3-021-618 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The new overland route to India and the railway tunnel of the Alps: boring-machine in the second working gallery, 1869. 'An English engineer, Mr. Bartlett, had patented, in 1855, a machine for perforating rock by a pointed iron bar, which was to be darted forth out of a tube charged, like an air-gun, with condensed air...the use of such an instrument is merely to bore a series of small holes, about two inches in diameter, which are to be filled with gunpowder for blasting, as is done in an ordinary mine...Sommeiller, Gratton and Grandis... hoped to contrive a more economical system by employing water-power, instead of steam-power, to condense the air...having become acquainted with Mr. Bartlett's use of the airforce to pierce holes in rocks, they perceived that the combination of water-power with that striking and boring power would be just the agent wanted for the tunnel-work... in the very bowels of the mountain, where the face of the rock is stabbed, torn, and blasted by the daring ingenuity of man...The whole work is under the direction of the Commendatore Grattoni, as chief engineer; the superintending engineer at the Modane section is Signor Copello; and of the Bardonneche portion, Signor Barelli'. From "Illustrated London News", 1869.