On the 29th January, Mr A. Shields, son of the inventor, and Mr Gordon, of Dundee, carried out a number of experiments at Folkestone before a distinguished company. The weather, unfortunately, was not all that could be desired; it was too moderate, and the wind blowing from the west did not drive such breakers across the harbour bar as a strong south-wester would have produced. Nevertheless, the channel near shore was sufficiently rough to prove the efficiency of Mr Shields’ arrangements for smoothing it. What was seen by the visitors may be told in few words. Three large casks were lying on their sides near the pier-end, and pipes inserted in these were connected with small force-pumps, each worked by a man. Attention was first directed to windward towards the unfinished new pier, which juts out to the south-west. Those who have watched these experiments on former occasions said they could see the oil rising from a submerged pipe laid from the old pier-head towards the new pier for a distance of five hundred feet. The flood-tide, however, was running so strongly that it was not until the oil had passed the pier that its effects began to be visible, and these effects were soon more distinctly seen as the two men stationed at the other barrels began to pump oil into a couple of pipes, also laid on the sea-bottom, and running across the entrance of the harbour towards Shakspeare’s Cliff for about one thousand yards. A fully-manned lifeboat, the _Mayer de Rothschild_, had been rowed out of the harbour, and was lying off the pier-head, rolling a good deal, but not getting a splash while in the wide glassy strip of oil-covered waters that soon stretched away for half a mile or more, though to seaward of this glistening streak the waves were curling and breaking into foam. On the harbour-side the effects of the oil were noticeable far in-shore, and few white caps were to be seen, the film, attenuated as it must have been, and not more than one hundred feet in width, acting apparently as an efficient breakwater. When the pumping was stopped, it was estimated that rather over one hundred gallons of oil had been used. The trial, which was as satisfactory as the conditions of weather permitted, was concluded about one o’clock; yet at four, when the Boulogne boat came in, broad streaks of comparatively smooth, unbroken water showed where the oil still lay on the surface. For this permanent apparatus, lead-pipes of about one and a quarter inch diameter are used, and at distances of one hundred feet apart there are fixed upright pipes eighteen inches high, in each of which is a conical valve, protected from silt by a rose. The oil used was seal-oil, some kind of so-called fish-oil having been found by experiment to be better for the purpose than either vegetable or mineral oils.