Notwithstanding all this material development, in some respects there is no advance--except it be of fares, which on some lines running out of London have been increased in accordance with 'arrangements' between companies who seem desirous of substituting wholesale monopoly for wholesome competition. Murmurs on every side already attest the effects of such a change of system, and it is to be hoped that imperative means will be found of insuring more attention than at present to the comfort and safety of passengers. No one out of the position of a director or shareholder can see any good reason why English railway carriages should be less comfortably fitted up than those of the continent. How is it that second-class carriages are to be seen abroad with stuffed seats and padded backs, and never in England? It cannot be that we do not pay enough for the accommodation. We pay too much--a fact worth remembering with railway amalgamation looming in the future; an event which must not take place without the public coming in demonstrably as third party. The British Association have met, and gone through their usual routine of business, with what results--beyond the reports in the public prints--will be best shewn by the movement of science for the next few months. It is always something that knowledge is increased; but whether the accumulating of fact on fact, to the neglect of generalising those facts, be the true means thereunto, remains to be proved. Science has been soaring in search of facts; for the committee appointed to manage the Kew Observatory, thinking that the phenomena of meteorology would answer further questioning, have sent up a balloon, with instruments and observers, to make a series of observations. The temperature was read off from highly sensitive thermometers at each minute during the ascent, so as to ascertain the difference of the heat of successive strata of the atmosphere, and the rate of variation. In the first flight, the party reached the height of 19,500 feet, and came to a temperature of 7 degrees, or 25 degrees below the freezing-point, which, considering the state of the temperature at the surface, was an unexpected result--in fact, an abnormal one; and not dissimilar to that which so much astonished our neighbours across the Channel when Barral and Bixio went up. But if it be abnormal, as is said, it is remarkable that precisely the same temperature was met with at about the same height on the second ascent. Another object was, to bring down specimens of air from different altitudes, for analysis; to try the effect of the actinometer at great elevations; and to note the hygrometric condition. There are to be four ascents, so as, if possible, to obtain something like satisfactory data by repetition; and in due time, detailed reports of the whole of the observations will be made public.