[For minute details relating to the construction of the Tunnel of the Alps, up to 1862, and to the means of supplying ventilation during its progress, the reader is referred to the interesting report of Mr. Storrow, embodied in that of the Commissioners of the State of Massachusetts on the Troy and Grenfield Railroad, and of the Hoosac Tunnel, dated the 12th of March, 1863; also, to an article on the Tunnel, in the _Edinburgh Review_ for July 1865, No. 249.]
Arrived in Italy, either by the Mont Cenis Railway, or by that through the Tunnel of the Alps, we have in front of us a Peninsula which juts for an extent (taking Susa as the extreme northern point and Otranto as the extreme southern) of 765 miles into the ocean. On the east, the ocean is called the Adriatic; on the south as well as on the west, the Mediterranean, a sea that contains within its limits a surface of 579,000 square miles.
We have already described the mighty railway company, _Alta Italia_, 2,565 miles in length, of which, since the close of the war of 1866, 1,349 belong to the South Austrian Division, and 1,216 to that of _Alta Italia_ proper. If we are on our road to Brindisi, we arrive at the end of _Alta Italia_ at Bologna, and, at that station come upon _Ferrovia Meridionale_. From Bologna, the line, proceeding southwards but also verging towards the eastward, gets to the Adriatic at Rimini, and thence, hugging the shore, it touches at Ancona, distant 127 miles from Bologna. From Ancona it still follows the shore of the Adriatic, except that at the Spur of the Boot it passes inwards through Foggia, 331 miles from Bologna. It is at this point that the line which is to unite Naples by the shortest possible railway connection, with the Adriatic, branches off. Its total length will be 124 miles; 43 are now open for traffic, 68 will be finished in the summer of 1868, leaving only a blank of 12 miles to be continued. Unfortunately, however, on these 12 miles, situated in the very heart of the Apennines, are concentrated the greatest works of the railway—three tunnels, one of which will be 2 miles and 17 yards long, and when completed will be the longest railway tunnel in Italy; the two others will be of the united length of 2 miles and 890 yards.