very well climbing hand over hand thirty-five feet up a rope, when hanging in the air; but when it is in an unsheathed shaft, with the dangling bringing down the loose stones on the head, it is unsafe. The anxiety of mind caused lately, by having to keep the workmen going without adequate means for their protection, is more than I can put up willingly with any longer. _We must have plenty of money for the excavations, or stop them altogether._” The oldest tunnel, of which we can find any record or mention in Europe, is that constructed in connection with a great aqueduct built about 540 years B.C. in Boetia, to draw off the waters of the lake Copais, now called lake Topolias, to the sea then called the gulf of Opuntius, and now the Channel of Talanti. The tunnel, nearly a mile in length, became impeded and choked up, and, about 220 years afterwards, was ordered to be restored by Alexander the Great, who had previously “fleshed his maiden sword” in its neighbourhood at one of the few great and decisive battles of the world—that of Chœroncia. It was fought and won by Philip of Macedon, 338 years before the birth of Christ. As to how the rock was penetrated in the absence of the modern appliance of gunpowder, we are now as ignorant as we are of the mechanical means by which the great pyramids of Egypt and other gigantic works there, were constructed; and we are in the like state as regards a tunnel in the Island of Samos, which we learn on the authority of Strabo was 4,200 Greek feet long—equal to 4,230 modern English feet—that is more than three-quarters of a mile. The height of the mountain through which it was driven was 900 Greek (907 English feet), and its purpose was to supply with water the principal city of the island, the inhabitants of which, 2,600 years ago, were among the most active and enterprising merchants and shipowners of the world. Ancient Samos, now called by the Turks _Susam Adasi_, is the nearest to the coast of Turkey in Asia of the numerous islands which dot the Eastern Archipelago. Albano is the first halting station of the day express train from Rome to Naples; close to it is the Alba lake seven miles round, at an elevation of 700 feet above the level of the sea. 2,000 years ago the Romans constructed a duct to carry off its superfluous water into the Tiber; part of the duct is through a tunnel, which, in consequence of modern repairs, is still in a state of perfect preservation. It is a little more than a mile long, and its dimensions are 6 feet high and 4 feet wide; it was completed in a year.