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Curious experiments are being carried out by Capt. Simpson of the steamship Moravian to test the course and speed of ocean currents. For the past fifteen years, during the passage of this liner between Plymouth, South Africa, and Australia the captain has every day thrown overboard a tightly corked beer bottle containing a scroll bearing the latitude, longitude, and date when cast adrift, together with a request to the finder to forward the bottle to him at the London offices of the steamship line. The captain, who is a member of the British Meteorological Society, keeps a careful record of his daily operations. TJle number of bottles returned to him, however, is very small, the average being less than one per year. The second law of thermo-dynamics may be formulated in different ways. . It limits - the possibility of na tural processes to the occurrence of those in which a difference of intensity is diminished. If there is a difference of pressure in two parts of a gas, a movement will occur producing equality; if there is a difference of temperature, heat will be transported so as to produce equality once more. It is curious that such simple necessities, which we all feel as such, can be converted into far-reaching sharply formulated equations, as was done by Carnot and Clausius. These principles were first applied in chemistry by Horst-mann. Then, by successive application to chemical problems by Massieu, Gibbs, Helmholtz and others, was won a system of relations touching the problem of affinity. The bacteria and other microscopic forms of plant and animal life, all of which are conveniently included under ' the term microbes, have so lately begun to be understood and appreciated that we must still emphasize their extreme importance. The discoveries of the botanists and zoologists and revelations of the micro-scopists in this domain are comparable, in their importance to public health science, with nothing less than the revelations of the telescope to astronomy. Astronomy had indeed existed long before the invention of the telescope, and public health science had its beginnings nearly a century before any considerable progress had been made in micro-biology. But it is not too much to say that the developments in micro-biology since Pasteur began his work have not only revolutionized our ideas of the nature of the infectious diseases, but have also placed in our hands the key of their complete control. Arrangements have been completed by a British corporation for the development of the extensive Australian shale fields, which are among the largest yet discovered in the world, and the manufacture of lubricating and illuminating oils, etc. The fields are located about one hundred miles from Sydney, the capital of New South Wales, in the fertile and well-watered valleys of Wolgan and Capertee. It is estimated that the fields contain many million tons of the richest shale. Every assistance possible is being rendered by the government to promote the success of the enterprise. A railroad about twenty-seven miles in length of the existing government gage is being laid, connecting the fields with the government trunk system. Electrical ore-cutting machinery is now in operation, boring a tunnel three miles in length through the heart of a mountain, which throughout its length is rich with shale deposits. By means of this tunnel the shale will be brought into direct communication with the extensive retorts and refineries that are in course of erection, the government railroad, and the port of Sydney. The Australian government in their latest financial report describe the industry as one of the largest that has ever been established in Australia, and which will ultimately eclipse all the others in size and value. Arrangements have been concluded for the exportation annually of hundreds of thousands of tons of shale to Europe and other parts of the world in connection with the manufacture of gas. According to the leading - authorities on coal gas who have examined the shale, ' it gives the greatest quantity of gas and the highest illuminating power yet obtained.
