case of a fall of rock from the roof, or any other accident which might block up the tunnel itself. And by it the drainage is effected of the water that filters from the rock, which must be considerable, if we may judge by the quantity of large stalactites which may be seen hanging from the roof.

One of the most important points to attend to is the accurate direction of the axis of the gallery, which is indispensable to prevent the two simultaneous excavations not meeting at last in the centre. This is accomplished by means of an observatory at each end perched aloft on the opposite side of the valley, not unlike a summer-house, to which a steep zigzag path ascends, and from which the spectator looks into the cavity of the tunnel, where lights are always kept burning to guide the eye in the right direction. It is easy by proper instruments to determine whether or not any deflection from a straight line has occurred, and the tests are applied about once in every three months; but hitherto no error has been detected.

We have frequently spoken of the two mouths of the tunnel, such as they appear on the mountain sides at Fourneaux and Bardonnèche. But it is not intended, as might at first be supposed, that the railway from the two valleys shall enter either of these mouths. Indeed, a moment's reflection will show that this is impossible. For the direction of the railway as it approaches the tunnel will be at right angles with its axis, and it would therefore require a large space by the side and in front of the mouth to give room for a curve sufficiently flat for safety. Two subsidiary tunnels will be formed at each extremity, which will enter the great tunnel on a curve at some little distance from the actual mouth. The valley of the Arc widens considerably above Modane, and the railway will describe a majestic sweep as it curves with an ascending gradient towards the mountain which is to engulf it. It is obvious that much expense of construction might be saved if, instead of making this grand curve across the valley, the line were to shunt; by which means the train would be brought to a standstill at a point beyond Modane, and the locomotive with its train would take a fresh start in a line diagonally crossing the valley. But a shunt is always awkward and involves delay, and we have not heard that it was ever seriously contemplated.

The length of the tunnel already finished is a little more than two miles and a half. This leaves about five miles and eight chains yet to be excavated, and at the rate of progress which the work is now making, it ought, unless some unexpected accident occur, to be completed in four years and seven

months from the present time. It would be too much to predict with certainty that this expectation will be realised. It may be, indeed, that unknown difficulties will mar the enterprise, for it cannot be denied that these will increase in a certain ratio as the work advances. But it must be borne in mind that, as each section of the tunnel embraces only half of the entire length, the question is not whether the mechanical apparatus is fitted to deal with seven miles and a half of the interior of the mountain, but with just half of that distance. Now, subtracting 2,000 mètres (which is something less than the advance made at each extremity) from 6,110 mètres, which is half of the entire length, there are left only 4,110 mètres, or 2 miles 983 yards, to test the powers of the compressed air and the perforating machines. This does not seem a very formidable distance, and, judging from the experience of the past, we think that M. Sommeiller and his colleagues are well justified in looking forward hopefully to the result. At all events absit omen; we will not dwell on the possibilities of failure. Let us rather fancy the moment arrived when each section of the tunnel has been pushed forward so far that the blows of the perforating rods on the opposite sides of the last interval of rock can be heard together, as if each were the echo of the other; one of them darts forward into the empty space formed by the excavation of the meeting gallery-the holes are filled with powder-the mine is fired-and when the explosion has taken place, and the smoke has cleared away, there is no longer a barrier to overcome, but the passage from France to Italy is open without obstruction from end to end! Then will have been accomplished an enterprise which, to use the words of M. Menabrea, when addressing the Italian Chamber on the 4th of March, 1863, will be for the glory of Italy and the greatest benefit to all her population.' And not Italy alone. The whole of Europe has an interest in the success of the tunnel through which will flow the stream of traffic from Germany and France. A few years ago the pass of the Mont Cenis glittered with the bayonets and resounded with the tramp of a French army marching on its way to rescue fair Italy from the grasp of the foreigner. Now a more peaceful conquest is going on over the obstacles which Nature has imposed, and the Alps themselves are yielding to the potent spell which science and art together are able to evoke. It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of the result; and if it is achieved, the Alpine tunnel will be one of the blessings of humanity, and exist for ages an imperishable monument of patient industry and engineering skill.

ART. VI.-Some Account of Gothic Architecture in Spain. By GEORGE EDMUND STREET, F.S.A. London: 1865. THIS volume, which furnishes a valuable contribution to the history of Gothic architecture, and treats of the least known chapter in it, comes most opportunely before the public. It will form a useful addition to the few books with which a traveller may profitably equip himself for the Peninsula; and travellers in that direction grow yearly more numerous from the increased and increasing facility of railway communications. The railway which enters Spain at Irun ascends through the mountainous districts of the Basque Provinces to their frontier at Miranda, and thence the traveller has the choice of two routes to Madrid-one, the most direct, by way of Burgos, and the other by way of Saragossa; and these lines place the capital in relation with nearly all the great towns of the north of Spain-with Barcelona, Pamplona, Santander, Bilbao, Valladolid, Burgos, and Vittoria. Lines to Salamanca, Leon, and Vigo, through mountainous regions of rainy Galicia, are also in process of construction. In Portugal, the line from Badajoz to Lisbon is open, and Badajoz will before long be connected with Madrid, the two capitals of the Peninsula being thus brought within an easy journey of each other. In the south Granada and Malaga still stand isolated from the general network of railways; but before two years Malaga will be united to Cordoba with a branch to Granada; and from Valencia and Alicante the line has been open for some years to Madrid. At all the chief places on the main line of railway hotels are now to be found. None equalling indeed, except at Madrid, those of the largest provincial towns of France, but they nevertheless offer entertainment of which none but the over-fastidious can complain. In out-of-the-way places, and in towns where the increased abundance of travellers have not yet stimulated local enterprise, the posadas, paradors, and ventas still justify the old classification of Spanish inns into three divisions-the bad, worse, and worst; but even here the discomfort has often been much exaggerated. Gastronomers and lovers of fleshly comfort will assuredly find little to their taste in any part of the Peninsula; but lovers of art and of the picturesque will be content enough with the comparatively easy terms on which they can now enjoy beauties once so much more inaccessible. In all the ordinary routes passable accommodation is to be found in the fondas, as the first-class hotels are called: it is only when passing out of the

beaten track, that travellers will be obliged to seek refuge in the old-fashioned posada and parador, where the smell of mules, the assaults of fleas, and the ceaseless hubbub of sounds from man and mule*, and the tough and tasteless beef of the puchero exhaust the traveller's equanimity.†

These new methods are doubtless not so favourable as the old customs of the country for making intimate acquaintance with the inhabitants. A traveller may now arrive at Madrid almost without having had intercourse with a Spaniard. Many of the railway officials are French, the innkeepers are for the most part Italian; the companions of railway travel are often foreigners themselves, and from the moving apartment of the railway carriage, the traveller may see the country and people pass rapidly before his eyes like a panorama. We are not at

all sure that the pleasant spirit of Richard Ford can look down with any complacency upon modes of Spanish travel so entirely unlike his own Quixotic outfit: and certainly none of these railway passengers will ever know, as he knew, every inch of the whole country.

In diligence, on horseback, and on muleback, the traveller was brought perforce into companionship with the native; and such experience, notwithstanding the monotony and delay inseparable from such modes of travelling, provided matter for much amusement both immediately and in remembrance. Mayorals, zagals, delanteros, and arrieros were living beings, whose characteristic costumes, quaint humour, sayings and doings, illustrated the character of their countrymen, and kept alive in the traveller the sense of individuality-whereas railway officials are as much like one another as their own locomotives. In the days of diligences, too, everybody along the route took a personal interest in their lumbering progress; arrieros and caleseros would leave their teams for a moment at the in vitation of the mayoral to give four cuts,' cuatro palos, to a lagging mule of the team of ten or twelve attached to the ponderous vehicle. Whereas the mechanism of the railway seems to take possession of conductors, passengers, and spectators, rendering impossible all exercise of volition or caprice, and reducing all to take part in the proceedings with the inflexible uniformity and countenance of fate.

bill.

The ruido de la casa, for which the traveller is charged in his

† Yet sometimes at such places even as Avila, on the main route, but not often a place of sojourn for tourists, the traveller will be driven to make use of the old class of hotel. At Avila, however, we believe, a fonda is in process of erection by an Englishman.

It is difficult to say which is the best season of the year for visiting Spain: to know the country well we should doubtless see it in every season, and every season has some advantage. The winter offers immunity from dust and intense heat, and, except in the central table-lands and in their exceptional seasons, is never too cold for enjoyment; but at that time of the year the trees are without foliage, and the fields and mountains are destitute of the exuberance characteristic of Southern vegetation: nature hybernates and man is torpid; for here, even more than in more rigorous climes, do the natives abstain from public entertainments and funciones of all kinds in the winter. The spring is the only season in which the vast dreary plateaux of Castile can be seen to advantage, covered as they then are with boundless oceans of green corn; but then one misses the rich tints of autumn, the joys and festivals of harvest and of vintage; the luxuriance of vine, fig-tree, and pomegranate in the vineyard and the field; the ruddy piles of melons, gourds, calabazas and pimientas, with the profusion of flower, fruit, and vegetable in the market-places, where Plenty bestows her gifts with a prodigality delightful to witness for one accustomed to dwell under colder skies.

'On the whole, from my own experience, I should be inclined to recommend the autumn as the most favourable season for a Spanish journey, the weather being then generally more settled than in the spring. But, on the other hand, there is no doubt that any one who wishes to judge fairly of the scenery of Old and New Castile, of great part of Aragon, and of Leon, ought on no account to visit these provinces save in the spring. Then I know no sight more glorious in its way than the sea of corn which is seen covering with its luxuriance and lovely colour the endless sweeps of the great landscape on all sides; whereas in the autumn the same landscape looks parched and barren, burnt up as it is by the furious sun until it assumes everywhere a dusty hue, painful to the eye, and most monotonous and depressing to the mind; whilst the roads suffer sometimes from an accumulation of dust such as can scarcely be imagined by those who have never travelled along them. Even at this season, however, there are some recompenses; and one of them is the power of realising somewhat of the beauty of an Eastern atmosphere, and the singular contrasts of colours which Eastern landscapes and skies generally present; for nowhere else have I ever seen sunsets more beautiful or more extraordinary than in the dreariest part of dreary Castile.' (P. 2.)

This book is the result of observations taken during three separate journeys to the Peninsula. We regret that Mr. Street has confined his attention to the northern parts of Spain, and that his peculiarly purist taste his exclusive admiration of the purest forms of Gothic architecture, and his

VOL. CXXII. NO. CCXLIX.

L