DISTRIBUTION.--as a rule, manufacturing jewellers neither cultivate trade with shopkeepers nor with the private purchaser, but sell to the factors, or middle men. A factor sees all their stocks, selecting from each to compose his own, and so offers a better variety to the shopkeepers throughout the kingdom than could otherwise be done. There are in Birmingham about fifty of such factors. But the line of demarcation is somewhat indefinite, because many of them manufacture certain specialities for themselves. Still the system is the best under present circumstances, and works on the whole to the mutual good of all parties. The factors in London, and merchants generally, are also large purchasers from Birmingham manufacturers. The Post Office is the chief engine of distribution for small parcels, and all little orders and repairs. Two private firms, however, do a considerable business by collecting, through agents, in London, Coventry, and Birmingham, small jewellery parcels, conveying them by rail, and then delivering them very quickly and cheaply in those towns. The losses are practically nil, although perfect shoals of such little packages are despatched and delivered daily by these means, together with the railways. =Lighthouse Apparatus.=--[J. KENWARD].--(B. 153). The Lighthouse Works of Chance Brothers and Co., Spon Lane, near Birmingham, are the only works of the kind in the kingdom. The improvements since 1865 may be noted under: (1) the optical agents, (2) the lamps and burners with the illuminant or fuel used in them, (3) the mechanical appliances. The six original orders of optical apparatus distinguished by their radii and height are no longer the only types. There is the hyper-radial first order lens, whose focal distance is 1,330 millimetres, and diameter about 104¾ inches, the usual first order being about 72½ inches diameter, and there are several varieties below the 6th order whose radius is 150 mm. Of these the Ship Light introduced by Messrs. Chance with a focal distance of 125 mm., is the most important. Various new arrangements of condensing lights where from one flame, certain sea sectors are strongly illuminated by means of vertical prisms, while other sectors are less intensely lighted, have been adopted with signal success, as have also several special designs where a coloured and a white beam of equal intensity are concerned. The new lenses for port and harbour lights, and those used with the electric arc on board vessels of war for search purposes, introduced by Messrs. Chance, may be named. The present two most powerful lights in the world are the Macquarie at Sydney Heads (a revolving electric light of the first order) and the Tino near Spezia, a revolving electric light of the second order. In both a single optical agent is employed, and carbons from 15 to 25 mm. diameter. Another improvement is the ship light lens designed to give adequate intensity and penetrating power