The Intest plan for building a-ship canal between Paris and-tho.sea has been laid before Parliament. by - M. Senac. This is the third or fourth proposal of the kind that has been brought forward within the last thirty years, and although from en engineering point vf view M. Senac's scheme is an extremely ingenious one, it will probably meet with no greater success: than ite predecessors. 'The principal reason for this is the conviction of successive governments that such an enterprise ould not possibly pay. Even if the canal were to receive a large portion' of the goods traffic now carried over the Western and Northern railways between Paris and the sea, it would still be unable to pay interest on the capital required. It is quite fifteen years since a company was formed to promote " scheme for making ship canal actes south-western France, between the 'Mediterranean and the Bay of' Biscay. It would have been very valuable from strategic point of view, but for financial reasons no Government has ever dared to take it up. M, Senac's ides is to build a canal which would run almost in a straight line from the mouth of the Seine to Argentenil, a few miles north of Paris. This canal would occasionally cut through the' Seine, making use of it at fifteen' different places; but whereas the length of the river between Paris and the sea is 216 berger of the canal would not exceed ly 4,000 yards long, thro which the canal would pass. This tunnel would have a sufficiently high vaulting to enable the largest -ship to go through it. The enterprise would take at least nine years to out, and the estimated cost is twenty million pounds, RUSSIA, Prom Our Own Correspondent.
St. Petersburg, July 1.
MENA saar.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.