To those who delight to indulge in prophetic engineering speculation, the future of wind-power in connection with electricity will afford an ample field. The power developed during storms might be stored in an accumulator, to be used during calms; by this means eliminating the element of ‘uncertainty,’ the prime cause of the disfavour into which wind as a motive-power has fallen. In conclusion, though it is not unfrequently the custom to declaim against the neglect of wind as a prime motor, there are, as has been shown, many cases where it can be and is advantageously employed; and though it is undoubtedly certain that its more extended use would be accompanied by results of economic value, it is yet equally certain that a return to wind as a chief prime mover would be as retrogressive as a return to sailing-vessels, to the exclusion of our modern steam-driven craft. OCCASIONAL NOTES. OLD-FASHIONED FURNITURE. Quaint ‘bits’ of old-fashioned furniture have for a long time past been much sought after, and pretty examples are now to be met with in almost every house of refinement and taste. One occasionally meets with old-fashioned things which from change of circumstances can no longer be used for their original purpose. The silver-handled steel knives and double-pronged or tined forks—which most members of the present generation have never even seen—were, when not in use, stored away in a specially made satin-wood or mahogany box, often beautifully decorated with inlaid marquetrie-work, and in the better examples the mountings were of chased silver. The interior of the box was apparently solid, with a separate slit for each knife and fork, which, handle uppermost, stood upright. Until recently, these beautiful specimens of the cabinet-work of a bygone age could be purchased for a very few shillings each. Some one has lately discovered that by removing the interior false top and adding divisions for paper and envelopes, these old knife-boxes can easily be transformed into choice and covetable stationery cabinets; and dealers are now buying them up, and when transformed, are asking almost as many pounds as they gave shillings. Another ingenious person—a lady well known in society—has discovered that the highly polished, old-fashioned double-handled plethoric copper or brass tea-urn wherewith our great-grandmothers delighted to adorn the table when their friends assembled to discuss a dish of tea, can easily be transformed into a noble table-lamp of striking proportions. The urn proper forms the body; and a paraffine lamp, with its ordinary glass receptacle for oil, is fitted into the space formerly occupied by the heater, which, with the lid, is of course discarded. The projecting spout is likewise banished, and a simple metal boss, with a corresponding one for uniformity on the other side, takes its place. To complete, an extra large shade is fitted over an octagon-shaped wire framework of ordinary construction. AN ELECTRICAL TRICYCLE.