The World'S Longest Tunnel.

The greatest engineering enterprise since the building of the Panama Canal, involving the expenditure of £75,000,000 is now in progress in California. The demand for electrical power for the cities and farms of California, has necessitated the driving of a series of tunnels eighty-six miles long near the summit of the lofty Kaiser Range, and the diversion of the San Joaquin River and Big Creek, the waters of which will be stored in twelve reservoirs covering 734,000 acres a foot deep. The water will be dropped down the mountains through a chain of nineteen power stations able to generate 1,400,000 horse power of electricity. The Florence Lake tunnel, the first instalment of this tremendous task, has been practically completed. It is the longest tunnel in the world (fourteen miles) and has employed 1,700 men for four years in its construction. The tunnel has been driven through a mountain of granite 9,000 feet above the plains, and is a mighty tribute to engineering skill, as well as to the endurance of the tunnellers who have spent long winters shut in by snowdrifts.