Farther west use was made at an early date of passes by which the whole system of the Alps could be crossed, or partly crossed and partly rounded, in a single rise. The ancient Etruscans, in exchanging their earthenware and bronzes for the amber found largely in those times not only in the Baltic but also on the eastern shores of the North Sea north of the Rhine mouths, made regular use of at least three such passes. One of these was the Brenner, the summit of which is under 4500 ft. in height, approached on the south side by the valley of the Adige and its tributary the Eisak, on the other side by the Inn valley and that of its small tributary the Sill. By this route the Alps at about their widest are crossed with exceptional ease; and hence it was natural that it should have been used by the Etruscans to reach the amber shores of the Baltic, and in all subsequent periods in intercourse between central Europe and northern Italy. In their trade with the mouth of the Rhine the Etruscans appear to have used only the passes approached by the Dora Baltea, which leads equally to the Little St Bernard, to the south of Mont Blanc, and so to the Isère valley and the Rhone, and to the Great St Bernard, to the east of Mont Blanc, and so directly to the Rhone valley above the Lake of Geneva, by which route the remainder of the Alps could be rounded on the west and the Rhine valley reached by crossing the northern Jura. Roman roads were afterwards made across all these passes, although that across the Great St Bernard (the highest of all, above 8100 ft.) seems never to have been made practicable for carriages. The Romans also made use of three intervening passes by which in a single rise from the Po basin the heads of valleys leading right down to the head of Lake Constance could be reached. These were the Bernardino, Splügen and Septimer, to mention them in the order from west to east. By the Romans the Simplon was also made use of as affording the most direct connexion between Milan and the upper Rhone valley. All these passes were likewise in use in the middle ages when Venice and Genoa were the great intermediaries in the trade in pepper and spices and other Oriental products. The Brenner afforded the most direct connexion between Venice and southern Germany, on a route leading also to northern Germany by way of Ratisbon and afterwards the rivers of the Elbe basin, and finally (from the end of the 14th century) by a canal to Lübeck, which was the great distributing centre of these and other products for the Baltic. To take the most direct route to the Rhine valley and north-western Europe some other pass (the Seefeld or the Fern) in the Bavarian Alps had to be crossed and the Rhine valley reached by Augsburg, and thence either by way of Ulm or Frankfort. From Genoa the routes in the early middle ages were by way of Milan to the Lake of Constance, and thence by way of Ulm if the Rhine valley was the goal, and by way of Augsburg if it was the Baltic. The St Gotthard route, the most direct connexion between Milan and the north of the Alps, was added about the end of the 13th century. The Mont Cenis pass from an early date afforded the most direct connexion between Genoa and the middle Rhone valley by way of Turin. When modern carriage roads came to be built it was still the same routes that were chosen. The road across the Brenner, completed in 1772, was the first of these. The building of the great Swiss carriage roads across the passes in the early part of the 19th century was inaugurated by Napoleon’s road across the Simplon completed in 1805. A later paragraph will show that modern railways follow much the same, if not exactly the same, routes. On the early use of the Saône-Rhone valleys, and the route between the foot-hills of the Cevennes and the Pyrenees, it is not necessary to insist, but it may be mentioned that English tin was sometimes conveyed to the Mediterranean (Marseilles) by this latter route in Roman times.

Since the introduction of railways inland waterways have in most countries taken a very inferior position as means of transport. The articles on the different countries supply the necessary information with respect to those which have a purely national interest, Inland waterways. but here mention must be made of those which have significance as belonging to trans-European routes or have an international value. The importance of shortening the water-route between the opposite sides of the great European isthmus separating the Baltic and the Black Sea is brought into prominence by the constant revival of projects for a ship-canal connecting those coasts. A definite step taken with a view to carrying out such a project was the sanction given by the tsar in April 1905 for the appointment of a special commission to inquire into the practicability of a scheme for the excavation of a canal about 28 ft. deep between Riga and Kherson, utilizing the waters of the Duna or western Dvina, the Berezina and Dnieper. Since the completion in 1845 of the Ludwigs or Danube-Main Canal, running from the Main near Bamberg to Kelheim on the Danube, it has been possible to go by water from the mouth of the Rhine to the mouth of the Danube; but this canal has in reality no trans-European significance. It cannot take barges of a greater capacity than 125 tons, is not adapted for steamers, and carries only a very small amount of traffic. But projects for connecting the Danube with northern Europe by water are still entertained. Of these the most advanced are those for establishing connexions through Austria. On the 11th of June 1901 the Austrian diet passed an act prescribing the construction of a canal connecting the Oder with the Danube through the Morava, and another connecting the Danube at Linz with the Moldau-Elbe, and the improvement of the navigation on the connected waterways. The Oder-Danube canal thus authorized would have to cross a watershed of little more than 1000 ft. in altitude as against 1365 ft. in the case of the Ludwigs Canal; but the Elbe-Danube Canal would have to cross one of about 2250 ft. Under the provisions of the act the work is to be completed by 1924. In Germany projects have been actively agitated for improving the Danube-Main connexion either wholly or partly along the route of the present canal, and for establishing a new connexion by means of a canal of at least 6½ ft. in depth by way of the Neckar, the Rems and the Brenz, joining the Danube at Lauingen about midway between Ulm and Donauwörth. The Moldau-Elbe is itself an important international waterway, inasmuch as it allows of steamer traffic from Prague in Bohemia to Hamburg, and by means of a connecting canal to Lübeck. But the most important of all international waterways in Europe is the Rhine, on which even sea-going steamers regularly ascend to Cologne, and an amount of traffic crosses the Dutch frontier three or four times as great as that which makes use of the Manchester ship-canal. The river is also navigable to Basel in Switzerland, though above Strassburg the river is little used, being replaced since 1834 by the Rhine and Rhone canal, which connects the two rivers through the Ill and the Saône. The Rhine is also connected with the Seine by the Marne and Rhine canal passing north of the Vosges, and its tributary the Moselle is also navigable from France into Germany. The Meuse again is navigable from France through Belgium into Holland, and is connected by more than one route with the Seine, and in the densely peopled mining and manufacturing country in the north of France and the adjoining parts of Belgium numerous waterways ramify in different directions. Even in an article on Europe the entirely French canals connecting the Seine and Rhone (Burgundy canal, summit-level 1230 ft., completed 1832), the Loire and Rhone (Canal du Centre, summit-level 990 ft., completed in 1793), and the Canal du Midi, connecting the Garonne at Toulouse with Cette on the Mediterranean, may be mentioned inasmuch as they establish communication between different seas. The last is of special interest because it is the oldest (completed in 1681), because it makes use of the lowest crossing, surmounting the passage of Naurouse, or Gap of Carcassonne, at an altitude of 625 ft., and because it effects the greatest shortening of distance from sea to sea. On this account the project of establishing a ship-canal of modern dimensions along this route has been as often revived as that of the Black Sea and Baltic canal. In the east of Europe the Vistula and Memel are both international waterways, but they are of little importance compared with those in the west. The Kaiser Wilhelm or North Sea and Baltic canal, opened in 1895, has, however, no little international value, inasmuch as it shortens the sea-route to the Baltic for all North Sea ports to the south of Newcastle, and affords the means of avoiding a rather dangerous passage round the north of Jutland. A minor degree of international interest belongs to the ship-canal through the Isthmus of Corinth, opened on the 6th of August 1893.

The following Railways. table gives a summary statement of the progress of railway construction in European countries down to the end of the 19th century:—

Railways in European Countries.

Date of
opening of
first line.		 Miles open.
1875. 1880. 1885. 1890. 1895. 1900.
Austria 1837 6,402 7.083 8,270 9,506 10,180 11,912
Belgium 1835 2,171 2,399 2,740 2,810 2,839 2,851
Bosnia-Herzegovina 1879 .. .. .. 342 471 ..
Bulgaria 1866 .. .. .. .. 535 921
Denmark 1847 689 975 1,195 1,217 1,371 1,809
France 1828 13,529 16,275 20,177 20,666 22,505 26,739
German Empire 1835 17,376 20,693 22,640 25,411 27,392 30,974
Great Britain 1825 14,510 15,563 16,594 17,281 18,001 18,680
Greece 1869 7 7 278 452 ? 641
Hungary 1846 3,992 4,421 5,605 6,984 8,651 10,624
Ireland 1834 2,148 2,370 2,575 2,792 3,173 3,183
Italy 1836 4,771 5,340 6,408 7,983 9,579 9,864
Luxemburg 1873 110 .. .. .. 270 ..
Netherlands 1839 1,006 1,143 1,496 1,653 1,869 2,007
Norway 1854 345 652 970 970 1,071 1,231
Portugal 1856 643 710 949 1,316 1,336 1,346
Rumania 1869 766 859 1,100 1,590 1,617 1,920
Russia* 1838 12,166 14,026 15,934 18,059 21,948 27,345
Servia 1884 .. .. 155 335 335 355
Spain 1848 3,801 4,550 5,547 6,211 7,483 8,206
Sweden 1856 2,171 3,654 4,279 4,980 6,058 7,018
Switzerland 1844 1,257 1,596 1,795 2,014 2,233 2,401
Turkey 1872 .. 727 657 657 935 ..
* Excluding Finland.

The chief railways of most European countries are on the same gauge as that originally adopted in Great Britain, namely, 4 ft. 8½ in. Irish railways are, however, on the gauge of 5 ft. 3 in. The standard gauge in Russia is 5 ft., that of Spain and Portugal about 5 ft. 6 in. The still isolated railway system of Greece is upon a narrow gauge. The very general use of a common gauge obviously greatly facilitates international trade. It allows, for example, of wagons from Germany entering every country on its frontier except Russia. It allows of German coal being carried without break of bulk to Paris, Milan and the mainland of Denmark. By means of train-ferries German trains can also be conveyed to Copenhagen by way of Warnemünde and Gjedser and then across the channel separating Falster and Zealand; and there is a similar means of communication between Copenhagen and Malmö (Sweden) and between Lindau in Bavaria on the Lake of Constance and Romanshorn on the same lake in the Swiss canton of Thurgau. The establishment of this method of transport between England and France has been urged in opposition to the Channel Tunnel scheme.

Of the railway systems of the mainland of Europe as a whole the main features are these. There is a broad belt running from the North Sea eastwards between the lines marked by Amsterdam and Hanover on the north, and Calais, Liége, Düsseldorf and Halle on the south, in which important lines of railway run from west to east. About 12° E. those lines begin to converge on Berlin. This belt is crossed in the Rhine valley by a much narrower but very important belt running north and south, now connected with the Italian railway system through the St Gotthard tunnel. To the south of the west end of the west-to-east belt lies the principal railway focus in western Europe, Paris, from which important lines radiate in all directions; two of these radiating lines now establish communication with the Italian railway system, through the Mont Cenis and Simplon tunnels respectively, and other two connecting with the Spanish system round the ends of the Pyrenees. Berlin in central Europe is perhaps an even more important railway focus. Among the chief lines radiating from it are one through Leipzig and Munich and connecting with the Italian railway system by the Brenner route, and another through Dresden and Prague to Vienna, and then by the Semmering pass by one route to Triest and by another to Venice. East of Berlin the railways of Europe begin to form wider meshes. Two main lines diverge towards the north-east, one by Küstrin and Königsberg and the other by Frankfort on the Oder and Thorn, both uniting at Eydtkühnen to the east of Königsberg before crossing the Prussian frontier and passing on to St Petersburg. From Thorn a line branches off by Warsaw to Moscow, the chief railway focus in eastern Europe. South-east from Berlin there runs another important line through Breslau, Cracow and Lemberg to Odessa, skirting to a large extent the foot-hills of the Carpathians like the ancient trade route from Olbia to the Baltic. Two routes on which there are services organized by the International Sleeping Car Company connect London with Constantinople, and it is noteworthy that both of these indicate the importance of the physical feature which has determined the position of the great north-south belt of railways above mentioned, and also of towns famous as commercial centres in the middle ages. One of these is the route of the Orient Express, which goes by Calais, Paris and Strassburg, then east of Strassburg runs north in the Rhine valley for about 40 m. to Karlsruhe, then winds through the hilly country between the Black Forest proper and the Odenwald to Stuttgart, proceeding thence by Ulm, Augsburg and Munich to Linz and then by the valley of the Danube through Vienna and Budapest to Belgrade, and thence by the valleys of the Morava, Nishava and Maritza to Constantinople. The other is that of the Ostend-Vienna express, going by Ostend to Brussels, and through Aix-la-Chapelle to Cologne, then up the Rhine gorge southwards to Bingen and eastwards to Mainz and on to Frankfort (on the Main), thence south-eastwards by the route so celebrated in the middle ages through Nuremberg to Regensburg (Ratisbon), and thence down the valley of the Danube coinciding with the Orient Express route from a point a few miles above Linz. From the Orient Express route a branch crosses from the valley of the Morava to that of the Vardar, establishing a connexion with Salonica.

In the development of this railway system the mountains have proved the most formidable of natural obstacles, and at the head of the mountains in this respect as in others stand the Alps. The first railway to cross one of the main chains of the Alps was the Semmering line on the route from Vienna to the Adriatic, constructed in 1848-1854. Its summit is in a tunnel less than 1 m. long, 2940 ft. above sea-level or nearly 300 ft. below the level of the pass. South of the Semmering, however, various other passes have to be crossed, and it was not till 1857 that the railway to Triest (by Laibach) was completed, and not till the late seventies that the more direct route to Venice across the Tarvis pass in Carinthia was established. Of the route from Triest by Görz across the Karawanken and Tauern Alps to Salzburg and south-eastern Germany the first section was opened only in 1906. After the Semmering the next railway to cross the Alps was that following the Brenner route which crosses the summit of the pass at the height of 4490 ft., and, as already stated, is the only pass that has to be crossed on the way from Munich to the plains of Italy. Next followed in 1871 the western route through the so-called Mont Cenis tunnel, really under the Col de Fréjus, to the west of the Mont Cenis pass, and effecting a crossing between the valleys of the Arc (Rhone basin) and the Dora Riparia (Po basin) at an altitude of 4380 ft., or nearly 2500 ft. lower than the pass previously used, but only by piercing the mountains in a tunnel more than 7½ m. long. Next in order was the St Gotthard route, opened in 1882, the most direct route between northern Italy and western Germany, connecting the Lake of Lucerne with the valley of the Ticino. Here the altitude is reduced to 3785 ft., about 3150 ft. below the summit-level of the pass, but the tunnel length is increased to rather more than 9¼ m. The Simplon route opened in June 1906, between the upper Rhone valley and the Toce valley, shortening the route between Milan and northern France, effects the crossing at an altitude of only 2300 ft., nearly 4300 ft. lower than the pass, but by increasing the tunnel length to 12¼ m. Steps were subsequently taken to continue the Simplon route northwards by a tunnel through the Lötschberg in the Bernese Alps, and a project is entertained for continuing the Vintschgau (upper Adige) railway across or under the Reschenscheideck to the Inn valley. An important east-west crossing of the Alps was effected when the Arlberg tunnel (6.37 m. long, summit-level 4300 ft.) connecting the Inn valley with that of the Rhine above the Lake of Constance was opened in 1884.