Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 455 | Page 3

miles); Warsaw to St Petersburg (680 miles); Moscow to St Petersburg (400 miles); from a point on the Volga to another point on the Don (105 miles); and from Kief to Odessa, in Southern Russia. The great tie which will bind Russia to the rest of Europe, will be the Warsaw and St Petersburg Railway--a vast work, which nothing but imperial means will accomplish. Whether all these lines will be opened by 1862, it is impossible to predict; Russia has to feel its way towards civilisation. During the progress of the Moscow and St Petersburg Railway, a curious enterprise was determined on. According to the New York Tribune, Major Whistler, who had the charge of the construction of the railway, proposed to the emperor that the rolling-stock should be made in Russia, instead of imported, Messrs Harrison, Winans, and Eastwick, engineers of the United States, accepted a contract to effect this. They were to have the use of some machine-works at Alexandroffsky; the labour of 500 serfs belonging to those works at low wages; and the privilege of importing coal, iron, steel, and other necessary articles, duty free. In this way a large supply of locomotives and carriages was manufactured, to the satisfaction of the emperor, and the profit of the contractors. The managers and foremen were all English or American; but the workmen and labourers, from 2000 to 3000 in number, were nearly all serfs, who bought their time from their masters for an agreed period, being induced by the wages offered for their services: they were found to be excellent imitative workmen, perfectly docile and obedient.
Our attention now turns south-westward: we cross Poland and Germany, and come to the Alps. To traverse this mountain barrier will be among the great works of the future, so far as the iron pathway is concerned. In the early part of 1851, the Administration of Public Works in Switzerland drew up a sketch of a complete system of railways for that country. The system includes a line to connect Bale with the Rhenish railways; another to traverse the Valley of the Aar, so as to connect Lakes Zurich, Constance, and Geneva; a junction of this last-named line with Lucerne, in order to connect it with the Pass of St Gothard; a line from Lake Constance to the Grisons; a branch connecting Berne with the Aar-Valley line; and some small isolated lines in the principal trading valleys. The whole net-work of these railways is about 570 English miles; and the cost estimated at about L.4,000,000 sterling. It scarcely needs remark, that in such a peculiar country as Switzerland, many years must elapse before even an approach to such a railway net-work can be made.
To drive a railway across the Alps themselves will probably be first effected by the Austrians. The railway through the Austrian dominions to the Adriatic at Trieste, although nearly complete, is cut in two by a formidable elevation at the point where the line crosses the eastern spur of the great Alpine system. At present, travellers have to post the distance of seventy miles from Laybach to Trieste, until the engineers have surmounted the barrier which lies in their way. The trial of locomotives at S?mmering, noticed in the newspapers a few months ago, related to the necessity of having powerful engines to carry the trains up the inclines of this line. Further west, the Alpine projects are hidden in the future. The Bavarian Railway, at present ending at Munich, is intended to be carried southward, traversing the Tyrol, through the Brenner Pass, to Innspr��ck and Bautzen, following the ordinary route to Trieste, and finally uniting at Verona with the Italian railways. This has not yet been commenced. Westward, again, there is the W��rtemberg Railway, which ends at Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance. It is proposed to continue this line from the southern shore of the lake, across the Alps by the Pass of the Spl��gen, and so join the Italian railways at Como. This, too, is in nubibus; the German States and Piedmont are favourable to it; but the engineering difficulties and the expense will be enormous. Other Piedmontese projects have been talked about, for crossing the Alps at different points, and some one among them will probably be realised in the course of years. Meanwhile, Piedmont has a heavy task on hand in constructing the railway from Genoa to Turin, which is being superintended by Mr Stephenson; the Apennines are being crossed by a succession of tunnels, embankments, and viaducts, as stupendous as anything yet executed in Europe.
In Central Italy, a railway convention has been signed, which, if carried out, would be important for that country. It was agreed to in 1851 by the Papal, Austrian, Tuscan, Parmese, and Modenese governments. The object is to construct a net-work of