Page:Walker (1888) The Severn Tunnel.djvu/201

124 the end of the brickwork of the tunnel, up at an incline of about 30 degrees from the horizontal, and so broke into the great cavern that had been left above the top of the tunnel by the falling down of the roof of the heading. Up this sloping heading we carried all the old timber that we could obtain in short lengths, and threw it forward into the cavern, hoping to fill it up, and to support the roof before further mischief occurred.

We continued to drive the bottom heading 9 feet high by 9 feet wide, and in it we built a head-wall with a door, almost directly under the door in the upper heading.

We then restored and properly timbered the upper heading, repaired the head-wall, and hung a new door in place of the one which we had broken in our endeavours to get through. We cleared down also to the top of this head-wall from the sloping heading, and built another head-wall across that to guard against accidents.

The total quantity of material forced through this door by the pressure of the water behind was 2,000 yards, showing the enormous extent of the cavity above, and the damage that had been done by not properly timbering the heading at first.

While this work was going on, on the 30th September, another serious accident occurred, happily without loss of life or injury to any of the men. A ‘bond’ or wire-rope, used for lifting the large cages at the Sudbrook Winding Shaft, broke about