TUNNEL OF THE ALPS.
The Sardinian Government is about to execute a grand engineering project; it is going to pierce the summit-ridge of the Alps with a tunnel twice as long as any existing tunnel in the world. A correspondent of the Times announces the fact. From London as far as Chambery, by the Lyons railroad, all is at present smooth enough; and the Lyons road is indeed about to be pushed up the ascents of Mont Meillaud and St. Maurienne, even as far as Modane at the foot of the Northern crest of the Graian and Cottian Alps: but there all further progress is arrested; you can not hope to carry a train to Susa and Turin unless you pierce the snow capped barrier itself: this is the very step which the Chevalier Henry Maus projects. The Chevalier is Honorary Inspector of the Génie Civil; it was he who projected and executed the great works on the Liége railroad. After five years of incessant study, many practical experiments, and the invention of new machinery for boring the mountain, he made his final report to the Government on the 8th of February, 1849. A commission of distinguished civil engineers, artillery officers, geologists, senators, and statesmen, have reported unanimously in favor of the project; and the Government has resolved to carry it out forthwith. The "Railroad of the Alps," connecting the tunnel with the Chambery railway on the one side and with that of Susa on the other side, will be 36,565 metres or 20 3/4 English miles in length, and will cost 21,000,000 francs. The connecting tunnel is thus described:
"It will measure 12,290 metres, or nearly seven English miles in length; its greatest height will be 19 feet, and its width 25 feet, admitting, of course, of a double line of rail. Its northern entrance is to be at Modane, and the southern entrance at Bardonneche, on the river Mardovine. This latter entrance, being the highest point of the intended line of rail, will be 4,092 feet above the level of the sea, and yet 2,400 feet below the highest or culminating point of the great road or pass over the Mont Cenis. It is intended to divide the connecting lines of rail leading to either entrance of the tunnel into eight inclined planes of about 5,000 metres or 2-1/2 English miles each, worked like those at Liége, by endless cables and stationary engines, but in the present case moved by water-power derived from the torrents."