At first a machine required five wires before it could dispatch a message. Now on one single wire seven or eight messages can be sent simultaneously. At first the rate of sending did not amount to more than four or five words a minute. Now on the latest machine no less than 462 words a minute can be dispatched. The number of messages has increased by steady steps, until now, under the new tariff and with the facilities that have been so widely extended since the telegraphs came into the hands of the government, the number is truly portentous. Those sent during the past year amounted to close upon a million a week--fifty-one and one-half millions in all. Letters have grown from 80,000,000 in the year of the Queen's accession to more than 1,400,000,000. According to Mr. Pender, there are some 115,000 miles of cables lying at the bottom of the sea. The progress in this department has been constant. The latest scheme, as the new colonial blue-books show, is for laying a cable under the Pacific Ocean, from Vancouver to New Zealand. Surely there is no task from which modern science will recoil. THE MYSTERY OF THE AGES.--A work recently published at London by the Countess of Caithness is a work of ability and learning, devoted especially to a philosophy which is thus defined: "Theosophy is the essence of all doctrines, the inner truth of all religions.... God is Spirit, and Spirit is One, Infinite, and Eternal, whether it speak through the life of Buddha or Jesus, Zoroaster or Mahommed.... The ideal of the Theosophist is the at one-ment of his own spirit with that of the Infinite. This is the essential teaching of all religions, and to obtain this union you must believe in and obey the voice of your own higher conscience; for the true Christ is the Divine Spirit within you, and thus, God manifest in humanity." PROGRESS OF THE MARVELLOUS.--Mrs. Herbert, of St. Joseph's Hospital, Joliet, Illinois, as reported Aug. 16, had slept 219 days, sitting in an easy chair, in a cataleptic state. She rarely moves a muscle, and if her arm is lifted and not replaced it remains as it was left. Her hands are cold, and her face very pallid. The food given her daily, it is said, would only sustain life in a bird, and the doctors are expecting her death. Mr. C. J. Helleberg, of Cincinnati, says that a lady of his family has become developed as a medium, and many messages have been written through her. Among others, a message from Charles XII. of Sweden declared that "Sweden will be a republic sooner than any other power in Europe," and the elections will be easily and honestly managed.