570 English miles; and the cost estimated at about
L.4,000,000 sterling. It scarcely needs remark, that in such a
peculiar country as Switzerland, many years must elapse before even an
approach to such a railway net-work can be made.

To drive a railway across the Alps themselves will probably be first
effected by the Austrians. The railway through the Austrian dominions
to the Adriatic at Trieste, although nearly complete, is cut in two by
a formidable elevation at the point where the line crosses the eastern
spur of the great Alpine system. At present, travellers have to post
the distance of seventy miles from Laybach to Trieste, until the
engineers have surmounted the barrier which lies in their way. The
trial of locomotives at Soemmering, noticed in the newspapers a few
months ago, related to the necessity of having powerful engines to
carry the trains up the inclines of this line. Further west, the
Alpine projects are hidden in the future. The Bavarian Railway, at
present ending at Munich, is intended to be carried southward,
traversing the Tyrol, through the Brenner Pass, to Innsprueck and
Bautzen, following the ordinary route to Trieste, and finally uniting
at Verona with the Italian railways. This has not yet been commenced.
Westward, again, there is the Wuertemberg Railway, which ends at
Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance. It is proposed to continue this
line from the southern shore of the lake, across the Alps by the Pass
of the Spluegen, and so join the Italian railways at Como. This, too,
is _in nubibus_; the German States and Piedmont are favourable to it;
but the engineering difficulties and the expense will be enormous.
Other Piedmontese projects have been talked about, for crossing the
Alps at different points, and some one among them will probably be
realised in the course of years. Meanwhile, Piedmont has a heavy task
on hand in constructing the railway from Genoa to Turin, which is
being superintended by Mr Stephenson; the Apennines are being crossed
by a succession of tunnels, embankments, and viaducts, as stupendous
as anything yet executed in Europe.

In Central Italy, a railway convention has been signed, which, if
carried out, would be important for that country. It was agreed to in
1851 by the Papal, Austrian, Tuscan, Parmese, and Modenese
governments. The object is to construct a net-work of railways, each
state executing and paying for its own. Austria is to do the work as
far as Piacenza an