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Show S 24, 1 00-Foot Tunnel in Utah Is Nearing Completion After Four Years. TOOELE, UTAH. Eighty men who have been driving through solid rock, thousands of tons of dirt arid braving manmade waterfalls inside in-side a mountain are approaching their long-sought goal after four years completion of the 24,100-foot Elton tunnel through the Oquirrh mountains. The tunnel, starting from Tooele on the western slope of the Oquirrhs, was designed to provide drainage for mines at the upper end of Bingham Bing-ham canyon, site of fabulously rich deposits of copper and rare metals. Water from the mines will flow through the tunnel to irrigate hundreds hun-dreds of acres of now-arid lands in desert-like Tooele valley. Through the tunnel will be hauled ore from the mines to smelters already al-ready operating here. The ore now is hauled over a tramway that crosses the summit of the mountains, named the Oquirrhs because that is the Ute Indian word for "west hills." The mountains rim the western west-ern edge of the valley of the Great Salt Lake. Drill 35 Feet in Day. The average progress of the miners min-ers is about 35 feet a day. Last August a monthly record was established es-tablished when the bore was advanced ad-vanced 1,042 feet in 31 days. Hard rock and treacherously soft rock, in addition to floods of water, have presented the chief difficulties to the tunnel workers. When hard rock was encountered, a drill carriage was brought to the face of the tunnel. Five drillers mounted the carriage, drilled the j rock face in 35 places and loaded the holes with dynamite. The powder, pow-der, exploded electrically, shattered tons of rock from the face and it was hauled out by "bull gangs." Engineers put the average rock broken out with each round of blasts at 125 tons. The soft dirt presented the danger dan-ger of cave-ins and carpenters were kept busy, fashioning supports for the roof of the tunnel. Excelsior as Blotter. The water, trickling through the hill from snows that cover the mountains moun-tains from November to June, came through at times in virtual torrents. Last December, a subterranean stream was struck that released a flow of 5,514 gallons a minute. Average Av-erage flow is 4,300 gallons a minute. Only through use o tons of excelsior excel-sior fashioned into huge blotters and miles of steel rods that supported sup-ported the excelsior was the water kept away from the working surface. sur-face. Four major faults geological term for a strata of rock formed by earth slippage have been encountered encoun-tered so far. Supt. A. W. Filion believed be-lieved one more fault will be encountered en-countered before the tunnel is finished. fin-ished. On February 18 of this year a fault was encountered that was so hard that crews required 30 days to fight their way through 23 feet of water and rock. |