As he said, with just pride, Louis Favre had, indeed, before becoming the first contractor of public works in the world, lived for a long time in lumber yards. The years that so many other better instructed but less learned persons, who were afterward to gladly accept his authority, had given up to their studies, Favre had passed in the humble shop of his father, a carpenter at Chene, a small village at a half league from Geneva. It soon becoming somewhat irksome for him in the village, he left the paternal workbench to start on what is called the "tour of France." He was then eighteen years of age. Three years afterward, he was undertaking small works. It was not long ere he was remarked by the engineers conducting the latter, and he was soon called to give his advice on all difficult questions. Between times, Favre had courageously studied the principal bases of such sciences as were to be useful to him. In the evening, he made up at the public school what was lacking in his early instruction; not that he hoped to make a complete study for an engineer, but only to learn the indispensable. He was, before all things, a practical man, who made up for the enforced insufficiency of his technical knowledge by a _coup d'oeil_ of surprising accuracy. Here it may be said to me that the piercing of the great St. Gothard Tunnel was accompanied by considerable loss. That is true, but it must be recalled also that this colossal work was accomplished amid the most insurmountable difficulties which ever presented themselves. In spite of this, the cost of the tunnel per running foot was also a third less than that of the great Mont Cenis Tunnel.