The lower surface of the platforms should, in M. Oudry’s opinion, be 50 metres above high water, and to that elevation he proposes they should be carried. The towers of the piers being, say, 40 metres higher, the total pier elevation to be constructed, exclusive of foundations, would be about 200 metres, exactly half as high again as the top of the cross of St. Paul’s. Semiramis, after a repose of nearly 4,900 years, should be started into life again, together with her two millions of Assyrians. Her greatest elevation, however, was only 350 feet—the walls of Babylon—270 feet short of the piers of M. Oudry. To be sure the walls were said to be seventy miles long, and wide enough at top for five chariots. Of the total length of railways contemplated and sanctioned for Sicily—347 miles, 82 are opened for traffic, of which 59½ are from Messina (passing in its course at the foot of Mount Etna) to Catania, in the direction of Syracuse; and 22½ from Palermo to Marsala. It is a striking illustration of the rapid development which takes place through the opening of railways in a fertile country, that the traffic receipts per mile on the Sicilian sections opened have, since the commencement of 1867, been at the rate of £640 per annum. The directors of the company consider (apparently with justice) this amount as indicating very satisfactory results for the future. Whilst upon the railways in the extreme Southern Italy, we wish to mention a non-feasible theory that has been propounded to us during a visit we paid to Italy in July last. As England is to have her overland route to her Eastern possessions through Brindisi, why should not France find her way to Algeria by Reggio, and thence to Marsala, from which latter port the city of Tunis is only separated by some 90 miles of water? From Tunis to Constantine, and thence to Algiers, the measurement is 400 miles. But while the distance from Paris to Algiers, _viâ_ Marseilles, is 1,100 miles, that _viâ_ Reggio is 2,297, in which are comprised 500 miles of intended railway, the construction of which is not likely to be accomplished for several years to come.