The main-land as well as the Sicilian portions of the _Calabro-Sicula_ are at the present time very much longer on paper than on _terra firma_. The longest of the Calabrian sections is, when completed, to extend from Tarento all along the undersole of Italy as well as to the ball of the foot, and thence to its very tip-toe at Reggio, a distance of 300 miles; but although ten years have elapsed since the railway works were taken in hand, only the ten miles nearest to Reggio have as yet been completed. As, however, the Italian Government has recently made a loan of £720,000 to the company, the works are carried on actively, and it is probable that half-way in 1868 (portions perhaps earlier) 127 miles, in two sections, of which one from Tarento westward will be 90 miles, and the other will extend the line from Reggio 47 miles, will be ready for traffic. Of the remaining 163 miles to complete the continuous railway tie along the sole of Italy, some slight progress has been made on 56 miles, none on 107. In reply to a question put by us to a gentleman of the administration of the company, to whom we are mainly indebted for the foregoing information, “Quando sar[=a] terminata la Linea—Tarento—Reggio?” we were told, “Non è dato respondere a questa domanda senza conoscere di quali mezzi la societa potrà disporre;” and we received precisely the same answer in respect of the Sicilian lines of the company. The distance between Reggio and Messina is exactly 7½ miles. As we are here on the dominions of Scylla and Charybdis, it is no wonder that the steamers of the company, which ply backwards and forwards in connection with its trains, are often impeded by the numerous currents and the heavy gusts of wind that prevail in the Straits of Messina. Nevertheless, the passage from port to port is usually made in less than an hour, although at times the navigation is so difficult and dangerous, that, in winter, the Royal Postal Steamers of the Italian Government are occasionally unable to land their mails at Reggio, and are compelled to carry them on to their next port of call. We live in an age of wonders. M. Oudry, one of the engineers of the _Ponts et Chaussées_ of France, proposes to cross over the Straits of Messina with a suspension bridge of four spans, each 1,000 metres, or 3,281 feet long. The bridge (which is to be made available for railways) would thus be 4,200 metres, or two miles and five-eighths long, exclusive of the great sustaining piers at each edge of the water. M. Oudry selects this width in preference to the narrowest part of the Straits, which is 3,200 metres, exactly two miles wide, because at the spot of his selection the depth of his two central piers, _under water_, would he only 110 metres; whereas, if he took the narrowest part of the Straits, his two piers must be of the under-water depth of 130.