The Mersey Tunnel - "A Train that Runs Under Water" 水底行车
The text reads:
Click here for a transcription of the Chinese text.England has built a railway beneath the Mersey River for trains to pass through. This has already appeared in Western newspapers, and it has been reported in translation in Shenbao by this very press. All who learn of it gasp at the marvel. From beginning to end, this project took much time; and workers were many. The path is twenty six English feet wide, and twenty three feet tall. Though a train can pass through it in under four minute’s time as the road is not particularly long, to this date it has taken fifteen or sixteen years of work to complete, and the labor of over three thousand workers. Such a precipitous moving of heaven and earth is unprecedented. From conception to planning then groundbreaking and completion took undeniable innovation and determination; it was no easy task. Yet, if we take this to be the pinnacle of Westerner’s talents, there superiority may not be so certain.
As the article notes, a very similar report on the tunnel opening appeared in Shenbao on April 30, 1886.
