The Isthmus of Corinth Canal, a scheme which was promoted originally so far back as the time of the emperor Nero, is now almost an accomplished fact. The dredging operations at the approaches to the canal proceed very rapidly, for about five thousand cubic metres of soil and sand are removed every twenty-four hours. There are large numbers of workmen employed also on the central portions of the channel, and they have the help of railway and plant for the conveyance of material. A new town, called Isthmia, has sprung into being, and it contains some two hundred houses and stores. ‘The Rivers Congo and Niger viewed as Entrances for the Introduction of Civilisation into Mid-Africa,’ was the title of a paper lately read before the Society of Arts by Mr R. Capper, Lloyd’s agent for the district of the Congo. The lecturer stated that within the past five years, the western African trade has quadrupled in value. Twelve years ago there were but four English houses, one French, and one Dutch, trading up the Congo. There are now upon the river’s banks forty-nine European factories, and the imports and exports are valued at two millions sterling. Mr Capper pointed out that the great value of these rivers lies in the possibility of connecting them with future railways. Such railways could be easily laid, for the interior of Africa is one vast tableland. A railway across the Desert of Sahara would turn a perilous journey of four months into one of twenty-four hours. By such means the interior slave-trade would be annihilated. Boring in the earth for water is an operation often attended by great uncertainty. Some few years ago in the heart of London a firm of brewers bored to a depth of several hundred yards without tapping the precious fluid, and the expensive well had to be abandoned. Quite recently, at Burton-on-Trent a similar failure occurred upon a far smaller scale. When the operators had pierced to a depth of one hundred and seventy-six feet without finding water, they called in the advice of some experienced artesian-well engineers, who recommended the abandonment of the works, and the commencement of a fresh bore upon a site which they selected two hundred yards away. At a depth of only one hundred and fourteen feet, a copious supply of water was found, yielding, in fact, between five and six thousand gallons per hour. It is remarkable that the sites of both bores were at the same level. OCCASIONAL NOTES. THE RECENT EARTHQUAKE IN ENGLAND.