Facts and Figures Concerning the Hoosac Tunnel Part 1

Facts and Figures Concerning the Hoosac Tunnel.

by John J. Piper.

THE HOOSAC TUNNEL.

In his inaugural address to the Legislature, Governor Bullock says, "There can be no doubt that _new facilities_ and new avenues for transportation between the West and the East are now absolutely needed.

Our lines of prosperity and growth are the parallels of lat.i.tude which connect us with the young, rich empire of men, and stock, and produce lying around the lakes and still beyond. The people of Ma.s.sachusetts, compact, manufacturing and commercial, must have more thoroughfares through which the currents of trade and life may pa.s.s to and fro, un.o.bstructed and ceaseless, between the Atlantic and the national granaries, or decay will at no distant period touch alike her wharves and her workshops. Let us avert the day in which our Commonwealth shall become chiefly a school-house for the West, and a homestead over which time shall have drawn silently and too soon the marks of dilapidation.

Any policy which is not broad enough to secure to us a New England, having a proper share in the benefits of this new opening era of the West, be a.s.sured, will not receive the approval of the next generation."

This important recommendation is what the public had reason to expect from a man so keenly alive to the interests and welfare of the Commonwealth as Governor Bullock, whose close observation and discernment had long since discovered the danger, and disposed him to take a deep interest in any adequate enterprise by means of which it could be averted. The reasons which have induced His Excellency's convictions on this subject, and caused the apprehensions he has expressed, are very clearly set forth in the following articles from the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser of November 25th and 28th, 1865:--

"To-day, the Western States are far more bountifully provided with avenues of transportation than the extreme East. This is peculiarly anomalous and inexplicable when we consider the boasted enterprise, wealth and shrewdness of New England, and the dependence which always exists upon the part of a manufacturing district toward that section which furnishes it with a market, and from which it obtains its breadstuff. It is fortunate for New England that it does not lie in the line of transit between the West and _its_ market, or it would have drawn about its head a storm of indignation which it could not have resisted. The State of New York has contributed an hundred fold what New England has towards providing the required facilities of traffic, for the great West. Our Yankee friends have done much toward facilitating intercommunication among themselves, but very little toward direct communication with the West.

It is not a little strange that, with all the ambitious effort of Boston to become a mercantile emporium, rivaling New York, and with its vast manufacturing interest, it should have but a single direct avenue of traffic with the West. Yet such is the fact. The Western Railroad between Albany and Boston is the sole route now in existence except those circuitous lines via New York City or through Canada. Our down-east friends, usually so keen and enterprising, seem to have exhausted their energies in the construction of that road twenty-five years ago, and the consequence is that to-day the business interests of all New England are suffering for lack of the timely investment of a few millions.

Strange as it may seem, it is nevertheless true that Boston is now virtually cut off from its trade communication with the West for want of facilities of transportation. For weeks past the Grand Trunk Railroad has ceased to take Boston freight, by reason of its being blocked up with other through and way freights at Sarnia. The swollen tide of freight via the New York Central has exceeded the capacity of the Western Road between Albany and Boston, and the consequence has been felt in an increased charge by the New York Central of twenty cents a barrel above New York City rates, and, finally, that road has been obliged to refuse Boston freight altogether, simply by reason of the acc.u.mulation and delay occasioned by the inability of the Western Road to forward it to its destination. In like manner, Boston freight going forward by ca.n.a.l is hindered and acc.u.mulated at Albany. A similar state of things exists in regard to most of the westward bound Boston freight, as Boston jobbers are finding out to their cost. Merchants at the West, who purchase in Boston, are six and eight weeks in getting their heavy goods.

We are informed upon reliable authority that flour can be sent from Chicago to New York, by lake and rail for $1.90 per barrel, while very limited quant.i.ties only can be sent to Boston at $2.25, and that by the "Red Line" $3 a barrel is demanded.

New England depends upon the West for its bread, and also for its market for its imports and manufactures. If the state of things to which we refer, continues much longer, it will be compelled to go to New York both for its bread and its customers.

The West complains of New York, because, forsooth, it is tardy in enlarging its ca.n.a.ls to meet the antic.i.p.ated necessities of its future growth, and Boston has had the a.s.surance to join in the thoughtless and unfounded clamor. Yet the great State of Ma.s.sachusetts has supinely stood still for twenty-five years without making an effort to overcome the barrier between it and the great West. During that time the Western road has grown rich, and paid large dividends from a business which has been greater than it could transact, and to-day there exists an almost total blockade of Boston freight at Albany.

Surely, this does not reflect favorably on New England shrewdness and enterprise, neither does it tally with New England interest.

Besides, it is detrimental to the business interests of the West.

As the case now stands the fault rests with Ma.s.sachusetts alone, in not providing railroad accommodations east of the Hudson river. It is also nonsense to a.s.sert, as some will, that the capacity of the Erie ca.n.a.l is inadequate. During the past season it has not been taxed to half its capacity, and yet it has found the Western Road unable to dispose of what Boston freight was offered.

Western merchants and shippers ought to know where the fault lies, and to the end that they may be informed we have penned this article. Their true remedy is to buy in New York, and to ship their produce to that city, until Ma.s.sachusetts shall provide adequate facilities of transportation.

Boston is the natural eastern terminus of the great northern line of transportation, and we should have been glad to have seen her citizens and those of the great state of Ma.s.sachusetts realize the fact. Their supineness, however, has lost to them for the present, if not forever, the great commercial prize which nature intended for them. It remains to be seen whether they will realize their position, and make an effort to retrieve their "penny wise and pound foolish policy."

"In a recent article we took occasion to point out the importance to the country at large of the construction of adequate facilities for the accommodation of the traffic exchanges between the different sections; and to call the attention of our readers to the remarkable fact that while the whole country, and particularly the West, had undergone a wonderful development requiring for its accommodation a corresponding increase of commercial facilities, that New England had stood still for a quarter of a century. The fact that a great State like Ma.s.sachusetts, with a great emporium like Boston, should have but a single line of direct communication with the West, and that it should supinely stand still and refuse to add to it, notwithstanding the yearly demonstrations of its growing inadequacy, seemed so strange as to justify remark. The other fact that the transit of freight to and from Boston should be almost stopped by the inability of that single railroad to handle it--thereby increasing rates and compelling purchasers as well as sellers to go to New York--also seemed to be inconsistent with our traditional ideas of eastern shrewdness. Our remarks have received additional force by the fact, subsequently learned by us, that there are at the present time between four and five hundred car-loads of Boston-bound freight lying at Albany and Greenbush awaiting cars for its movement to its destination, while there exists no stoppage whatever of New York freight, thus demonstrating clearly the inadequacy of the Western road to answer the demands made upon it.

Since that article was penned, information has reached us to the effect that our Ma.s.sachusetts neighbors have at last waked up to the importance of the subject, and are about to enter vigorously upon the work of providing another avenue of trade between Boston and the West, by what is known as the Greenfield route which embraces the long talked of Hoosac Tunnel. This great enterprise has enlisted the energies of the engineers and railroad men of Ma.s.sachusetts for more than thirty years, with constantly varying prospects of success, and at last seems in a fair way of being accomplished.

The high range of hills which runs along the whole western line of Ma.s.sachusetts, for a long time baffled the efforts of railroad engineers; and the rival claims of competing routes distracted the popular mind, and delayed the construction of either. The most eminent engineers preferred the Northern, or Greenfield route--involving the Hoosac Tunnel--as being the most direct and feasible. In the struggle which followed, the Southern route was successful, and the Western road was built and opened in 1842. The other route was also constructed after a time, upon either side of the proposed tunnel, but for lack of the completion of that great work, has never been anything but an avenue for local travel and traffic.

The whole length of the proposed tunnel is 25,574 feet, and the estimated cost of construction is about three and a quarter millions. When we consider the vital interest which the citizens of Ma.s.sachusetts have in the completion of this work, and the enormous interests to be served by it, the sum required seems absolutely trivial, and the withholding of it really parsimonious as well as foolish. We are pleased to learn that the State is at last about to lend a helping hand to this great enterprise, which will guaranty its speedy completion. This is an indication of wisdom upon the part of our neighbors, albeit it comes somewhat tardily.

Almost all the other States that lie between the great West and the Ocean have pursued a very different policy from that of New England, and with very favorable results. New York, which was the pioneer in the matter of internal improvements, not only built her great Ca.n.a.ls, at a cost of over $62,000,000, but also aided largely in the construction of her great through lines of railroads. It contributed to the Erie road $3,000,000, which is now seen to have been a good investment despite the fact that it was entirely lost to the State. The same policy was pursued by Pennsylvania and Maryland, with equally happy results.

We congratulate our New England neighbors, and, especially, the citizens of Boston, upon the improved prospect of the completion of the Hoosac Tunnel, and the opening of another great route to the West, through, instead of over the mountains which lie between them and us. We trust that the obstructions which have existed, and still exist, in the channels of commercial intercourse between New England and the West will speedily be removed, never again to be manifested in freight blockades or threatened diversions of trade."

The statements contained in these two articles are substantially true; and they are not only interesting, but important, as throwing much light upon a subject which will, doubtless, occupy much of the attention and time of the Legislature: for the Western Railroad managers have already opened their annual attack upon the Hoosac Tunnel, through their well known agents and tools, Bird, Harris and Seaver, who shamelessly advocate the entire abandonment by the State of an enterprise to the completion of which her word, and bond, and honor are irrevocably pledged.

The Western Railroad Company was organized in January, 1836, and its road was completed in 1847, having received aid from the State, during the period of its construction, to the amount of five millions of dollars. The terms upon which State aid was granted were very liberal, as they should have been; for the opening of this line of road had become as much a necessity to the development of the commercial and industrial interests of Ma.s.sachusetts and the wants of her whole population, as the establishment of schools and churches had ever been to her moral or educational welfare. The involvement of the State in so great an enterprise was strenuously resisted by timid and narrow minded legislators; but the representations of those sagacious and far seeing men who had devoted themselves to the work, prevailed, and Ma.s.sachusetts was, thus early in the history of railroads, committed to a policy which has, within a few years, not only trebled her productions and wealth, but made her the first and foremost of all her sister States which are honored for enterprise, prudence and wisdom. Many of the short sighted legislators, who voted against granting State aid to the Western Railroad Company are now living, but we doubt if one can be found who is not ashamed of his action.

The increase of business over the Western road since the first year of its operation, would seem incredible, were it not so thoroughly established by the figures of its early and later annual reports. Yet, with a double track nearly to Albany, and every means which ingenuity can devise, or money procure, at their command, its managers are unable to meet the demand upon it--its _capacity_ is _nearly exhausted_--and _was_, long ago, so great is the pressure against our western border, from the overflowing granaries of the West. From a feeble a.s.sociation, begging for a.s.sistance at the doors of the State House, the Western Railroad Company has become a powerful corporation. Its certificates of stock, which, about the time the road went into operation, were a drug in the market at $40, now command $130 to $150. Yet it is a fact that on the first day of last November, five hundred car loads of freight were delayed at Albany, and could not be transported over the Western road in less time than ten days. And the inability of this road to meet our public needs, and the demands made upon it, from the West, is no new thing; it has been so, _for years_, though four competing lines have opened since 1850, which, together, transport about the same amount of through freight as the Western road. The bridge over the Hudson at Albany, the completion of the double track, and better management might afford a temporary and partial relief. But if these improvements had been already effected, they would not have prevented the freight blockade at Albany last fall.

Should our friend of the Salem Gazette, or any of the editors who quote Mr. F. W. Bird, and write short paragraphs, more flippantly than intelligently, about the Hoosac Tunnel, chance to be at the freight yard of the Fitchburg Railroad in Charlestown, on the arrival of a train of New York Central Railroad cars, laden with flour, grain, or other products of the West, he would doubtless be as much puzzled to know how they got there, as he would be, if, standing at the heading of the tunnel, he should endeavor to reconcile his situation (half a mile from daylight) with the calculations, statements and predictions of Mr. Bird and other opponents of the Tunnel enterprise. If our friend were set down at the freight depot of the Worcester and Nashua Railroad, in Worcester, he would again be surprised to witness the arrival of freight-laden cars, bearing the same mark as those he saw at Charlestown. Upon inquiry of the freight agents he would learn that freight for Boston and Worcester, is transported from Schenectady, over the Washington and Saratoga road, and from Troy, over the Troy and Boston and Western Vermont, to Rutland, Vt., and thence, by the Rutland and Cheshire roads to Fitchburg, and from there to Boston and Worcester over other roads. By glancing at a map the intelligent reader will at once observe what a circuitous and lengthened line of communication between the New York Central road and the cities of Boston and Worcester is furnished by the connecting roads above named. The distance from Schenectady to Boston via Rutland is 247 miles, while it is but 217 by way of the Western road. The distance from the same point to Worcester by the Rutland route is 222 miles, and by the Western road only 172. Yet because the Western road has not capacity to do the business, the produce dealers of Eastern and Central Ma.s.sachusetts are compelled to resort to this roundabout way of transportation as one of their means of relief. But this is not the only channel, nor the most indirect, which the irrepressible stream of Western trade with the East has created, as it approaches its natural outlet, Boston; as the Mississippi, scorning the narrow embouchure which satisfied its youthful flow, now pours its resistless torrents, through numerous pa.s.ses to the Gulf. Besides that already described, there are three other lines competing with the Western road in the transportation of Western freight to Boston. These are the Grand Trunk, the Ogdensburg, and the Providence and Erie. Few persons know that cotton from St. Louis, for supplying the mills of Lowell and Lawrence, is unladen in Boston from vessels which received their cargoes at Portland, but such is the fact, the cotton having been transported over the Great Western and Grand Trunk roads.

But these four long, and indirect lines, with their single track, are in the frame situation as the Western road; _their_ capacity is exhausted, so far as through freight is concerned, this part of the business of all the four hardly exceeding that of the Western road.

To prove the utter incapacity of these five lines of communication between us and the West, to supply our wants, and meet the demands made upon them, we need only state the fact that in November and December last, many of the produce dealers and grocers _in Worcester_, were unable to supply their customers, on account of the detention of freight at Albany, Detroit and Ogdensburg. We may add, by way of ill.u.s.tration, that the immense loss of property occasioned by the burning of a large freight depot at Detroit, and by which so many New England consignees severely suffered, was one of the incidental consequences of the incapacity of these lines of New England railroads to do the work required of them. We shall have occasion to consider further the capacity of the Western Railroad, but the facts already given are sufficient to show the necessity of opening another through and direct route from the Hudson to Boston.

The next question to be considered, if, indeed, there can be any question about it, is how shall the new route be located? We have shown that another is necessary in order to accommodate through business, to meet the demands of the West, and to promote the prosperity of the entire State. But this is not by any means the whole argument. Central and Southern Ma.s.sachusetts are covered with a net work of railroads, from Cape Cod Bay to the New York border, yet Northern Ma.s.sachusetts, from Fitchburg westward, has but a single road, and that terminating at Greenfield, nearly forty miles from North Adams, where the broken line of communication is again taken up. Hence it is, that, while villages have become large towns, and towns populous cities, all over the rest of the State, this section has remained comparatively undeveloped; and the whole tier of towns lying along the line of the Vermont and Ma.s.sachusetts, though steadily growing, through the energy and enterprise of their skillful artisans and mechanics, and the facilities afforded them by the last named road, have yet suffered and languished for want of the material so abundant in this undeveloped region between Greenfield and the mountain barrier beyond.

The water power of the Deerfield river is immense, its fall along the line of the Troy and Greenfield road being nearly six hundred feet; and this magnificent force is now idle, except at Shelburne Falls, though the finest privileges are scattered along the whole course of the river.

Messrs. Lamson & Goodnow, who employ four hundred men at Shelburne Falls, in manufacturing cutlery, state that the Deerfield and North rivers, at that place, afford a one-thousand-horse power. Along the course of Miller's river, between Athol and Deerfield are also many excellent privileges unimproved. At Montague are Turner's Falls, on the Connecticut, with a power sufficient to operate the mills of Lowell, Lawrence and Manchester. All these splendid privileges only await the opening of the Tunnel route. Many of them would be at once improved were the road completed to the mouth of the tunnel. Messrs. Lamson and Goodnow state that they shall double their present force of four hundred men, as soon as it is open to Shelburne Falls.

Some fifteen or twenty miles from the Eastern end of the tunnel lie extensive forests of spruce and pine, through which a highway has already been surveyed, and which will be built to the tunnel, as soon as the road is completed to that point. The whole surrounding region abounds in lumber of almost every description, which would become very valuable when the road is built, to say nothing of the extensive formations of stone, soapstone and serpentine which are found there.

Though the Deerfield meadows afford some of the finest farms in New England, the tillage land will not compare in extent with that along the Western road; but in every other respect the resources and latent wealth of the Tunnel route are infinitely superior to those of the Western line.

Six years ago, and _twenty-three years after the Western road was opened_, the population lying west of Springfield within ten miles of the Western road on a distance of forty-four miles, was 42,050; while that west of Greenfield, within ten miles of the Tunnel line on the same distance, without any railroad at all was 32,146. According to the average rate of increase, the population along the Tunnel line, would be more than doubled in twenty-three years. Were the mountain barrier pierced, and communication opened with the West, and the magnificent water power of the Deerfield made available, who doubts that this population would be increased fourfold in that s.p.a.ce of time: or that more than one town would spring up between Greenfield and the Hoosac, in a few years, which would rival North Adams in growth and prosperity; or that in far less time than it has taken Lowell to acquire her present importance, a larger city than Lowell would stand on the banks of the Connecticut at Turner's Falls?

With the requisite railroad facilities supplied, it is certain that the growth of a region so abounding in the most essential reliance of mechanical industry, as Northwestern Ma.s.sachusetts, cannot be measured by the snail's pace which marks the progress of an agricultural district. The farmer's interests are indeed equally promoted with those of other industrial cla.s.ses, by the opening of railroads, but these do not increase the number of farms or farmers within our borders, nor stimulate the growth of agricultural towns. It is mainly by her manufactures and commerce that Ma.s.sachusetts has become so prosperous and wealthy. It is because the commercial and industrial interests of the whole State require it, that another route to the West has become a necessity; and it is because such immense resources yet remain to be developed, and such a gigantic power to be employed, in Northern Ma.s.sachusetts that the new route must pierce the Hoosac Mountain, if it is possible and practicable.

That it is possible to tunnel the Hoosac Mountain cannot be doubted by any sane person who has inspected the half mile already excavated. All of the eminent engineers, whose reports upon the enterprise have been published, say it can be done; nor do any of its opponents pretend to question its practicability. But in order to estimate properly the magnitude of the work, its possible and probable cost, and the time within which it can be done, it is necessary to know what has been accomplished in this department of civil engineering. Fortunately, this needed information is contained in Mr. Charles W. Storrow's very able report on European tunnels. Mr. Storrow is a distinguished civil engineer, who made a journey to Europe in the summer of 1862, by request of the Hoosac Tunnel Commissioners, and with the approval of the Governor and Council, for the purpose of examining the most important tunnels there constructed, and, especially, the one in progress under the Alps. He describes twenty-two tunnels which he visited, besides that of Mt. Cenis. Fourteen of these are in England, seven in France, and one in Switzerland. Two of them are upwards of three miles long, and many of them between one and two miles. Some of the shafts were nearly as deep as the central shaft of the Hoosac. Some of these excavations were made without the aid of shafts, others wholly by means of shafts, without working from the ends at all.

It might be supposed that in the construction of so many subterranean ways, in such different sections of the continent, almost every conceivable geological formation must have been traversed; and so it appears from Mr. Storrow's report. Granite, quartz, oolite, limestone, shale, slate, sandstone, gravel, sand, clay and marl, were the material through which with pick and spade, drill and shovel, the patient workmen made their way. Not unfrequently, more than half the varieties of rock and earth we have named were met with in the same tunnel. Sometimes the work would be interrupted and temporarily abandoned in consequence of an inundation of water; sometimes enormous ma.s.ses of gravel and sand would work through into a shaft or tunnel, with disastrous and, in two instances, with fatal consequences. In many instances, work was discontinued for years, for want of funds, and then afterward renewed, with eventual success. In fact, about the average amount of those ordinary and inevitable obstacles which stand in the way of all great enterprises, were encountered by the engineers and contractors, in the building of these tunnels; but time, money, and skill, never failed to remove every difficulty. But we propose to extract, and condense from Mr. Storrow's report, a few of the main facts about some of the most important of these works; as the report has, not been read, or even seen by one in a hundred.

The "Box Tunnel" between Chippenham and Bath is more than a mile and three quarters in length. Nearly one half its length pa.s.ses through a kind of limestone rock, and the other through clay, the clay end being lined with masonry. Five shafts were sunk, the deepest being about three hundred feet. "During the construction of this tunnel, great difficulties were encountered from the excessive quant.i.ty of water which inundated the works, sometimes even occasioning their partial suspension, and powerful means were required to overcome the obstacles.

At one time the water fairly got the mastery over the machinery used for its removal, and it was only after an additional set of pumps worked by a fifty horse power engine, that the work could be resumed." This tunnel was built in five years, and its cost was about $1,750,000, or about $547 a yard.

The Woodhead Tunnel, on the Manchester and Lincolnshire Railway, is upwards of three miles long. It was originally built for a single track, its dimensions being 14 feet wide at the head of the rails, and 18 feet 3 in. high from the rails to the under side of the arch; which are almost exactly the dimensions of the present section of the Hoosac Tunnel. After a few years of use, the increase of business required another track and so a second tunnel of exactly the same size was built parallel with the first. It is a double tunnel with a thick dividing wall between, pierced with twenty-one arched openings. Five of the original shafts have been kept open. The deepest of these is more than six hundred feet, and the least about three hundred. The rock through which the tunnel pa.s.ses consists of millstone grit, a hard material, and shale, a kind of indurated clay.

The Kilsby Tunnel is more than a mile and a quarter long, and is built in Roman or metallic cement, under a bed of quicksand, from which it took nine months to pump the water, through shafts on either side of the sand bed. During a considerable portion of that time, the water pumped out was two thousand gallons a minute. The quicksand extended over 1350 feet of the length of the tunnel.

The Watford Tunnel is a mile and one tenth long, excavated entirely from chalk and loose gravel, the treacherous nature of which rendered it a work of great difficulty, streams of gravel and sand sometimes pouring through the fissures of chalk, like water.

The Netherton Tunnel is one mile and three quarters long. For its construction 17 shafts were sunk, their total depth being 3,083 feet, the least depth of any one being 63 feet, and the greatest, 344 feet.

There were 36 faces to work at, and the progress at each face was 10 1-2 feet per month. The tunnel was completed in two years.

From these brief descriptions of a few of the tunnels in England examined by Mr. Storrow, one can form a pretty correct opinion of the ordinary difficulties in tunneling which have been met and overcome by the English engineers. Mr. Storrow says that tunnels are not considered there such formidable works as they have generally been esteemed in our Northern States. They are so common that they have long ceased to attract the attention of travelers, more than eighty miles in aggregate length being already in use. Mr. Storrow estimates the average progress made in the construction of the English tunnels at about thirty feet per month on one face, and that the cost per yard varies from $125 to $250, for ordinary tunnels; but where peculiar difficulties were met, the cost has reached to from $500 to $750 per yard.

The Hauenstein Tunnel in Switzerland, one mile and an eighth in length, was from four to five years in being constructed. Two shafts were sunk, one 417 feet, and the other 558 feet deep. Portions of the shafts and tunnel were lined with masonry on account of the water and sand, and varying firmness of the strata pa.s.sed through, all of which caused many difficulties and delays. The progress made between the intervals of obstruction, varied from fifty-six to one hundred and nine feet per month on a face. The cost was about $400 per running yard.

The Nerthe Tunnel in France, is nearly three miles in length. For nine hundred and fifty yards of its length it is in rock cutting, where arching was unnecessary. The remainder is lined with masonry.

Twenty-four shafts were sunk, varying in depth from sixty-five to two hundred and sixty-two feet. The work was completed in three years, and cost $412 per running yard.

The Tunnel of Rilly, on the line from Paris to Strasbourg, is a little more than two miles long. Eleven shafts were commenced, two of which were abandoned on account of the abundance of water, the others were completed. In some of the shafts the water was so troublesome that it was necessary to use for curbs cast iron cylinders, five feet in diameter, and about three feet long, bolted together. The time consumed in the construction of this tunnel was three years and four months. It pa.s.ses through a chalk formation, which was, in some places, so seamy, that great precaution was necessary to prevent the falling in of large ma.s.ses. The cost was $432 per running yard.

Mr. Storrow visited and examined several other French tunnels, and his reports upon them are full of interest; but the abstracts given are sufficient to show the various obstacles and difficulties encountered by the English and French engineers in the prosecution of their work, as well as the cost, and the success which rewarded their skill and perseverance. We now come to the great tunnel under the Alps, the most remarkable and gigantic enterprise ever attempted in civil engineering.

Our facts in regard to it are derived from Mr. Storrow's report, (which it will be remembered was made in November, 1862,) and from a very able account in the Edinburgh Review of July, 1865.