Page:Walker (1888) The Severn Tunnel.djvu/206



the 10th October, 1883, all the work was going on favourably. Everyone connected with it was in high spirits, thinking of rapid completion; and at six o’clock on the evening of that day, when the miners, who had worked the day-shift, fired their round of holes, no extra difficulties and no impending trouble were foreseen.

I had left the works just after six o’clock, after speaking to the foreman of the miners about the number of holes fired in the westward heading at Sudbrook just as I was leaving the office; but I had not been at home more than an hour, when the same foreman drove up to my house to report to me that the Great Spring had broken into the tunnel in larger volume than we had ever yet met with, and that it was rapidly gaining upon the pumps.

I went down with him at once to the works, and on descending the shaft found a river 16 feet or 17 feet wide of bright clear water, flowing along the invert of the tunnel, and leaping down the old shaft