Show communication between eagland nna ana eranee franco at the recent meeting of the english mechanics scientific and mechanical society of manchester the vice president mr A Tol hausen hauBen read a paper on the proposed channel transits transita Tran sits in the course of which he briefly described the eight dif different schemes brought before the public to improve international communication one plan the crudest of them ail ali was to stretch a wire across the channel upon which cars were to slide to and fro fro another proposal equally as ridiculous was to sink islands at easy distances and to bridge them over with girders gir dere a project which is now prominently before befort the public proposes to drive a tunnel under the channel bed and a company has already been formed with its first object to make a short ashert driftway driveway under the bea sea in order to ascertain whether a tunnel of sufficient dimensions can bo made through the lower chalk which con connects necta the two countries underneath the channel the engineers of this undertaking mr hawkshaw mr Brun bruu lets M U thome do de gamond and mrs william low from some experiment made recently non pon conclude clude that this can be done comparatively eaby ehy the capital of the present company has been privately subscribed lor bior ehe uhe experiment and if successful hul hui the inte interests of the present company will be transferred to a larger one the interest on capital expended on this project was wad estimated at 2000 per day aud mud the working ig expenses ot of the twenty six miles of railway would at least b bo ba a 1300 per diem another plan of bridging the straits was to fix strong piers of iron aud and concrete aud and then to connect them the plan plau of ina M luttier Mut tier exhibited in the french annexe annece of the international exhibition suggests the coast ruction of a series of large bused based coh conical pi piles les leb each reau read resting 0 g on a ru rubble rubbie bulo bule bd bed and sixteen large artificial stone blocks 33 yda x 5 yda x 41 4 add thick each which are to be floated over and then sunk upon the rubble rubbie leaving the in to tobe be filled with rubb rubbie leHO lemo blo bio that the whole would form a bolh circular base ft at the base aud and in height the submerged part i con of a sheet iron etl eti som somewhat effia L resembling sem bling a eboh ehen of thebe the monoliths contains cubic metres and weighs tons tona and the spaces would be spanned by tubular bridges yd adt s long the bridge itself consists of a tube iu in diameter constructed of rivet ted wrought iron plates plate 42 2 in thick nud and braced with tun tub ular work uhe ilia whole length being made in two pieces M maltier intends in this monstrous bridge bo ti for steam and ordinary tramm traffic lu and estimates the whole at tit OUO cm ing to ferry hemes bemes BC we find flud the foremost to be the well known proposal of mr john fowler involving the construction st of large ate amors to carry the whole trains acnes the straits and land them safely at the opposite shore the advantages claimed for tb this thia Is scheme were increased spead aud and comfort aud and a site ife transfer of freight iron age |