The expression of "_il y a des Pyrénées_," has been paraphrased in latter days as "_il n'y a plus de Pyrénées_." A Spanish aeronaut has recently crossed the crest of the range in a balloon, from Pau to Grenada--seven hundred and thirty kilometres as the birds fly. This intrepid sportsman, in his balloon "El Cierzo," crossed the divide in the dead of night, at an elevation varying between two thousand three hundred and two thousand nine hundred metres, somewhere between the Pic d'Anie and the Pic du Midi d'Ossau. In these days when automobiles beat express trains, and motor-boats beat steamships for speed, this crossing of the Pyrenees by balloon stands unique in the annals of sport. The crossing of the Pyrenees has already resolved itself into a momentous economic question. Half a dozen roads fit for carriage traffic, and two gateways by which pass the railways of the east and west coasts, are the sole practicable means of communication between France and Spain. The chain of the Pyrenees from west to east presents nearly a uniform height; its simplicity and uniformity is remarkable. It is a veritable wall. To-day the Parisian journals are all printing scare-heads, reading, "_Plus de Pyrénées_" and announcing railway projects which will bring Paris and Madrid within twenty hours of each other, and Paris and Algiers within forty. New tunnels, or _ports_, to the extent of five in place of two, are to be opened, and if balloons or air-ships don't come to supersede railways there will be a net-work of iron rails throughout the upper valleys of the Pyrenees as there are in Switzerland. The _ville d'eaux_, or watering-places, of the Pyrenees date from prehistoric times. At Ax-les-Thermes there has recently been discovered a tank buried under three metres of alluvial soil, and dating from the bronze age. Old maps of these parts show that the baths and waters of the region were widely known in mediæval times. It was not, however, until the reign of Louis XV that the "stations" took on that popular development brought about by the sovereigns and their courts who frequented them. [Illustration: _The Five Proposed Railways_] Not all of these can be indicated or described here but the accompanying map indicates them and their locations plainly enough. [Illustration] Nearly every malady, real or imaginary (and there have been many imaginary ones here, that have undergone a cure), can be benefited by the waters of the Pyrenees. Only a specialist could prescribe though. In point of popularity as resorts the baths and springs of the Pyrenees rank about as follows: Eaux-Bonnes, Eaux-Chaudes, Cauterets, St. Sauveur, Barèges, Bagnères de Bigorre, Luchon, Salies de Béarn, Ussat, Ax-les-Thermes, Vernet and Amélie les Bains.