Too Long; Didn't Read

As many of our readers have evinced much interest and ingenuity on the question of the propriety of placing reliance upon the accuracy of dropping a perpendicular from the top to the bottom of a shaft 1,030 feet in depth, by means of an ordinary plummet, we take the earliest opportunity of settling the matter beyond dispute, by reporting the results lately obtained, through a series of experiments by the engineers in charge, for the ultimate purpose of laying down the correct line for the tunnel. The perpendicular line has, of course, been dropped many times, and the main result taken. The plummet used is made of steel, properly balanced and polished, in shape something like a pineapple, and of about the same size, weighing fifteen pounds. It was suspended, with the large end downwards, by a thin copper wire, one fortieth of an inch in diameter, immersed in water; and, after careful steadying with the hand, occupied about an hour in assuming its final position or motion, which, contrary to the expectation and theories of many, resulted in a circular motion around a fixed point, the diameter of the circle being a mean of one quarter of an inch. The suspending wire in these operations was not quite the entire length of the shaft, being only 900 feet; and before the plummet had settled, the wire had stretched nearly twenty feet.