The Kyrle Societies have seldom reason to congratulate iron manufacturers on the progress of their art; but it seems as if they might heartily rejoice in a Report recently made at the instance of the North-eastern Steel Company as to the utilisation of an important by-product of the steel manufacture. The Report is on the results of experiments made to test the value of basic cinder as a manure, and is the joint work of Professor Wrightson and Dr Munro, of the College of Agriculture, Downton, Salisbury. Basic cinder, or basic steel slag, is the broken-up and useless lining of the converters used in the Thomas-Gilchrist process for dephosphorising iron, and is a bulky by-product of the manufacture. It contains from sixteen to nineteen per cent. of phosphoric acid combined with lime and other bases; and the Report in question puts it beyond a doubt that the undissolved phosphates of the cinder have an available and remarkable value for manurial purposes. Extensive and elaborate experiments conducted at Downton and elsewhere showed decisively that this heretofore inconvenient substance is an excellent fertiliser for swedes and other turnips, as well as for grass. It seems to be positively better for this purpose than ground coprolites, and only a little less effective than superphosphate. This interesting Report is published at the _Daily Exchange_ Offices, Middlesborough. Similar experiments have been attended with like success in Germany; and from _Le Temps_ it would appear that enterprising agricultural chemists are already in treaty with some of the blast-furnaces of Alsace-Lorraine for the purchase of all the slag produced by them. The history of the recovery of a portion of the mails from the Cunard steamer _Oregon_, ought to supply chemists and inventors with a good deal of food for thought. Before the vessel sank, a portion of the mail was recovered, but by far the greater portion went down with her. This was the case with the registered letters, the portion of the mail containing securities, coupons, &c., to the value of at least one hundred thousand pounds, besides drafts, letters of credit, &c., of which the value was unknown. A notice has been issued by the Liverpool postmaster which tells us that the whole of these registered letters have been recovered. The letters were thoroughly soaked, but the post-office authorities dried them as carefully as they could and sent them on to their destination. All the mail-matter that has been recovered was badly damaged by wetting, while the bags which were subjected to long-continued soaking at the bottom of the sea were very much damaged. In one case, a fifty pound note sent from Frome to Chicago was delivered only just recognisable, but still sufficient to insure its being honoured.