, for one of the men was suddenly seen to " pop " down out of sight. The hole was found and stopped.