English Channel

(Fr. La Manche , the sleeve), the arm of the sea which separates England from France, extending, on the English side, from Dover to Land's End; and on the French, from Calais to the Island of Ushant. On the east it communicates with the North Sea by the Straits of Dover, 21 miles wide; and on the west it opens into the Atlantic by an entrance about 100 miles wide. At its greatest breadth it is about 150 miles. The pilchard and mackerel fisheries are very important. The advantages of a railway tunnel under the Channel at or near its narrowest part have been frequently urged; and an English company, formed in 1887 for constructing a tunnel from Dover, to meet a similar tunnel starting from near Calais, has pushed an excavation under the sea for over 2000 yards. The plan, opposed by the British Government for military reasons in 1907, has now been approved of. Plans have also been put forward for a railway bridge acro the Straits of Dover.