Instead of wooden splats or laths, flat glass tubes or prisms are used, fitted into the usual framework, and these being silvered on the inside, throw all the light that falls on them into the room, when placed at the proper angle. Again, the possibility of locomotion without the aid of steam is talked about, and the New Yorkers are said to be about to send over a large ship driven by Ericsson's caloric engine, which is to prove as powerful as vapour at one-half of the cost--a fact of which we shall be better able to judge when the vessel really arrives. Then, looking across the Channel, we find the Abbe Moigno proposing to construct and establish a relief model of Europe in the Bois de Boulogne at Paris, of a size to cover several acres, and with the railways of iron, and the rivers of water, by which means one of the most interesting and instructive of sights would be produced, and the attractions of the Trench capital greatly increased. A desirable project--but the cost! The Montyon prize of 2000 francs has been awarded to M. Mosson, for his method of drying and preserving vegetables for long sea voyages, as published a few months ago. M. Naudin states, that a certain kind of furze or thistle, of which cattle are very fond, may be made to grow without thorns--an important consideration, seeing that at present, before it can be used as food, it has to undergo a laborious beating, to crush and break the prickles with which it is covered. As the plant thrives best on poor soils, which might otherwise lie useless, the saving of this labour will be a great benefit to the French peasantry; and the more so, as it appears the plant will grow in its new state from seed. M. Naudin believes, that the condition of other vegetable productions may be varied at pleasure, and promises to lay his views shortly before the Academie. M. Lecoq, director of the Botanical Garden at Claremont, informs the same body of something still more extraordinary, in a communication, entitled 'Two Hundred, Five Hundred, or even a Thousand new Vegetables, created _ad libitum_.' Having been struck by the fact, that the ass so often feeds upon the thistle, he took some specimens of that plant, and, by careful experiment, has succeeded in producing for the table 'a savoury vegetable, with thorns of the most inoffensive and flexible sort.' Whatever be the kind of thistle, however hard and sharp its thorns, he has tamed and softened them all, his method of transformation being, as he says, none other than exposing the plants to different influences of light. Those which grew unsheltered, he places in the dark, and _vice versa_. Familiar examples are given in the celery, of which the acrid qualities are removed by keeping off the light; while the pungency of cress, parsley, &c., is increased by exposure to the sun. M. Lecoq has not yet detailed all his experiments; but he asserts that, before long, some of our commonest