DECIMAL COINAGE AND THE METRIC SYSTEM.

THE Second Report of the Standards Commission states that in the unanimous opinion of the Commissioners the time has arrived when the law should provide, and facilities be afforded by the Government, for the introduction and use of metric weights and measures in the United Kingdom. For this object metric standards, accurately verified in relation to the primary metric standards at Paris, and deposited in the Standards Department of the Board of Trade, should be legalised; and verified copies of the official metric standards should be provided by the local authorities for inspectors of such districts as may require them. The Commissioners think that the French nomenclature, as well as decimal scale of the metric system, should be introduced in this country, but they are of opinion that the general introduction of the metric system should be permissive only, and not made compulsory by law after any period to be now specified, so far as relates to the use of metric weights and measures for weighing and measuring goods for sale or conveyance. Considering that during the concurrent use of the metric and imperial systems, it will be expedient to prevent as far as possible imperial and metric weights and measures being accidentally or fraudulently substituted for each other, the Commissioners are of opinion that authoritative regulations should be established under which each series may be readily and easily distinguished, by the adoption of conspicuous distinctive forms or marks for the several weights and measures, and by such other mode as may be determined upon after due inquiry. It is thought expedient that customs duties should be allowed to be levied by metric weight and measure as well as by imperial weight and measure; that the use of the metric system, concurrently with the imperial system, should be adopted by other public departments, especially the Post Office, and in the publication of the principal results of the statistics of the Board of Trade, as well as for the admeasurement and registration of the tonnage of shipping. As to decimal coinage, the Commissioners say that, even if the difficulties of establishing an international unit of coinage cannot be at present overcome, yet the decimalisation of our system of coinage, which is in the power of the Government, would be very useful to the public.-Illustrated London News.

PREMIUMS OFFERED BY THE INSTITUTION OF CIVIL ENGINEERS.

THE Council of the Institution of Civil Engineers invite communications on various subjects, such as, first, authentic details of the progress of any work in civil engineering, as far as absolutely executed (Smeaton's account of the Eddystone Lighthouse may be taken as an example); second, descriptions of engines and machines of various kinds; or third, practical essays on subjects connected with engineering, as, for instance, metal

lurgy. For approved original communications, the Council will be prepared to award the premiums arising out of special funds devoted for the purpose, and they have published a list of subjects on which they specially invite communication. This, we believe, may be obtained at the Institution. The Council have awarded the following premiums:

1. A Telford medal, and a Telford premium, in books, to M. Jules Gaudard, C.E., Lausanne, for paper "On the Present State of Knowledge as to the Strength and Resistance of Materials." 2. A Telford medal, and a Telford premium, in books, to William Shelford, for paper "On the Outfall of the River Humber." 3. A Watt medal, and a Telford premium, in books, to Zerah Colburn, for paper "On American Locomotives, and Rolling Stock." 4. A Telford medal, and a Telford premium, in books, to Thomas Nesham Kirkham, for paper "On Experiments on the Standards of Comparison employed for Testing the Illuminating Power of Coal Gas." 5. A Telford medal, and a Telford premium, in books, to John Ellacott, for "Description of the Low-water Basin at Birkenhead." 6. A Telford medal, and a Telford premium, in books, to Professor Ansted, for paper "On the Lagoons and Marshes of certain parts of the Shores of the Mediterranean." 7. A Telford premium, in books, to William Henry Wheeler, for "Description of the River Witham and its Estuary, and of the various Works carried out in connection therewith, for the Drainage of the Fens, and the Improvement of the Navigation." 8. A Telford premium, in books, to James Robert Moss, for paper "On the Mauritius Railways." 9. A Telford premium, in books, to Imrie Bell, paper "On Sinking Wells for the Foundations of the Piers of the Bridge over the River Jumna." 10., A Telford premium, in books, to John Milroy, for "Description of Apparatus for Excavating under Water, and for Sinking Cylinders." 11. A Telford premium, in books, to Samuel Parker Bidder, jun., for paper "On Machines employed in Working and Breaking-down Coal, so as to avoid the use of Gunpowder." 12. A Telford premium, in books, to Charles John Chubb, for paper "Coalgetting Machinery as a Substitute for the use of Gunpowder." 13. The Manby premium, in books, to David Marr Henderson, for paper "On Lighthouse Apparatus and Lanterns."

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NEW CONSTRUCTION.

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AN English inventor has built some houses on a novel principle at New Hampton. These houses, says the Scientific American, are of a cheap order, designed for labourers. compresses straw into slabs, soaks them in a solution of flint, to render them fire-proof, coats the two sides with a kind of cement or concrete; and of these slabs the cottages are built. By ingenious contrivance, the quantity of joiners' work is much reduced, and the chimney is so constructed as to secure warmth

with the smallest consumption of fuel, and at the same time to heat a drying closet. The cost of a single cottage of this deseription, combining "all the requirements of health, decency, and comfort," is 851.

ENGINEERING IN ABYSSINIA.

IN the new series of papers by the Royal Engineers, is a Report by Lieut.-Col. St. Clair Watkins, R.E., giving an account of the operations of the engineer department in Abyssinia, with details of all the works executed, accompanied by plans of the port, coast, depôts, camp of Zoolla, and the railway line. A stone pier, jutting out 900 ft. into the sea, with a tramway on it, and on to the beach beyond, to facilitate the landing of the army and its stores; a road 50 ft. wide through the jungle from this pier to the camp, 1 mile distant; the cleansing of the old village wells, and the construction of twenty new ones, for the watering of 2,000 men and 2,000 animals; a large store-shed; and a watershoot about half the length of the pier, raised on trestles above the sea, for conveying to the shore sweet water condensed by H.M.S. Satellite, were among the first works executed, and are .minutely described here. Lieut.-Col. Watkins states that the difficulties of constructing a railway with unprofessional labour were enhanced by the fact of five different descriptions of rails being sent out, calling for four different modes of fixing, and that five out of ten of the fish-plate holes did not fit those on the rails. After this harassing experience, he comes to the conclusion that railways required for the operations of war should be carried out as a civil work, by engineers and contractors, who make it their business to construct them. An estimate by a contractor was given for this railway at 72,000l., exclusive of rails and plant. The cost, as incurred by the Royal Engineers, was 6,000l., exclusive of rails and plant. Out of this large margin the contractors would have had to supply labour and superintendence. The second Abyssinian paper relates only to the position and leading features of Magdala and its construction. Lieut. T. J. Willans describes one entrance into the place as a small double-storied hut, built of stone and mud, in which was a stout timber door, 4 ft. wide only, with a window over it for the defenders to guard it from; but the dwellings seem to have been built exclusively of wicker work and thatch.

EAST LONDON WATER SUPPLY.

MR. WOODWARD (of the British Museum) has based a communication to the British Association upon observations made during the formation of new reservoirs and filtering-beds by the East London Waterworks Company. Two new reservoirs are now being made, covering 120 acres in extent, and of an average depth of 10 ft. The "puddle walls" are excavated to a depth of about 25 ft. The materials removed are all of post-tertiary age,

consisting of surface soil, loamy clay, peat, shell, marl, coarse and fine sands, rounded and sub-angular gravels from the chalk and Woolwich series, with pebbles of chert and sandstone from the older rocks. The deposit is rich in vegetable remains, the peat attaining a thickness of three feet, and containing evidences of the oak, the alder, the hazel, and other trees and plants. The shell marl is at places equally thick, and is rich in shells, 26 species having been determined by the author. The bivalve shells are still united, and the paludinæ, &c., have their opercula still in place. Of the animals may be mentioned human remains and works of art of the stone and bronze and of the iron age. The wolf, the fox, the beaver, horse, wild boar, red deer, roebuck, fallow deer, reindeer, the elk, the goat, three oxen (including bos primigenius, bos longifrons, and bos frontosus). The sea-eagle and some fish remains to complete the list: In the deep trenches of the puddle walls tusks of the mammoth and horns of the gigantic bos and cervus have been found. Mr. A. W. Franks, F.S.A., Keeper of the Ethnographical Collections in the British Museum, has obtained from this deposit a flint scraper, two bronze spear-heads, one bronze arrow-head, one bronze knife, an iron sword (late Celtic), bronze sheath, a Kimmeridge clay arm-. let, a pierced axe-head of stag's horn, a bone knife, a stag's horn club, various earthen pots (some hand-made and some turned on the wheel), besides many cut bones. In 1743 Bowen's map shows this tract under forest, and in 1300 all Essex was one vast forest. In 1154 the forest of Middlesex commenced at Houndsditch, and extended north and east for many miles, and the forest is described as abounding in wolves, wild boars, stags, and wild bulls. The Walthamstow marshes have not been disafforested more than 100 years. Of the antiquity of these deposits no doubt can exist, for the presence of the reindeer, the elk (determined by Professor Owen), and the beaver is conclusive. Their preservation so near the surface is entirely due to the protective influence of forest vegetation, which has precluded the inroads of agriculture. Mr. Woodward expressed his belief that the deposits indicated, at places, the effects of beaver-works, tracts of forest having been submerged and destroyed by the action of beaver-dams.

CHANNEL RAILWAY.

MR. BATEMAN, C.E., has described to the British Association a cast-iron tube which he suggested should be laid down for railway purposes between England and France. He stated that it was the joint design of himself and Monsieur Revy, an engineer of Vienna. The tube would be commenced at one side of the Channel, and would be laid at the bottom of the sea, being built up inside a horizontal cylinder or bell, which would be constantly pushed forward as the building up of the tube proceeded. The line selected for the tube to be thus submerged would be close to Dover on the English side of the Channel, and would extend to

Cape Grisnez on the French coast, the distance between the two points being twenty-two miles, and the average depth of water 110 ft. Mr. Bateman stated that the tube would be made large enough for the passage of carriages of ordinary construction, whilst the traffic was proposed to be worked by pneumatic pressure, thus securing a constant supply of pure air, and at the same time precluding the possibility of a collision. He estimated that a slow train would be able to accomplish the distance in one hour and six minutes, but an express train would go through with ease in forty-five minutes. Five thousand passengers and 10,000 tons of goods could be conveyed through the tube daily. The estimated cost of the whole project was eight millions sterling, the annual working expenses being put down at £150,000. The discussion showed the general opinion of the section to be that Mr. Bateman's plan was the best yet proposed. Mr. Bidder, C.E., had some doubt as to the sufficiency of the estimate, but Mr. Bateman was certain it was enough. The work would take five years to accomplish.

A Correspondent of the Mechanics' Magazine enumerates the projects which have been propounded at different times for the construction of a tunnel connecting England and France, and of which there are eighteen in all. The authors of these projects and the dates of their promulgation are as follow:-Mathieu, 1801; Franchet and Mottray, 1803; De la Haye, 1845; Horeau, 1851; Payerne, 1855; Faure,1855; Wytson, 1855; Nichol, 1856; Vacherot, 1856; Austen, 1856; Turner, 1856; Thomé de Gamond Smith, 1861; Chalmers, 1861; Remington, 1863; Hawkshaw, 1864; Bateman, 1869; Marsden, 1869,

FAIRLIE'S STEAM-CARRIAGE.

ON several occasions the principles of the double-bogie engines and light carriages for railways, advocated and developed with so much perseverance by Mr. Fairlie, have been favourably criticised; and recently there was a successful public exhibition of a light Steam-carriage for branch lines and lines of small traffic. The length of the carriage is 43 ft., including a compartment for the guard; the engine, carriage, and framing complete weighs, exclusive of passengers, 13 tons; and including its load of sixty-six passengers (sixteen first-class and fifty second), only 18 tons. When entirely completed it will have a broad step or platform on each side, extending its entire length, and protected by a hand-rail, to enable the guard to pass completely round the train. Passengers can also pass along it to the guard, affording thus an easy means of intercommunication. The engine, running on two pairs of small wheels close together, so as to give the smallest amount of wheel base, forms one bogie, or platform, upon which the front part of the passenger-carriage is supported and pivoted, this carriage having another bogie or platform, to which it is also pivoted, supporting its rear end. There is thus