An email and a drawing from Paul

Aha! Paul has already reacted to the blog. I received this email earlier today:

Hi Tim, We met yesterday. I left without paying for the coffees, sorry. I saw the blog you have started and I saw the pages from my sketch book!!!! Here is a better image. You only needed to ask:

I should tell you my great grandfather's name. It is a bit of a mouthful: Alexander Stanhope St George.

The image that I have attached is one of his drawings and shows a section view of the Telectroscope. I have been slowly going through all of his notebooks and boxes and piecing together his plans.

I can see that you do not completely believe me; nor do you completely reject the idea that I might be able to do this. There are many too many drawings and notes to bombard you with, but I hope this drawing dispels any doubt. Let me know if you want any further information.

Paul

There’s quite a lot here to digest here – the drawing, the name, the invitation to ask for more... How should I respond? What is the one piece of evidence that is going to drop me in the hole, convince me that Paul’s scheme is for real?

Comments

[Frankie Roberto]

Why don't you ask how the tunnel was built? Did they build it from both ends, and meet in the middle, or from one end only?

[Stephen Herbert]

Probably time to come clean - there's been some deception here. When we say "tunnel" we tend to think of a wide tube - like the Channel Tunnel. A Telectroscope doesn't need width for all of its length to work. For most of the distance, just a few inches (maybe less?) would do the trick. When the Victorians laid the Trans-Atlantic cables for the telegraph, they invented the method that could be used to lay hollow cable sheaths - which were set in a shallow trough and covered (hence technically, 'tunnels'). Effectively the Telectroscope is a form of opto-telescope (not to be confused with the earlier optical telegraph). Today, we're familiar with fibre optics, and the idea of light not having to travel in a perfectly straight line doesn't phase us, but to the Victorians it seemed impossible. To some, makyoh topography is still something of a mystery, but in theory it COULD just work. (Heaven knows how much money Paul must have spent on cleaning out that 'tunnel' - did he have Dyno-Rod on board?!).
SH