Life of Brunel, Chapter 4, Part 2

June 21, 1842.

I assure you, my dear Sir, that when my attention had been drawn to the statements reported to have been made by you on this subject, I refrained as far as possible from expressing any opinion. I thought it my duty to read the notes taken, but I never said that I thought your statements were correct. Indeed, I had hoped to have avoided the necessity of making any observations upon these statements; but as a letter to Mr. Saunders on such a subject is almost the same thing as if it were addressed to myself, and as it was shown to me, it would not be candid towards you if I now refrained from saying, that the opinions you are reported to have expressed with respect to the Box Tunnel are by no means considered correct, either by myself or by those others who, from being intimately acquainted with the rock as it was really found, and the works as they were really executed, are capable of judging.

In the notes shown to me the observations alluding to this work in particular, as an illustration of the views you were explaining, appear to have been curtailed, and the allusions rendered somewhat less direct; but still the inference unavoidably to be drawn from them is, that the back joints, as we call them, and other defects which exist originally, or which show themselves after a time, in this rock, are not well known, and tolerably well understood and guarded against, by practical engineers, and even by our workmen. In this opinion I assure you you are mistaken. Ignorant as I may probably be myself of the science of geology, I cannot have been engaged for several years in making very extensive excavations, probably the largest hitherto made, in this particular rock, having also the opportunity of examining very old and large quarries in the same rock and close to the line, having among my assistants men not meanly acquainted with this particular branch of geology, and surrounded by workmen of considerable experience, I cannot have gone through such a study without acquiring a very intimate and practical knowledge of the structure and peculiarities of the particular mass of rock which is now in question; and I will say frankly what I feel upon this point, which is, that I ought now to possess a more thorough and practical knowledge of this particular rock and its defects, and the best mode of remedying them, than even you yourself, with your immeasurably greater scientific knowledge of rocks generally.

The opinion you are said to have expressed of there being great danger of some serious accident occurring in the tunnel is, I am firmly convinced, erroneous; at all events the reason given convinces me that you have not become acquainted with the means which have been taken by me to examine and to ascertain the security of every part of the rock, to remove or to support with masonry any part not so ascertained to be secure, or with the precautions taken to prevent any such accidents as those you have imagined. And notwithstanding the heavy responsibility which rests upon me, from all which you gentlemen of science are, happily for yourselves, so free, I feel that as regards the works of the Box Tunnel everything necessary has been done to render them secure, and that the doubts and fears you have so easily raised, but which it might be more difficult again to set at rest, are entirely unfounded.

In conclusion, I must observe that no man can be more sensible than I am of the great advantage it would be to me as a civil engineer to be better acquainted with geology, as well as with many other branches of science, that I have endeavoured to inform myself on the subject, and that I have not altogether thrown away the many opportunities afforded me in my professional pursuits; but that if from a conviction that you possessed information far more extensive than mine, if from doubts of the sufficiency of my abilities or the means I was likely to bring to bear upon the subject, if from a fear of such consequences as you now anticipate, you had kindly, on any one of the many occasions when I have had the pleasure of meeting you, intimated that you had any suggestions to make to me, I should have been anxious to have availed myself of your assistance. But after the lapse of years, the first intimation I have of such doubts is the very public expression of a very strong opinion, which, if weight be attached to it, must tend to alarm the public unnecessarily, and to injure the value of the property of individuals who have embarked several millions in that property.