Posted on 03/12/2010 7:16:12 AM PST by C19fan
The public is to get its first chance in 145 years to see the Brunnel tunnel under the Thames that was hailed as an eighth wonder of the world and a triumph of Victorian engineering. The tunnel is open today and tomorrow and a Fancy Fair originally held in 1852 below the river will be recreated at the nearby Brunel Museum. It was built between 1825 and 1843 by Marc Brunel and his son, Isambard, and was the first known to have been built beneath a navigable river.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
I read a book about the Brunels. They are simply geniuses.
I thought I recognized the name - but it was Marc Brunel’s son who built the Bristol (U.K.) suspension bridge. Very beautiful bridge, especially in the spring during the Bristol Hot-Air Balloon festival. Love Bristol!
WOW
That must be something...
*ping*
In some way, there was more common sense intelligence prevailing, before electronic intell., I mean.
Now, of course I'm NOT refering to the sin nature of man, but his more temporal abilities.
America is a wonderful example of what can happen in a short time when men with ideas and passion are allowed to make the attempt to succeed or fail.
Government, with all it's rules, regulations and laws stifle that momentum.
That’s because they memorized multiplication tables.
Cool stuff.
Very interesting, thank you for the ping!
Thats why Tiny Tim had to use a crutch. He was injured working the night shift on the tunnel construction.
“Isambard Kingdom Brunel”. Dickens himself would be hard pressed to come up with a better name for a character.
Except perhaps for “Lady Remington” and “Matthew Drudge.”
But if the ye olde shoppes were tempting and engrossing enough, I might be motivated enough to take the plunge.
(....gurgle......)
Leni
Indeed. Try telling a group of college students that workable fax machines have been in use for over a hundred years, as I did a while back. Several of them all but called me a liar. "How did they digitize the signal?" one of them demanded. Similarly, it is hard for young people to conceive of things like the SR-71 or the first Moon rockets being designed without what we would consider substantial computing power. The accuracy of 19th century navigators, equipped only with mechanical chronometers, a sextant, and some astronomical tables, would seem like some kind of witchcraft to the present generation. This kind of ignorance could well explain the popularity of nutball theories about all modern technology being borrowed from UFOs or recovered from ancient Atlantis.
I wonder how they avoided the bends.
Well, the son took over day to day overseeing in the 1820s. He was almost killed in a tunnel flooding in 1828, I think, and then sent to recover at Clifton, where he witnessed the building of the Clifton suspension bridge. The article didn’t make clear why that was significant, but you’ve cleared it up for me. And I’ve cleared something up for you.
FASCINATING story. I love that era.
I worked in Bristol for just under 6 months a few years back. Love the area. Fascinating how the sailing ships rode the tide up the river - Avon? - making Bristol a seaport.
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