The speech-recorder would appear to be an instrument of no small importance, if it is able to do in a practical manner that which the title of a patent recently applied for by Mr W. E. Irish would lead us to suppose. The title of the patent is as follows: ‘A system or method and means of receiving and recording articulated speech and other sounds transmitted telegraphically, telephonically, or otherwise, by the aid of electricity.’ The transmitting, as by telephone, and recording of speech in characters which may be easily read, would be of incalculable value. If this instrument fulfils what is claimed for it, the anticipations once hoped for in the phonograph will be realised, and in the future we may expect to see business-men talking their correspondence into a box in which mechanism, by the aid of electricity, records the same on paper, which may be forwarded as a letter. Moreover, literary men will be saved the drudgery of the pen, and have their thoughts recorded as rapidly as they can convey them to the instrument. The system of natural phonetic signs, which we should expect this instrument to describe, may also be the means of influencing spelling and of simplifying the phonographic difficulties of the language. Applications innumerable suggest themselves to us to which such an apparatus may be applied; the verifying and duplicating of orders received and sent telephonically, would form no small item in the advantages to be derived from such a system. According to the _Journal de Rouen_, quoting from the _Polytechnische Zeitung_, the recent invention of M. Verk, by which is produced the effect of any metal on felt, is likely to become extremely useful when applied to theatrical stage properties, as, besides being inexpensive, the articles so treated are not materially increased in weight. The things intended to assume a metallic appearance are first of all covered with a layer of felt, which is coated over with a resinous substance mixed with plumbago or blacklead. This is left to dry, and is then passed over with a hot iron. The article is next rubbed with pumice-stone, which produces the effect of burnished steel. If copper, bronze, or silver is wished to be imitated, the felt—which is rendered a conductor by its coating—is covered readily by immersion in a galvano-plastic bath. OCCASIONAL NOTES. TELEGRAPHING EXTRAORDINARY.