and protests very much to the point, caused the abandonment of work from the Long Nose end after a considerable distance had been excavated. Work, therefore, progressed slowly on from the north side until about May 1915, when a large fissure in the rock was found in the approximate middle of the Parramatta River. The only solution was to seal up the tunnel and patch the fissure. A bulkhead was built into the tunnel to stop the progress of the sand, water and silt and a staging was built in the middle of the river and drills were bored through the riverbed. Pipes were inserted through the holes and a cement mixture was gradually pumped into the tunnel in the vicinity of the fissure. The cement pumping operation was repeated through three other pipes in line with the original ones and the tunnel was sealed twice and allowed to set. The door was then re-opened and the silt and sand removed. A second sealing showed signs of weakness so it was decided to abandon the top tunnel and go deeper into the rock. A permanent bulkhead was built into the rock and the tunnel was sealed up with approximately of concrete that remains today. Second tunnel A second tunnel was commenced below the first one. The down grade was increased to 1 in 1.3. The work was carried out with explosives and some progress was made, however; on arrival at the point immediately below the original break-in, another crevice was struck and water rushed in. On this occasion, the engineer in chief, R. L. Rankin and the resident engineer W. R. H. Melville, decided to go with the foreman and have a look at the fissure that had flooded the tunnel. Placing candles on pieces of wood, they swam approximately into the centre of the tunnel. It was a risky job. The surface of the water was less than a yard from the top of the tunnel and if the inflow had suddenly increased, they would have been caught. The break-in was later sealed by placing pipes, approximately long, into the crevice, and the whole of the tunnel in the immediate vicinity was packed with bags of clay and tightly rammed. In front of this was placed a steel bulkhead with a steel door and through the bulkhead pipes were laid right into the crevice, to allow the water to