Word: gamond
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Originally proposed in 1802 by French Engineer Albert Mathieu, whose plan envisioned horse-drawn coaches passing through a candlelit tube, the tunnel idea has a long history of revivals and rejections. In the 1850s another French engineer, Aimé Thomé de Gamond, drew up a scheme for a railway tunnel. Queen Victoria promised De Gamond the blessing of "all the ladies of England" if he could carry it off, but the whole thing was quashed by suspicions that Napoleon III might have in mind a cross-Channel invasion...
That episode was only one spasm in the tunnel's long history. It was originally suggested by Napoleon, in 1802, to Charles James Fox. For nearly three-quarters of a century it remained merely an idea. In 1867 a French engineer, Thomé de Gamond, exhibited the first practical drawings. In 1881 what became the still existent Channel Tunnel Company Ltd. was launched. Queen Victoria, who got seasick on the Channel crossing, gave it her blessing. Bores were started from Shakespeare Cliff on the English side of the stormy passage, and Sangatte, near Calais, on the French...
...French engineer, one J. A. Thome de Gamond, exhibited the first practical drawings for a Channel Tunnel. In 1875 tne Gunnel Tunnel Co. (still in existence) was organized. Queen Victoria spurred the idea by announcing: "All the women of England will bless the builder of the tunnel for saving them from seasickness," Preliminary borings were actually started. From the chalk cliffs of Dover and from the French shore near Sangatte, mile-long galleries were driven out under the Channel floor. Proving the theory of Engineer de Gamond that the Dover chalk beds run out under the Channel, these abandoned galleries...
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