Page:Walker (1888) The Severn Tunnel.djvu/22

Rh to the Mansion House I carried out successfully, and they were completed on the 1st of July, 1871. ''Shortly after this, I, in partnership with my brother, the late Mr. Charles Walker, undertook the contract for the extension of the from the end of Brunel’s, under the London Docks, through Wapping, Shadwell, and Whitechapel. Sir John Hawkshaw was the engineer-in-chief of this work, and I was fortunate in gaining his good opinion, and carried out the works, I believe, to his complete satisfaction; and it was owing to the confidence he reposed in me that he afterwards intrusted to me the still more difficult work of constructing the Severn Tunnel.''

''Sub-aqueous tunnels have recently become quite the fashion. One such experience as the Severn Tunnel, with its ever-varying and strangely contorted strata, and the dangers from floods above and floods below, has been sufficient for me. One sub-aqueous tunnel is quite enough for a lifetime.''

''Since these pages were commenced, I have had a great pressure of work upon me. Not only have I had to carry on such large works as the Barry Dock and Railways, and the Preston Dock, but I have also been called upon to visit South America to start the work of the Government Docks at Buenos Ayres, and at home to begin the construction of the Manchester''