Page:The battle of the channel tunnel and Dover Castle and forts.djvu/9

3 Sea, equal to at least the whole section of the Tunnel, and incapable of being choked with masses of chalk. Anything very much less would simply provide a current that would carry the French back to Calais; unexpectedly perhaps.

Nor, again, would any Passenger, in his senses, go by a train were a charged mine known, or even believed, to be there. The extent of vibration is very great! I have myself, as an Undergraduate, been in the Observatory at Cambridge looking through one or other of the Telescopes then there: and I have seen the cobweb threads in it vibrate so greatly, from the mere passing of a waggon along the distant road, as to render the Instrument useless for astronomical purposes, till it had passed some way along it. There was then a double turn in the road from Huntingdon; and I suggested that the University ought to carry it straight to Cambridge, to avoid this frequent interruption. It may have been done since. It is also not many months, I think, since a Magazine was stated to have exploded; and that the explosion was attributed to some Rifleman having fired off his rifle at the wall! A fortiori how vast and extensive must be the vibration caused by a passing Train; and how effective on a charged mine!

The practical result of such known facts would be, that a mine would be made; and that cases of Dynamite would be kept at such a distance as to be beyond the effect of vibration, and therefore very considerable, in readiness to be conveyed with anxious care and deposited in the mine; and the Galvanic Battery ready to be put in action for the wires to be connected in the Battery, and the mine fixed, on the first reliable declaration of war with France.

But there again contingencies would arise. The moment that the mine was charged, the running of Trains must be altogether discontinued; and a panic among the English in France would inevitably at once ensue: and what British officer would, or should, or could dare, even if he might, to connect the firing wires in the Battery, with the assurance, urged in piteous terms, that the Channel Tunnel was filled with English Refugees?

In answer to the remark quoted from the Republique Franćaise, we learnt from the Pamphlet by His then Royal Highness Le Duc de Joinville; (whether French or "Ashantee," but certainly in command of the French Fleet,) that the proper manner for France to declare war with