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in the Schedule of Tenders that was prepared formerly
for the pipes, (See attached) at least £70,000 in
excavating a trench over the harbour, special joints etc.
would be omitted, and deducted, so that the gain in cost
would be the difference between these two sums.
The item in Armstrongs Tender of £9780 for
preliminaries has not been deducted, as this sum would
go towards any concrete lining required in the tunnel or
the purchase of plant.
The above assumes temporary working plant to
be installed on both sides of the Harbour, Kowloon and
Victoria.
The above figure £10 per foot is based on
contracts in this Country in hard Granite and similar
rock.
I have made inquiry at the Geological Society
and at the Geological Museum in London, and can find no
reliable information on the geological espect of the
question in the neighbourhood of Hong Kong Harbour.
It is usual to find some line of weakness in the
rock as the initial cause of a water way between hilly
broken ground adjacent, and possibly the same may occur
at Hong Kong Harbour.
It would however be possible, and would also be
advisable, to have actual borings and take cores of the
nature of the strata across the harbour, and at the same
time it might be possible to make borings in a slanting
direction so as to explore the rock below in the direction
of the line of the tunnel; this would show whether any obstruction was likely to arise which might render the
work uneconomical.
The