At Macon we turn off from the main line of railway to the left, and pass successively Bourg and Culoz, near to which was the boundary between France and Italy, until the “rectification of frontier” in 1859 transferred the line of demarcation to the summit of the Alps, and converted Niceois and Savoyards into Frenchmen. At Culoz there is a further separation of railway—one branch turns north-east to Geneva 45 miles—the other, formerly the Victor Emanuel Railway, but lately swallowed up by the Paris, Lyons and Mediterranean Company, continues direct into the _Savoie Propre_, and after passing Aix les Bains and Chambery, runs up the Valley of the Arq to St. Michel, at present the terminus of the lines in this direction. When the stupendous task of piercing the Alps is achieved, this line will be continued to Modane, twelve miles farther up the valley, where it will enter the great tunnel. The works on this length, as will be explained hereafter, will be exceedingly difficult and costly. At St. Michel, the traveller at the present time has to exchange from the luxurious first-class carriage to the jolting, crowded, slow diligence. But very shortly he will only be called upon to move from the first-class carriage of the Mediterranean Company into the equally comfortable one of the Mont Cenis Railway, a specimen of which was exhibited at the recent Paris Exhibition. In this he will travel from St. Michel to Susa in less than half the time, and at a little more than half the expense of the journey _en Diligence_. St. Michel is 146 English miles from Macon, 421 from Paris, 717 from London. The traveller who leaves London any morning of the week, at twenty-five minutes past seven, will (with a break of two hours in Paris) find himself at St. Michel at noon the following day, notwithstanding the fact, that the railway from Macon onwards is far from being a first-class one; its gradients are steep, its curves numerous and abrupt. Between Calais and St. Michel, including various ups and downs (for railways are subject to the fluctuations physically that man experiences bodily), the traveller has risen 2,493 English feet, but principally in the seventy-two miles and a-half from Culoz onwards. He has, in fact, completed more than a third of the total elevation he has to conquer, in order to be at the summit of the Mont Cenis Pass. This summit is 6,658 feet above the sea level at Calais and elsewhere.