tubes placed vertically and parallel to each other over the furnace. The outer end of one of the horizontal tubes communicates with a fan or other impelling apparatus for driving a constant stream of atmospheric air through the tubes. As the air passes through the tubes it becomes heated at a high temperature, and rushes out at the farther end of the other horizontal tube, and is thus conveyed to the place where it is applied. The materials to be subjected to the heated currents, such as logs, deals, &c., by outward application, must be placed in closed chambers, galleries, vaults, or flues, which are to be of any suitable form or magnitude; but it is recommended that they should be made of fire-brick, and have double doors or shutters for introducing or removing the wood. Honourable Mention was made of Messrs. Davison and Symington’s process of desiccation, by the jury, Class IV., Exhibition of 1851, England. Some amusing instances are related of the efficiency of Davison and Symington’s process. Thus, a violin had been in the owner’s possession for upwards of sixteen years; how old it was when he first had it is not known. Upon being exposed to this process it lost, in eight hours, no less than five-sixths (nearly five and two-thirds) per cent. of its own weight. This there is every reason to believe was owing to the blocks glued inside, for the purpose of holding the more slender parts together. A violin maker of high reputation, having an order to make an instrument for one of the first violinists of the day, was requested to have the wood seasoned by this process; only three days were allowed for the experiment, in which the wood was seasoned and sent home. The two heaviest pieces were reduced in weight 2½ lbs. It is ascertained that, by this means of drying, the effect of age has been given to the instrument made from the above wood, and it was, in 1848, _first fiddle_ in the orchestra of Her Majesty’s Theatre, London. The wood had been in the possession of its owners for eight years, and it was sent from Switzerland, in the first instance, as _dry wood_. In proof of the value of this invention for the manufacture and cleansing of brewers’ casks, it was stated, in 1848, that since its adoption at Trueman’s brewery, Spitalfields, a saving of 300 tons of coals has been effected annually. Flues or chambers for the heated air may be constructed in parallel lines, either in the floors or upright walls of a building, having narrow openings through which the heated air may issue in thin streams, and spread itself over the surface of the wood. If the openings are in the floor, the wood will require to be placed in an upright position; but if admitted in a horizontal direction, standards and skeleton shelves will be necessary to lay it upon. The great object, in all cases, is to bring the heated air as speedily as possible into contact with the wood, and to allow it, after it has done its office, to pass away as speedily.