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The State Engineer of New York has transmitted to the Legislature his report for the year ending September 30,1868. This document furnishes the aggregate statistics of 157 companies, as follows : Total cost and equipment of steam roads, $208,185,783; horse roads, $21,133,522. Passengers carried by steam roads, 18,434,300; tuns of freight carried, 11,961,632. Number of passengers carried in city cars, 146,326,486. Cost of maintaining steam roadway, $13,074,595. Cost of operating roads, $15,250,716. Earnings, steam roads, $49,377,790 ; horse roads, $8,262,291. Persons killed on steam roads, 302 ; injured, 358. On horse roads, killed, 13; injured, 90. During the year ending September 30,1868, under both the general railroads law and special acts, thirty-six companies, with a total capital stock of $23,125,000 and a total length of 750 miles, have organized and filed their articles of association in the Secretary of the State's oflice. During the same year, 169 miles of railroad, under twelve companies, have been opened. Business of the World's Railways. Van Nostrand's Engineering Magazine, says that according to the calculations made by the Government Statistical Office at Berlin, the number pf passengers conveyed daily by the railways of the world amounts to three millions, and the quantity of goods to twenty-seven millions of ceutners, or a million and a half of tuns. Also 58,000 telegrams are forwarded, and four millions of letters delivered every day. The daily gross receipts of the railways are 8,000,000 florins ; they possess 40,000 locomotives, 1,200,000 carriages and vans, and give regular employment to a million persons. The aggregate length of the telegraph wires would, if united, reach to the moon and back again. The great Polish salt mine, recently noticed as in danger of being destroyed by the inundation of water, is pronounced safe by the committee of seven of the principal engineers sent to institute an inquiry on the subject. These functionaries have now sent in a report to the effect that the irruption of water is not of a nature to destroy the mines or prevent their working; and that the forcing pumps for emptying the pit are now nearly all set up. Coal Oil Burners. We are receiving inquiries in regard to the report of the committee appointed by the American Institute to test coal oil burners, sent to them for that purpose, in pursuance of a notice published sometime since in the Scientific American. The report will undoubtedly be made in due season, when we will give our readers the benefit of the results obtained. Neyer Heard of It. A rustic gentlemen called at a wholesale store the other day, and after purchasing a bill of goods, was asked by the junior proprietor if he had " ever seen a velocipede," " Is that the machine that adds up three columns of figures at once ? " said rustic. The reply was in the negative, and he was piloted round to a velocipede school and introduced to the mysteries. A COTEMPORARY says that two gentlemen in Meriden, Conn., have completed the invention of a needle manufacturing machine. This machine takes in the wire and turns out a completely finished needle except pointing, hardening, and tempering! Solubility of Indigo. M. Camille Koechlin has discovered the curious fact of the solubility of indigo in alkaloid, salts, and particularly in the acetates and chlorides of aniline, morphine, etc.
