The cost of the whole work was estimated by the commissioners in their first report, at $5,719,330, the estimate being based upon ordinary labor at one dollar a day, and of materials at a corresponding rate. Nothing has yet occurred to invalidate this estimate, excepting the advance of the cost of material and labor, an incidental misfortune common to every public, as well as private enterprise, requiring labor and material, which has been prosecuted during the last three years. It is certain that these high rates will greatly decline, perhaps nearly to their former level within a year; but admitting that the Commissioners' estimate should be swelled through these incidental causes to the sum of eight millions, would such an increase of expense justify the abandonment of this great enterprise, upon which so much has already been expended, and at the very period in its progress when the most formidable obstacles in its way have been surmounted, and its success become a certainty? Had the Western Eailroad been utterly destroyed last year by a rebel raid, as were some Southern roads by the march of Sherman, or by any conceivable cause, would the consideration of twenty-five, or thirty, or even forty millions, prevent its being rebuilt at once? Why then should two millions stand in the way of the Tunnel line, which is now a greater necessity than the Western road was at the time of its construction?
The time required to complete the work, without the aid of machinery, was estimated by the Commissioners at eleven years and four months; and with the aid of such machine drills and power as had already been applied with success at Mt. Cenis, at seven years and a half. The work at Mt. Cenis was commenced in 1857, and up to July, 1861, 2142 feet had been excavated by hand labor; the machine drills were then applied, and the Italian government has recently announced that the work will be finished by the close of the year 1870. It will be seven and a half miles long. The Hoosac Tunnel will be about four and a half miles long, and at the present time it has been excavated 4675 feet, and shafts have been sunk to the depth of 575 feet. The machine drills will be applied in a few days; but they are drills which will do twice, and possibly three times the work of those at Mt. Cenis.
To the sound judgment, energy, and untiring perseverance of Mr. Brooks, and the inventive genius and skill of Mr. Stephen F. Gates, of Boston, and Mr. Charles Burleigh, of Fitchburg, belongs the credit of perfecting a pneumatic drill, by means of which our great tunnel will be completed much within the time named by the Commissioners, and with a reduction of their estimate of its cost by hand labor of several hundred thousand dollars. We have seen this drill operated by compressed air, at the rate of two hundred blows a minute, each blow given with a force of more than five hundred pounds, cut an inch and a quarter hole in a block of Hoosac rock, thirty-eight inches in thirteen minutes, without changing its points. Its superiority over the Mt. Cenis drill consists in its lightness, automatic feed, and smaller size. The Mt. Cenis drill is eight feet long, and weighs six hundred pounds, and the whole machine moves forward in feeding. The Hoosac drill is four feet long, weighs two hundred and eight pounds, and can be handled by two men. In feeding, the drill alone advances, and in such manner as to accommodate itself to any kind of rock it may encounter, whether hard or soft. Its points are sharpened in a die by half a dozen blows of the hammer. It will do the work of twenty men; and, finally, sixteen of them can be applied to a surface upon which only nine of the Mt. Cenis drills can be used.
The operation of this drill has already been witnessed by hundreds of persons, among them machinists, engineers, and stone masons, and not one of them entertains a doubt that it will do all which is claimed for it by the inventors. But the carriages are nearly ready, and these little machines will shortly be put to their work. The friends of the Tunnel have no fears of the result.
Massachusetts has always led her sister States. At the call to arms, her sons have been first in the field, and first to die for the common good. Her schools and colleges, her institutions of charity, and her statutes have furnished models for the new states of the great West, and for foreign republics. In her manufactures and mechanic arts, in the products of her inventive genius, in maritime enterprise, in the building of canals and railroads, and in every undertaking to develop the resources and promote the prosperity of the country, she has been first and foremost. With so proud a record, and with almost exhaustless means at her command, we do not believe our noble state is yet ready to abandon the lead; nor that the consideration of a few millions of dollars will prevent her from breaking down the barrier which divides us from the West, and by which the great stream of Western traffic has been so long checked and diverted. Rather let us trust that, by wise legislation, a liberal policy, and a cordial support of the gentlemen to whom the conduct of this enterprise is entrusted, the great work of De Witt Clinton will be perfected, and the noble design of Loammi Baldwin executed, by the completion of the Hoosac Tunnel, before it shall be announced from Sardinia that the Alps are pierced and France and Italy have joined hands under the Grand Vallon.
Transcriber's Note
The cover image was made from an image provided on The Internet Archive and is placed in the public domain.