Thus, as regards date of opening, length of line, service of trains, and average fares, there is a close similarity between the English and French lines; but the system is widely different. In London we burrow deep; in Paris they go just beneath the surface, the authorities after much hesitation having adopted the shallow underground system. Our Tube trains are shot through huge iron pipes penetrating the subsoil at depths varying from sixty to a hundred feet, and to get at the rail level, passengers must take a perpendicular journey in a big lift. But their Parisian counterparts trip down a few steps and along a brightly-lighted, white-tiled tunnel, so beautifully ventilated and smokeless--electricity being the motive power--that an enthusiastic expert declares its atmosphere to be “perfectly clean and sweet.” The tunnels are as near the surface as possible, and on the greater part of the line the keystones of the masonry arches are only about 3 feet 6 inches below the street level. The excavations were at first attempted by means of shields, as in “tubular” work; but this had to be abandoned in favour of the time-honoured “cut and cover” plan employed in the construction of our early underground railway. When the great Parisian scheme is completed upon a twentieth-century model, much more finished and convenient in many ways than any of ours in London, it will comprise a total length of 38·86 miles of track, seven-tenths being laid in shallow covered trenches, the remainder in open cuttings or on viaducts, the entire cost being estimated at twelve million sterling. An interesting feature of the scheme is that each section is self-contained and ends in loops, so that shunting is obviated. No trains run from any one distant strip of line into another, but where there are crossings, or where the termini touch, there are stations to facilitate changing. This arrangement ensures a rapid service, maintained with regularity and punctuality on each section. Like our “Tube,” the success of the Parisian Métropolitain was from the first immense, and at the end of ten months showed a return of over forty million passengers. BUDA-PESTH Along the Boulevard Andrassy at Buda-Pesth there is a shallow electric tramway built upon similar principles, a few feet under the main thoroughfare, which is by no means a failure, financially or otherwise. BOSTON Now let us cross the Atlantic, and note what has been effected at Boston and New York.