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Description

An Early Chunnel Proposal

Fine hand-colored lithographed folding map of an early proposed underwater railway tunnel connecting Folkstone, England and Calais, France, published in  L'Annee Scientifique et Industriale . . . by Louis Figuier, published in Paris in 1858.

Thomé de Gamond's work includes a profile view (Diagramme Geologique Du Massif Submerge Entre . . . ),  map illustrating the route across the Channel  (Carte D'Etude . . .), interior view, tower profile and a birdseye view and a tunnel cross section.

Early Chunnel History and Aimé Thomé de Gamond

In 1802, Albert Mathieu-Favier, a French mining engineer, put forward the first proposal to tunnel under the English Channel, with illumination from oil lamps, horse-drawn coaches, and an artificial island positioned mid-Channel for changing horses.  Mathieu-Favier's design envisaged a bored two-level tunnel with the top tunnel used for transport and the bottom one for groundwater flows.

In 1839, Aimé Thomé de Gamond, performed the first geological and hydrographical surveys on the Channel, between Calais and Dover. Thomé de Gamond explored several schemes and, in 1856, he presented a proposal to Napoleon III for a mined railway tunnel from Cap Gris-Nez to Eastwater Point with a port/airshaft on the Varne sandbank at a cost of 170 million francs, or less than £7 million

He would propose in total seven designs. His proposal was finally accepted in 1867 by Napoleon III and Queen Victoria but the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 brought an end to the project.  Thomé de Gamond's plan for a Channel tunnel, with a harbor mid-Channel on the Varne sandbank.  Gamond's fiercest supporter was his daughter Elizabeth, who once rowed a boat into the English Channel so he could dive to the seabed to perform geological surveys on the chalk because so little was known about the Weald–Artois Anticline. Even after his money dried up, she taught music to finance his dream. However, a tunnel was never built. Gamond died ruined and humiliated in 1876

Rarity

This is the first time we have ever seen this map.