24 



AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. 



Radstâdter Tauern was still in use, but it is very circuitous. At the present day 

 all the old Roman roads have been rendered practicable for carriage traffic, and 

 the engineers have even carried their operations into the regions of perennial snow. 

 The road of the Stelvio (Stilfser Joch), close to- the Orteler and the Swiss frontier, 

 is the highest road in Europe. It was constructed for strategical reasons, and after 

 the loss of Lombardy it was not thought worth while to expend large sums upon its 

 maintenance. Even the old carriage roads over the Semmering and the Brenner 

 have lost much of their importance since railways run by their side over the 

 passes. The railway of the Semmering was the first constructed over the Alps, 

 and was looked upon at the time as a stupendous work of human industry. The 

 first locomotive travelled along it in 1854, since which time another railway has 

 pierced the very heart of the Austrian Alps, the engineers availing themselves of 



Fig. 13. — Klausen, on the Road over the Brenneb. 



the comparatively easy gradients leading up to the Brenner. That railway has 

 become one of the great commercial high-roads linking Germany with Italy, but it 

 will have to contend against a formidable rival as soon as the railway over the 

 Pontebba Pass, to the south-west of the Villach, shall have been completed. By 

 means of this new line direct communication will be established between Vienna 

 and Italy, much to the annoyance of the people of Trieste, who will lose much of 

 their transit trade. 



In addition to the railways which cross the Alps, there are others which 

 traverse their longitudinal valleys. The two lines over the Semmering and the 

 Brenner ax'e thus connected by a line which runs from the upper valley of the 

 Drave into the Pusterthal. A second junction is effected to the north of the 

 Tauern ; but a line connecting the Inn valley with the railway systems of Switzer- 



