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bone of the continent. niiue miles long, climbs to a height of 14,147 feet above the sea level, with a maximum gradient of one in four. This is also a rack rail line ; there also difficulty was experienc- ed in the higher portions from the rarity of the air. There is a mountain railway in the Cats- EXI’I'IRTS 11100!!! l'LlSll GREAT ‘v'e'l'an. kill mountains, New York state, 7,000 feet A writer in an English paper gives brief long, Whh’h 13 wohhefl by cable driven by 9‘ notes onafew of the greater engineering dmfh all the Shmmlhn Where the Steam works which have been qu.’te recently com- ehfimes “0 Placed- ‘ , _ , plated, or which are actually in Progress, The works in progress for the utilization with every prospect of their being success- 0f the 1mm°h§e Power 0°“tlhhhhy “wrung fully completed in due course. , F0 W331?" ht nghm are mpldly aI’melCh‘ To begin at, home, the great, tower, mg completion, and these have been de- which owes its origin to the energies of scrfhed "'5 but the heglhmhg.“ Perhaps the 31,- E. W. watkin, M' p" deserves first most stupendous engineering feat ever place, as a worthy rival to the great Eiffel undehmkeh- The grant tunnel has .1113“ tower the en ineerin boast of France. beehhhished‘. . This ’tuwer’ ,fhich if being erected at 'This, which Is 6700 feet long, 28 feet high “rembiy park where a s ecial amnion has and 18 feet wide, runs from the bottom of u been already, opened, Ifourteen minutes great thh” 140 lee” deep, to V'hwh the from Baker street station, is being actively water 15 brought from above the falls by 3‘ Enginezriug Ventures Which Were Oom- pleted Under Difficulties- . pushed forward_ The foundation work has large canal, and running parellel with the been completed, and the laying out of the river empties itself below the cliffs under grounds is so far advanced that it is expect- the §USP61181011 bridge, after having set _ in ed the park, which covers 180 acres, will be moth)“ the 53”“ 0‘ great thrblhes Whmh opened in the spring. The foundations are “he mtended to Work the dynamos to trans- composed of huge concrete blocks, which hhh POW" elecm'lcahy to any dcsu‘ed 130"”- . _ - It f bto Only 150,000 horse power of the 17,000,- $23.54; 220133;; €35,223) 16:58]] ofeeme 000 which it is calculated the falls can lanL supply will be absorbed by the Cataract The tower itself will measure 900 feet CUhSWWhmn ChmlflmyyS WOVkS- IE 18 111- in circumference at the base, and 1100 feet tended to he“ Power at the mile 0f [1320 P613 in height, or 150 feet higher than the Eilfel. horse POWer Per hhhum up to 3.00!) 1101‘s}?- while it will be larger than its prototype in p028” 3 for Powers beyond the charge W111 every way. The material destined for its her“) Per horse-Power- erection is polished steel. The summit will be 1450 feet above sea level. The tower it- self is expected to take eighteen months to build. Tho WW0” bridge is ththeh great London Most sheep die before they are a year old. engineering venture which is rapidly ap- , .. . . . . _ preaching completion, although the final $136033] fine Shradnamus "01m “"11 feuh date of opening for traffic has had to be _ _ _- shifted forward several times. This bridge, , The P131065 0f methane? M? fi>§ed by law which is built on the “bascule ” principle, Eh Prussm‘: 91nd 8» new P11091131? 15" hhhhhuy presents a novel feature in the centre span, Issued. which is 200 feet wide and cut in halves, The best kid gloves are not made of kid, which are to be raised and brought flush but of the skins of young colts. The cheap- with the towers by machinery concealed est kid gloves are made of lamb and rat within them. skins. When Opened for Passage 0E vessels! f°°t Dwarfs are the inhabitants of the Anda- Phs?ehgers mhy “'05? by 9‘ lon'y IOOhPa'th: to man Islands. It is seldom thata full-grown Whmh “We” ‘5 Obtamed by Stamens“ and man is seen over forty-two inches in height. lifts within the towers. These immensel R . 1 . ,. piers in the bed of the river are said to be u 939W°°d “3 5° called hecause w fen hub the large“, in the World. , apt it inhales a perfume like that of a rose. The total length of bridge and approaches £08” {lever grow uP°h me we" Whlch PYO' is 2,640 feet. About 31,000,000 bricks, 19,- “CBS “7- _ _ _ 500 tons of cement, 70,500 cubic yards of The digestiie organs of a hackman in concrete and 15,000 tons of iron and steel Bath, Men must be as strong as a quartz- will be uti1ized in the structure, crusher. He eats eggs with the shells on, \Vhen the great Siberian railway chainâ€" 0:qu occasionally chews up and eats lamp at present being constructedâ€"is finished, Chmmeys and crockery. Rhssm 0331 boast 0f possessing the greatest Three dozen of Chinese pheasants were railway in the world. This tremendous caught; by three boys in Eastern Oregon, system W111 stretch right across the nn- during a snowatorm, and sold for $10 a, mense territory of Siberia, no less than pair, - The snow settled on the birds’ tails, 4,785 miles, or twice the length of the preventing them from flying. Canadian Pacific railway ; and the totalcost, inclusive of rolling stock etc., is given at ferred to in the £011 - . i .. ., . , ’ . owmg advertisement £30: {hJIO‘JO or 557,6“? Per “"13' from an English paper : “ For saleâ€"A bull This very low cost is due to the favorable . terrier, two years old, Will eat, anything ; nature of the ground for engineering opera- I very fond of children.” ‘ V ITEMS 01‘ ENTRIES T. A dog with a dangerous appetite is re- tions, and the absence of huge parliament- “The man with the iron Skull :3 is the My expenses and compulsory Purchase of . latest London freak. On his head he puts lind, which have in our country made rail- l . . I . ways so costly The first god of the huge . a block of wood, and on this a. granite rock. _ . , I . He permits anybody to crack the rock with Eggilct‘kfigv‘as agglby the 0"“ 8"" Vlddl' ‘ a sledge hammer, while it rests on his skull. 3 ’ ' On the eastern section as many as 12,000 , , _ _ , , men are employed, and part of the line has ’ is 10.) fee't‘high, formed entirely of glass been already opened for tragic. bricks. The floors and roof are of glass ; on we opposne side of the globe ,he and eyen the Journal boxes, in which the T,.ans.Andine railway in South America machinery revolves, are of the same tran- deserves mention, owing to the tremendous spareht matcmal- engineering problems to be solved in cross- Several months ago, John Wilson, of ing the mountain chain forming the back- Pittsburgh, Pa., dislocated his hip, and several doctors failed to relieve him. While Of this railway, begun 20 years ago, and alighting from a street-car the other day, reaching from Buenos Ayres, on the Atlan- he slipped and fell on the ice, and the sud- tic to Valparaiso on the Pacificâ€"a stretch den jar cured his lameness. of 870 milesâ€"only the completing section in the heart of the Andes is unfinished. The mother 0f twentrmur children. Among Andes are crosaed by thecumhl‘e P353; 13: them are five sets twins. She was married at 045 feet above sea level. the age of fourteen . he, 1 ~1d - . . youngest c ii is 0f hhls alhlhhde 2:000 feet are cut Off by 3' onlya few weeks old, and her eldest is in three mile tunnel, and altogether among. his twentygeventh year. t ‘ e ' . ' he mountains nher are five tunnels’ wm‘ a German dentists now make false teeth of total length of over ten miles, whilein the Th .1 b , . t 1 mountain section thelocomotives,for65miles Papa“. ey are Sim to .ea‘ ‘ery na‘ 1”?“ lation of the real article and last for have toothed wheels to work on the rack “m system when necessary to surmount the years' , I heavier gradients, Experiment has shown that a “ Yankee It may well be imagined that drivinga pumpkin” Will lift two and one half-tons, tunnel in the heights of the Andes is quite : Provmed. th? “’01ng be SO Placed as to a. different matter from [,3 5; mm, work ‘interfere with the growth of the vegetable. performed at ordinary levels in settled The largest sheep ranch in the world is cou‘ntrles. in the counties of Dimmct and \Vebb, Texas. The workmen, even though accustomed It contains upward 0f 400,000 acres and to living at great elevations, have to be ac- yearly pastures from 1,000,000 to 1,600,000 climatized to the rarified air, and this difâ€" sheep, ficulty is forcibly exemplified in the case of The settlers on the Qumayute prairies, the loftiost railway tunnel in the world, - - - - . I . in Washington, are afforded fine sport in that helhg bored though the Perhvmh thousands of wild geese that come there in Andes near Galeria. This is the hiohest . - - ' village in the vorld, l5,635 feet abovg the £23,211 and make the mgwn the“ mnter sea or on] IOOfeet lower than the sum 't ’ y ml It is not an easy matter to freeze out of Mont Blanc. . . . . . . 0 , ._ trichinze. After subjection toa temperature . Ne.“ thus Village a tunnel’ “54" feat long’ of 25 degrees below zero for two hours they is being bored through the summit of the again become active when exposed to light mountain, 600 feet above the line of per- agd heat t l s . Tl‘s t ' l . pe 1m now u oer am y may take Dr. Carver relates the story of a paving- rank as one of the most extraordinar f . . . y 0 stone weighing eighty-three pounds, which railwa en ineerinor enter rises. . . . . Thealpg have bgen tungelled through so was raised from its bed (when J0111ed on all four sides by other stones) by such a. soft frequently that the proposal to bore them once more, this time below the famed Simp- subsmnce 8‘5 a‘ common H Pufi'ba’u” mus” room. lon pass, causes no surprise, though this . tunnel will be the longest of the lotâ€"12;» A Parkersburg, Van, mUSlCian has just perfected and patented a novel musical miles in all, about three miles longer than . instrument, which he calls a “ key zithsr.” the St. Gotdard tunnel. ‘ This tunnel, which is estimated to cost It is Simply a lather played with keyS, but it is said to be a revelation in the way of a 100,000,000 francs, will present a novel fea- musical instrument. ture, being single with double railway track in its northern half, while the south- A train stopped near Gibson, 111., to take em half Will GODSle OMWO Parallel tunnels, water. The fluid overflowed the locomotive each with a single track, this arrangement tender, and froze the engine fast to the track. It was four hours before the train being adopted with a view to improving the could be budged. A new locomotive was ventilation. sent for, and it bumped the train free. There is, however, another proposal to cross the Simplon pass (6,500 feet high) by The horseshoe superstition has been con- siderably modified in the mind of a St. arailway, the steepest section of which . , . would be built on the cog-wiieelsysteni,with Louis man_ He found a horseshoe, and nailed it over the door. A week after, as a tunnel five miles long, costing in all 30,- he was entering the house, lightning passed 000,000 francs. . . I The h‘ghe“ mountam rallwa‘y 1“ Europe 1 through the horseshoe and knocked him l senseless. is the Brienzer§tothllq)mbahn railway,wliich was opened in ovem or 1891 and ascends . . . . to a height of 5,606 feet at the summit level. , The Unwed States “hating 300 “hwersx' The journey is performed in 1.} hours, and he” and °°negcsi With 4,-40 meessorl?» the steepest gradient is one in four. and 99:400 fihudents 3 Germany has 21 11131- It is purely a rack and pinion line verSities, With 1,0'20 professors, and 25,- throughout, and is further remarkable for ' 0.34 Students iGrea‘t Bffta'm has 71 numeral" the short time in which it was constructed t1“, “"3 “neg”: Wh'h 1:127 PNfeSEOI‘B, having been begun in October, 1801. Thus and 54"“ Students' in little over ayear this was finished, though All the courting is done by the Women in the work necessitated the boring of 10 tun- the Ukraine, Russia. When a woman dis- nels, the bridging of several streamletS, covers aman she would like to marry, she and the building of heavy stone dams. visits him at his house, and tries to charm Another remarkable mountain railway is ,him.‘ If he does not like her,he leaves hers lint up Pike’s Peak in Colorado, which was and lives elsewhere till she deserts hi, - u -.I in the summer of 1891. This line, homo. l i POETRY. Our Minister- Thc minister said, said he, Don't be afraid of giving; If your life ain't no use to somebody else. \ rby, what‘s the use of living? There's Brown, the miserable Sinner, . He'd sooner a bugger would starve than give A cent toward buyin' a dinner. I tell yon-our minister‘s prime. he is, But I couldn't quite determine, , When I heard him a‘givln‘ it right and left, Just who was hit by the sermon. Of course there could be no mistake . \th11 he talked of long-winded prayin’, For Peters and Johnson sat and scowlcd At every word he was sayin‘. And the minister he went on to say : “There's various kinds of cheatin', And religion's as good for every day As ’tis to bring to meotin'. 1 don't think much of a man that gives The Lord amen-i at my preachin' And spends his time the followin' week I" In cheatin' and ovei roacliin , I guess that dose was bitter enough . For a man like Jones to swuller; But I noticed he didn't open his mouth Not once after that to holler. Hurrah! says 1, for the ministerâ€"â€" Of course 1 said it quiet-- Give us some more of this open talk; It‘s very refreshing dict. The minister hit it every time, And w. on he spoke of fashion, And a-riggin‘ out 111 bows and things, As woman‘s ruling passion, And .t-U.)llllll' t.) UJLll'UJ to see the styles, 1 couldn't help a-winkin' And a-ntnl'gin‘ Ellly mic. and says 1‘, “That‘s you. I guess that set her thinkin; Says 1 to myself, “ That serliion’s pat." But man is it quocr creation, And l’in much afraid that most 0' the folks Won‘t take the application, Now if he haul said it word about My personal mode 0‘ sinnin‘ I’d have gone to work to right myself, And not set there a-grinniii‘. - Just then the minister says. says he, " And now I’ve come to the rollers In days long past. Ontario, The Mohawk's bare canoe, Freighted with tomuhawk and knife, To take the hated Iroquois life, 0ft crossed thy waters blue. Ontario ! Now peace and plenty bless thy shore. And stately homes appear \Vhen dusky Wigwam shelters strove To hide within the forest-grove, \Vhore roamed the antlcred deer. Ontario ! The moon a silvery pathway lights Acrozs thy darkening waste. The cedarvperfnmed breezes blow, The laughing strcanilets gully flow To thee, to thee in basic. Ontario! Thodainty tints of breaking day First tinge thy cold, grey wave; The gorgeous setting sun at eve Its {510 wing colors stoops to leave 1 Upon tliyflashing wave. Ontario! 0 changeful lake, thou art ever fair In storm, in calm, at eve; ' But oh! 1 think I love thee best Whon storm-winds roar above thy breast, Thy wild waves surge and heave. Ontario! The veil of night is thickening fast; I strive the pierce the gloom That hangs upon thee, lovcly lakc, A parting look of thee to take, While deep regrets consume. Ontario! K. DOLORES O'BRIEN. Obligation- If over some pure-hearted one should give . Responsive look, for gentle glance of thine, Forget it not, as long as thou shalt live; But, in thy heart of hcarta, enshrme!., Should over some congvnial spirit say A tender word. in friendships garden grown, Oh. let it not, as frosted flowers, decoy; But be as amaranthinc crown 1 If ever some n nselflsh one should do An act of kindness, in thy time of need, Within thy mem'ry, faithfully rcnow The fragrant incense of the docdl W’ho've lost this shower by usin‘ their friends 1 Shmlld 0"” some fingclic woman trust As sort 0‘ moral umbrellas. Go home," .ays 11c. and find your faults, lnstcad 0' huntin‘ your brother's; Go home,“ he says “ and wear the coats You’ve tried to fit for others." My wife she nudged, and Brown he winked, And there,was lots 0’ sinilin’, And lots 0' lookiii‘ at our pew; lt set my blood to bilin’. Says 1 to myself. our minister ls gittin' a little bitter; I’ll tell him when inoetiii’s out that I Ain't at all that kind of a critter. Safely Garnered. “ Was she your only child 2" asked I. “ My only one," the answer brief; And yet he spoke without a sigh. Without it touch of grief- Ho said the words with quiet smile. I paused, and wondered for a while. I marveled at that quiet tone. In which no shade of sorrow lay ; And thought of darlings of my own, Of laughing faces gay. And yet not one amongst all there, Not one, 1 fc.t, that 1 could spare. “ You noecl not grieve for me," said he: “ Your little ones are not more blessed; This darling Clllltl, so dear to me, Hits entered into rest, Amid the joys that never fade, She dwells for aye, my little maid," I saw him raise his eyes and hand Up to the quiet summer skiesâ€" The chimney of a glass-house in Liverpool l Up to the sinlcss, better land, To where his treasure lies. Whore with untiring, little feet, She trends the City's wondrous street. “ Your little ones," he still went on, May live to fool life's toil and care; But where my little child has gone, Thank God, no pain is there ! No shade to dim the starry eyes, .ln the deep calm of Paradise. “ The coming years will changes bring; Your little ones will old or grow. But she is still the little thing I loved so long ago. Mrs. Yates, of Springfield, Ohio, is the l Forever. in the higher Place. She'll bear the dear and changlcss face." Too true 2 Down here the years roll on, And hearts grow hardened and defilcd, She bcarcth yetâ€"his little oneâ€"â€" The pure heart of a child, No deeds that he need wish undone; Avery blameless little one. I took the picture up again : Too fair. too fair. those childish eyes, T0 dim and sorrow with the pain That in this old world lies. Too free from Sinâ€"too free from tears. To shadow with the toil of years. “We strive and argue here below Of mysteries beyond our ken; But she, my little maid, doth know The things that puzzle men. To this young child, they have been clear For many and for manya year." 0 child, whose feet have touched that strand Beyond the river's restless tide, Speak to us of the Fatherland. To 1i ht life's cvcntide ! ’l‘o gui e us where thy feet have trod, Up to tho unknown home of God. ~[Ladics' Home Journal. Lake Ontario. Deep roll thy waves. Ontario, VVhitc-crested, angry. wild, They dash upon thy pebbled shore, Defiance in their sullen roar : Old ocean’s landlocked child. Ontario! Low hung the storm-clouds o'er thy breast, Black curtains of the sky, _ 'l‘ill rent with lightning's vivrd flash, The winds, let louse, the waterslash And toss the white spray high. Ontario! Amid the strife of wind and wave The rain comes rushing down, And adds its ceaseless. hissing sound To swell the tumult all around, Andwcaker wailings drown. Ontario ! Like some rebellious spirit thou, With Discontent enthroncd Within thy heart, or is the source Of all this fury Wild remorse, For sin to be atoned? Ontario! For 'neath thy waves, Ontario, Dark secrets surely rest: Thy curling, foam-capped billows flow, Above deep mysteries hid below, And yet to be confessed. Ontario! Now calm thy waves, Ontario. No storm-Winds round thee rave; Upon thy s_unlit, azure breast The wild bird, weary, stops to rest And dip its pinion in thy wave. Ontario 1 Across thy bosom white-sails speed, Fair messengers of trade: And on the breeze the sailor’s song Comes merrily yeehoe-ho, along, To cheer the b ythe milkmaid. Ontario! A sail, a skifi", a cloud of smoke That marks a steamer's way, A lumber'raft With hardy crew That bravely. surely steer it through Isee this summer day. Ontario ! The treasures of her coming years to thee, Let not her hopes be troddon in the dust; But loyal to thy promise be! E. ILL. WORK WEARISOME AND FINE. The Japanese Women Labor Many Hours on Delicate Embroiderlcs. More than once during the last few years allusion has been made to the severe labor performed by young people in Japan. It may probably be said with truth that toil of this unremitting character is a fea- ture of Japan’s new civilization. In one branch, at any rate, such is the case. We , allude to the embroidery and hemming of l handkerchiefs. Young girls may be seen occupied in this manner from early dawn to late evening. They sit crowded together, generally under very unsanitary conditions, and always with‘inadequate provisions of light. Match-making is another trade which furnishes similar examples. It is stated, on authority commanding trust, that children in match factories in Kobe work from 3 A. M. to 7 P.M., with only two recesses of thirty minutes each. The thought of such hardship is terrible, in- volving as it does results that must be felt by the next generation as well as this. We do not know how it fared with the artisan in Old Japan. Probably he had to suffer hardships enough after the fashion of the time. But there were no factories in those days, neither was there any tyranny of com- petition, such as has been inaugurated by contact with the West. The new civiliza- tion brings with it new problems, and they have to be faced. We have as little faith as any in official interference. Besides,this labor question has not yet come before the Japanese public in a definite form. That there are excessive pain and suffer. ing among seine sections of the population is perhaps understood vaguely by many observers. There has not yet, however, been any audible remonstrance from the workers themselves. They submit to their toil quietly and uncomplainingly. We hear of hand silk-rcelers in Joshu, who be- gin their day at 4 p.m, and end it at 1 a.m. For them the toil of one day is carried into the next. But that is an exceptional effort, made for a season only, and does not continue all the year round, as is the case in the factory. Comparable with it is the toil of the tea-house waiting girl. The story of her daily life is almost incred- ible. Rising with the first streak of day- light, she cannot rest until the last quest has ceased from his carouaals. Three or four hours of sleep representing her entire respite from toil. Emigration to Canada. The emigration to Canada was larger last year than usual, and the area of land settled on is greatly in excess of that of previous years. A remarkable feature of last year’s . immigration was the settlement in Manitoba ‘ and the North-“fest of a large number of farmers from the Western States of Amer- ica, who-had been attracted by the fertility of the soil, and the excellent crops the farm- ers have secured during the last two years. The Canadian Government offer very liberal attractions in the shape of free grants of land in Manitoba, the North-West Terri- tories. and British Columbia, and they also give money bonuses to families or individ- uals taking up land in those provinces within eighteen months of their arrival. All over the Dominion, however, land can be obtained on very favorable terms. The classes in demand are those with capital, farmers, farm labourers, and female domes- tic servants, while skilled mechanics and others who have friends in the country, or who are assured of work on their arrival, may go with safety. Persons who are coil- tcmplating emigration cannot do better than consult the Government pamphlets, issued from the Emigration Bureau, Broadway, Westminster, and the Canadian Govern- ment agents.â€"[Spare Moments. Three-quarters of asecond is the time occupied by the fall of a knife in the guillo- tine. The knife is weighted by 120 lbs. of lead, falls 9feet, and cuts through flesh and bones as easily as through a bar of soap. Some of the native women of Australia have a queer idea of beauty. They cut themselvesâ€"with shells, keep the wounds open for a long time, and when they heal huge scars are the result. These scars are deemed highly ornamental. Paper money has been shown to contain disease germs to an extent not at all reassuring just now. An examination of two Cuban notes revealed that they con- tained more than 19,000 germs of various kinds. WHEN OOAL WAS FIRST USED. “card or as Fuel as For Bnrk as 1636â€"- Precedcd by “'00d and Charcoal. Though coal had been employed for con- turies in the manufacture of salt on the shores of the coal fields, wood had hitherto continued to be the fuel at the inland salt works. The use of coal at Nantwich is men- tioned as a novelty in 1656 ; and according to the Contemporary Review, at Droitwich wood fuel and leaden pans were in use up till 1601. In this era the sea salt manufac- ture was in the zenith of it prosperity. But the substitution of coal for wood in the inland salt trade, aided by the discovery of rock salt, which took place accidentally in boring for coal in Cheshire, 1870, led to the gradual decline and final extinction of the manufac- ture of salt on the coast. The only tram s now remaining of this once flourislw ; industry exist in such names as HOW‘lILN pans on the Tyne, Prestonpans on the 17 Mb, Saltcoatsin Ayreshire and Saltpans in Arran and Kintyro, or in the Scotish pi‘ovcl‘l), “Carry salt to Dysart,” synonymous with the English “ Carry coal to N ewcastlc. ” In no branch of industry was the scarcin of wood more keenly felt than in the smcwing of metalliferous ores. Continued efforts to accomplish this with coal began iinmedialv- 1y after the accession of James I. and w 7.- persevered in throughout the seventeenth century. But for a long peroid the new fuel proved highly intractable, and scheme af u- r scheme ended in failure and disappoi.:t- ment. After eighty years of oft-repeated trials the tantalizing problem remained unsolved. Wood and charcoal. still held the fi llin the smelting furnace; and all hope of' ever seeing coal substituted for them had well nigh died out. In 1686 Sir John Pettus, in his “ Essays on Words Metallick,” con- cluded his observations regarding sea coal and pit coal with the remark : “ These are not useful to metals.” The unpromising prospects, however, soon began to brighten. Immediately after the revival of lead and copper mining, which took place about 1603 â€"-having probably been more or less in abeyance since the interruptions occasioned by the civil wars, when The fisher left his skifi’ to rock on Tamar's glittering waves; The rugged miners rushed to war From Mondlp's sunless caves. . â€"-these ores came to be smeltcd with coal. The extraction of silver from lead with coal was accomplished by a Mr. Lydal in 1697, and the same individual appears to have been the first to successfully employ coal in the smelting of tin, in 1705. The ores of iron proved more refractory, no sub- stantial and permanent success in smelting them with eual being obtained till near the middle of the eighteenth century, when the manufacture of charcoal iron had dwindled . to very small proportionsâ€"in fact, was dy- ing out for want of fuel. It then at length became an accomplished fact- at the Coal- brookd ale iron works in Shropshire. The success was at first ascribed to the Shrop- shire coal, but probably the employment of a strong blastvhad a great deal to do with it. From this the coal became the life of the iron manufacture. The ci-devant droop- ing trade rapidly revived, and the latter part of the eighteenth century saw coal iron furnaces in successful operation throughout the kingdom. CANADA’S POSTAGE STAMPS- Collcclors In England Who Admire the Designs. The President of the Leeds Philatelic Society at a recent meeting described the stamps of Canada, which, he said, like those of the other British North American colon- ies, are all very handsome in design and ex- quisite in workmanship. The first issue of three values, was in April, 12551. The dc- signs were 3. Beaver for the 3d. value, a portrait of Prince Albert for the 6d., and one of the Queen for a stamp which wa: given as of the value of “ twelve pence," which is probably a. unique instance of a shilling being so denominated. The. second issue consisted of the same three stamps on difierent paper. In 1855 a 10d. stamp was brought into use, bearing the portrait of J aques Cartier, who first explored the St. Lawrence, so naming that splendid river from having entered it on St. Lawrence’s Day. In 1857 a couple of new values were addedâ€"Ed. and lidâ€"with Queen’s heads of different types for the central design. In the same year the 13d“ 3d., and 6d. were issued perforated. On the 1st of July, 1859, a radical change occurred in the currency of the Colony, which adopt- ed dollars and cents in lieu of shillings and pence, and the stamps were issued of the same designs as before, with but slight alterations, to conform to the new coinage, the “twelve pence” being discarded alto- gether. A 2-cent value was added in 1864. In 1868 the whole set was superseded by a new series of handsome stamps of large size and uniform design, intended for use not merely in one colony as the previous stamps had been, but for the whole Canadian Do- minion, formed by the union of Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotiu in the first instance, and afterwards of British Colum- bia, Manitoba, and Prince Edward island. In .1870 these large stamps were replaced by new ones of practically the same design, but smaller and more convenient in size, which are still in use, with one or two ad- ditional values.â€"-â€"All the members present, with a single exception, showed their celled- tions of Canadian stamps, Mr. Beckwith’s own series being not far from complete. 149 Birds at One Shot- During the recent severe weather in Scotland 3. very extraordinary shot was made by Sir Charles Boss’s puntsman. A large number of birds were seen sitting on the ice, and the punlsman succeeded in get- ting within about sixty yards of them. Some of the birds rose as the gun was fired, but the total number killed by the discharge was 149 : they included several species, but the majority were plover. The gun was 1% inches in bore, and the charge 4 ounces of powder and 14 ounces of No. 3 shot. The shot was doubtless rendered much more (1.3. structive than it would otherwise have been, owing to the pellets skidding along on the flat surface of the ice. -â€"â€"â€"â€"-â€"â€"°â€"‘ The latest English idea in insuring the lives of customers is embodied in an “in,1 surance ” corset. With each corset sold is presented a coupon, insuring according to the value of the article, the purchaser for £25, £50, or £100, against death by acci- dent.