The works of the railway were commenced on the 1st of May, 1866. It was expected that they would be finished in twelve months, but various circumstances have intervened to prevent the realisation of this intention; the chief, the floods of September 1866, on the French side of the mountain, when the waters rising higher than was ever known before, committed wholesale devastation, not only upon the works of the company executed up to that time, but upon the ten miles of the already opened railway between St. Jean de Maurienne and St. Michel, as well. The devastation extended from Termignon within seven miles of Lanslebourg to St. Jean, a distance of twenty-eight miles. The Paris, Lyons and Mediterranean Company has repaired the ten miles of railway between St. Jean de Maurienne and St. Michel. The works of the roadway from St. Michel, eighteen miles, to Termignon have been repaired and their strength added to, by the French Government at an expense of about £80,000. The French Government has also recognised the claim of the Fell Railway Company to consideration, by agreeing to repay two-thirds of the cost of reinstating its works as they were previous to the floods, so that practically the company has incurred through them a direct money loss of not more than from £3,000 to £4,000. It has, however, sustained a heavy loss from not being opened to carry the immense traffic which has crossed the pass during the spring, and summer of the present year. The railway is laid, not altogether but principally, on the outer side of the roadway. The sleepers are transverse, three feet apart, to which the outer or ordinary rails are fixed by bolts or nails. The line is fenced off from the portion of the roadway to be used for ordinary horse traffic, (the greater portion of which will disappear on the opening of the railway) by means of substantial posts and rails. The railway, in passing from one side of the roadway to the other, crosses it thirty-three times, one more than half the number of these crossings (seventeen) are on the roadway, where it is practically on the level. The crossings are therefore of the ordinary character, such as are seen in England and on the Continent; but inasmuch as the top of the centre rail, which is laid upon and fastened to continuous balks of timber bolted on to the transverse sleepers, is 9 inches higher than the outer or ordinary rails, it has been found necessary to arrange that when the roadway is open as a crossing, at those parts at which the centre rail is in use, it shall be lowered, so that it shall not be higher than the two outer rails. This is effected by a _mechanique_ extremely simple in its action, moved by means of a lever, just as a pointsman moves his points at an everyday railway station. One movement of the lever depresses the centre rail, into a hollow made expressly to receive it, to the level of its _confrères_, and when it is necessary to elevate