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 débris 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 water. Springs burst out, like the jet of a fountain, under
the stroke of the pick, flooding and driving away the workmen. For