Page:Walker (1888) The Severn Tunnel.djvu/241

146 the rising-main of the 35-inch pump in the Iron Pit at Sudbrook split.

In order to relieve the water at 5 miles 4 chains, we had for some time kept the sluices in the big head-wall near Sudbrook partially opened; but when the 35-inch pump broke down it was necessary to shut these sluices, or the works under the river would have been drowned. Shutting the sluices increased the pressure to such an extent at 5 miles 4 chains and at the Marsh Pit that, in consequence of the breaking down of the pumps, these two pits were of a necessity partially filled with water, and the works stopped; and it was not till March 17th that the pumps were repaired and the work resumed in these two pits.

The whole of the tunnel on the Gloucestershire side, from the ‘Shoots’ to the open cuttings at the eastern end of the tunnel, was completed in August; and the whole of the tunnel from 5 miles 4 chains to the western end of the tunnel was completed in September.

Sir John Hawkshaw had determined to put down a new pumping-shaft just outside the western end of the tunnel, and to pump there, at a low lift, all the rainfall from the open cutting, which, with the sea-banks, contained an area of 14 acres. This shaft had been sunk, and a heading through the whole of the unfinished portion of the cutting completed, to bring the water to the pumps fixed there.

The water from the large cutting at the eastern