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The impracticability of so connecting the waters of Lake Superior with the Mississippi to obviate the difficulties arisiDg from low water in that river during the dry season, is thus shown in a letter to the Press by a St. Paul engineer : " The surface of Lake Superior is varionsly estimated to be from 600 to 650 feet higher than the ocean level; Lake St. Croix from 686 to 694 feet above the ocean level; the Mississippi river at St. Paul about 14 feet higher than Lake St. Croii; the mouth of Chippewa river about 30 feet lower than St. Croii lake, and theref oreLake Pepin must be about 40 feet higher than Lake Superior." Last year 296,660 persons were employed in coal miniug in England and Wales, and 59,160 in Scotland. The quantity of coal raised in Great Britain was 104,566,959 tuns. There were 860 separate fatal accidents, and 1,011 lives lost, the proportion of persons employed for separate fatal aecidents being 403, and 343 employed to every life lost. Every 103,429 tuns of coal raised appears to have cost a life. These operations were carried on in 3,262 collieries. There were also 69 lives lost in ironstone mines. In the United States Court at Cincinnati, in the case of the Government against five cases of imported reprints of American copyright books, part of seventy-eight cases seized fornon-payment of Government duties, Judge Leavitt has decided that these books reverted to the copyright owner upon the payment of Government tax by him. Everylumber yard in Hannibal, Mo., has a switchfrom the railroad into the yard. The cars are pushed into the yard by a " pony engine" and there loaded, when they start on their destinations, whether along the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad, the Cameron, or crossing the Missouri at Kansas City and thence into the State of Kansas. On Saturday, June 5,two colored carpenters, formerly slaves, commenced work in the WashingtonNavy Yard. This isthe first time, says the Herald, that colored mechanics of this elass have ever been employed in the Washington Navy Yard upon an equal footing with white workmen. At San Francisco the Chinamen have been set to work at mking cheap shoes, and imported goods of that class are driven out of the market. They now talk of giving them similar employment in Brigham Young's dominions. A petition has been presented to the Common Council or Newark, for assistance to build a ship caual from Newark to this city. It is proposed to make the canal200 feet wide with 10 feet depth of water at low tide. The four spool factories at Weld, Belgrade, Farinington Falls, and Greenwood (LockMills), Maine, furnish two-thirds of the spools for the whole country. A company has been formed at Ridgefleld, Conn., with a capital of 300,-000 to build a railway from that plaee to Port Chester, New York. The work on the rolling mill to be erected by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company has been commenced. Twenty-four thousand acres ol mineral land in Missouri were recently sold for $540,000,
