During the past few years, there have been recorded, unhappily, an unusual number of earthquakes in various parts of the world; and many thousands of lives have been lost by those terrible convulsions of nature. Inhabitants of Britain, although constant in their complaints of fog, inclement seasons, and other meteorological inconveniences, have hitherto congratulated themselves upon living in a country which is exempt from volcanic phenomena, and in which earthquakes seemed to be things of a past era. These comfortable reflections were suddenly dispelled on the morning of the 22d of April, when over a large tract of country in Southern England a shock of great severity occurred. In the town of Colchester, and many villages eastward of it, the destruction of houses was very great. Many were entirely unroofed; and in some villages, as the writer can testify from personal observation, it was the exception to note a dwelling in which the chimney-stacks had not been demolished. Providentially, no lives were lost, although several narrow escapes have been recorded. The damage is estimated to amount to several thousand pounds, and unfortunately the sufferers are as a rule very poor cottagers, who are unable to bear the expense of the necessary repairs. For their relief, a subscription has been set on foot under the auspices of the Lord Mayor, and there is little doubt that sufficient money will be readily forthcoming for their needs. The occurrence of such a rare phenomenon in the British Isles—not quite so rare, by the way, as some people imagine, for nearly three hundred shocks have been actually recorded—has caused an immense amount of earthquake lore to be unearthed and published in the various newspapers. From _Iron_ we have an interesting account of the way in which luminous paint is utilised in connection with earthquake alarms in countries where such visitations are prevalent. We are informed that large consignments of the paint are sent to such places, and that the material is employed in the following manner. Small metallic plates covered with the paint are fixed on the doorposts of the different rooms, so that at the first alarm—and happily there is often a premonitory warning of something more serious to follow—the inmates of the houses can readily find their way outside. In Manila, the paint is laid in patches about the staircases, door-handles, and various points of egress. A light which gives off neither fire nor heat is of the greatest value in such situations, where any other form of light would be apt to add its quota of disaster to the dangers to life, already too prominent. IMPROVED ELECTRIC LIGHTING FOR SHIPS.