the Alps a new highway for the nations. It is one of the greatest triumphs of modern engineering, one of the grandest monuments of human skill. It is the longest tunnel in the world, being fifteen kilometres long, or nearly nine and a half miles; one and a half miles longer than the Mont Cenis tunnel. In addition to the great tunnel there are fifty-two smaller tunnels approaching it, making a total length of tunnels in getting through the Alps fifteen miles. The St. Gothard railway proper extends from Immensee, in Switzerland, to Chiasso, in Italy, a distance of one hundred and thirteen miles, and there are in all not less than fifty-six tunnels, comprising more than one-fifth of the whole line, or twenty-three miles of tunnelling. The width of the great tunnel is twenty-six feet and the height nineteen feet. It requires, at express-train speed, sixteen minutes to pass through it. It is about one thousand feet below Andermatt, and five thousand to six thousand five hundred feet below the peaks of the St. Gothard. The preliminary works were begun at Göschenen, on the north side, June the 4th, and at Airolo, on the south side, July the 2d, 1872. Louis Favre, of Geneva, was the contractor.[83] On February 28, 1880, a perforation from the south side penetrated the last partition between north and south sections, and the workmen on either side exchanged greetings. On the 22d of May, 1882, the first train passed over the line, and every town from Luzern to Milan celebrated the completion with banquets and excursions; and its business, passenger and traffic, at once assumed immense proportions. The construction cost 56,000,000 francs; which was partly paid by subventions from Switzerland, Germany, and Italy, the conditions and respective amounts of which were the subject of a treaty between these governments. It penetrates the mountain like a corkscrew, making four complete loops within a distance of twenty miles, in order to attain the requisite elevation, when it emerges into daylight only to enter again the main tunnel. The waters of the Reuss and the Ticino supplied the necessary motive power for working the screws attached to the machinery for compressing the air. The borers applied to the rock the piston of a cylinder made to rotate with great rapidity by the pressure of air, reduced to one-twentieth of its ordinary volume; then, when they had made the holes sufficiently deep, they withdrew the machines and charged the mines with dynamite. After the explosion, the _débris_ was cleared away and the borers returned to their place. This work was carried on day and night for nearly ten consecutive years. The official report shows that three hundred and ten of the workmen were killed by accidents during the building of the tunnel, and eight hundred and seventy-seven were wounded or received minor injuries. The work was done by Italians; no others would accept so much toil and danger for so little pay. There were used in its construction 2,000,000