Page:Walker (1888) The Severn Tunnel.djvu/106

Rh time, and feeling no doubt nervous from the novelty of the experiment he was making, he returned again to the shaft without shutting the door.

Still full of confidence, he started again on the 10th, and reached the door again in safety, went through, and let down the flap-valve, pulled up the other rail, and closed the door.

He then screwed round the rod of the sluice-valve the number of turns he had been told it would take to shut it, and returned safely and in triumph to the shaft.

On this journey he was absent one hour and twenty minutes, but he showed no sign of exhaustion on his arrival at the surface.

The water at this time stood 174 feet from the surface in the Iron Pit, and about 6 feet higher in the rest of the workings.

How anxiously we watched the floats which told us the level of the water, and how great were our disappointment and annoyance when we found that it still continued to go down at the rate of only about 3 inches an hour, and even at high tide in the river to stand stationary for some hours.

The 18-inch plunger-pump in the Old Pit had been badly out of repair during the whole of this pumping. Two or three attempts had been made by Lambert to pack the stuffing-box under water in his diver's dress. The first time he did it, it only stood for half an hour, the second time for four or five hours, and at last we had to give up this attempt to repair the 18-inch pump as hopeless.