Mr Graham, who recently gave an account of his mountaineering experiences in the Himalaya, seems to have negatived some of our preconceived notions regarding the difficulty of breathing at high altitudes. At an elevation of more than four miles above the sea-level, Mr Graham and his companions felt no inconvenience in breathing except what might be expected from the muscular exertion they had gone through. Loss of sight, nausea, bleeding at the nose or ears, and other unpleasant symptoms often described by travellers, were entirely absent. But the heart was sensibly affected, its rapid pace being easily perceptible, and its beatings quite audible. It may be remembered that Mr Glaisher and Mr Coxwell, in the course of an experimental balloon ascent some years ago, nearly lost their lives by the effect upon their breathing organs of the highly attenuated atmosphere to which they had risen. But the altitude then reached was about double that attained by Mr Graham in the Himalaya. A scheme has been proposed for the construction of an Indo-European railway, the chief novelty of which is the adoption of a route along the south shore of the Mediterranean. The line would utilise the railroads of France and Spain. Then there would be steam-transit from Gibraltar Bay to Ceuta in Morocco. Here would be the terminus proper of the international railway, which would be in connection with the lines already laid in Algeria and Tunis. The route would be continued through Tripoli to join the Egyptian lines, and eventually along the coast of the Persian Gulf to Kurrachee in India. Here, of course, contact would be made with the great Indian railway system. Preliminary surveys have been already made, and the nominal capital of the undertaking is fixed at ten millions sterling. At the late meeting of the British Association in Canada, a very curious contribution to our knowledge of carnivorous plants was made by Professor Moseley, as a result of certain experiments he has made with the water-weed _Utricularia vulgaris_. This plant is furnished with small pear-shaped bladders, which at certain seasons are charged with air, and cause the weed to rise to the surface of the water. This movement has hitherto been supposed to be connected with the phenomenon of fertilisation. But Professor Moseley points out that each bladder has an opening closed by an elastic door, which will easily yield to the pressure of a small fish; and that any unfortunate intruder is either caught bodily, or can be securely held a prisoner by head or tail until dead. That there is here anything analogous to digestion as seen in other carnivorous plants, such as the _Dionæa_, &c., does not appear; but it is thought probable that the decomposing animal matter may contribute eventually to the life of the weed.