The Sun.
London, England, 1858-12-20 00:00:00

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THE SUN.

MONDAY. DECEMBER 20, 1858.

The customary gauge has been applied to the
engineering enterprise of Englishmen during the
past twelvemonth. It will be found upon exami-
nation to have yielded results in several particulars
more than usually satisfactory. The annual test
to which allusion is here made is, of course, no
other than the Report of the Council sub-
mitted at the close of each session to the Institu-
tion of Civil Engineers. This resume for 1858,
however, reveals at the outset a very striking pecu-
liarity, namely, the distinguishing fact that in the
United Kingdom itself there has not been any gene-
ral resumption of works either of public utility or
of private enterprise. One probable reason for
this being the circumstance of a considerable
proportion of the professional engagements leading
our more eminent engineers into foreign countries,
and into British Colonial possessions. It is never-
theless curious, at the same time, to note that, sav-
ing in the construction of branch lines, but compa-
ratively little progress has been made in the exten-
sion of the railway system upon the European Con-
A magnificent project has certainly,
it must be admitted, taken another step in
advance, in the empire of Austria, towards its ulti-
mate realisation. The Lombardo-Venetian Company
having within the last few months united the majo-
rity of the principal lines—thereby tending to
hasten -the formation eventually of that grand and
symmetrical chain of trunk railways, extending
continuously over a distance of very nearly two
thousand miles altogether ! A comprehensive
system, at the very lowest computation of nearly
1,900 miles of railway—connecting Italy with
Austria, Hungary, and Southern Germany, " ex-
tending in an unbroken line from Vienna to Milan,
and from the Bavarian frontier to Florence." Con-
siderable progress has been simultaneously made
in the development of the railway system in Spain
and Portugal, in Russia, Turkey, and Piedmont.
Conspicuous among the more recently conceived de-
signs being one, by the way, which proposes to carry
a line from Nice to the railway at Voltri and thence
to Genoa, along the Cornice-road bordering the
Mediterranean. The Victor Emmanuel line having
in the meantime been completed to the foot of the
mountains, and the Cyclopean labour of tunnelling
the Alps actually commenced. So that the engi-
neers, combining scientifically the achievements of
HANNIBAL and NAPOLEON, appear to be bent at once
upon " turning the Alps" and cutting their 'ay
through them—employing pick and shovel, in lieu
of vinegar, in the latter herculean enterprise.

tinent.

E Together with the account of the progress made
in the European system of railways, we find in the
report of the council, submitted on the 14th inst.
to the lusititution of Civil Engineers, satisfactory
allusions to the advance made in the same direc-
tion, on the one hand immediately at home, and on
the other at the opposite extremities of the earth,
even at our very antipodes. Referring to the rail-
roads in llindostan, the report says, as encou-
ragingly as sententiously, that—" In India the