The longest of all European railways is nearly half Italian, and a little more than half “South Austrian.” It is called in France “_Sud, Autrichienne et Haute Italie_.” In Italy the two last words are converted into “_Alta Italia_.” The total length is now 2,565 English miles, of which the South Austrian portion measures 1,349, and the Italian 1,216. The two next longest railways of Europe are French. The Paris, Lyons, and Mediterranean Company has a length of railway, _in France_, of 2,234 miles, and in 1864, it adopted a translitoral little son, which is known by the name of the “Algerian Railways.” At present the gentle youth is of modest proportions, only thirty-one miles open for traffic, eighty-one to be opened in the present year; and of the remaining 264 which are to constitute its full grown mileage (376 miles), little more work than “_etudes preliminaries_” has been bestowed upon them. At the period of the greatest growth of the Algerian railway, it will never be more than a pigmy as compared with its adopting parent. The railway that in mileage comes next in succession, is the Orleans Company. Its length is 2,052 miles. The last of the four railway giants, is our own English giant, the London and North-Western. Now, although the length of our countryman is the least of all—only 1,320 miles—it will nevertheless be seen hereafter, that in its other dimensions it is in most respects superior, in none inferior, to its continental brethren, just as the late Mr. Thomas Sayers was less in height and length of arm than Heenan, nevertheless, in the long run, he managed to beat him. The two extreme western points of the mighty system of the South Austrian and Alta Italia are at Susa, at the foot of the Mont Cenis Pass of the Alps, and Cuneo at the foot of that of the Col di Tenda. Its two eastern are Vienna, and still farther (by means of its Hungarian net-work to the southward of Vienna), Pesth. Its northern is Kutzen, about a hundred miles to the south-east of Munich. Its southern, Pistoja, is twenty-two miles to the north-east of Florence. It possesses railways across two of the passes of the Alps, the Sœmmering and the Brenner. Its stations are at Genoa, Turin, Milan, Innspruch, capital of the Tyrol, Verona and Venice, Trieste, Vienna, and Pesth. It is equally fitted (as it has proved itself to be) for a great military railway, and for one to be devoted only to commercial and industrial development, but it has its skeleton in its closet,—it is _not_ at Florence, capital of United Italy, nor is there prospect of its being there, except by a combination which shall unite with it the whole of the _Strade Ferrate Romane_, of which some particulars will be given hereafter.