And this involves another great principle. The demand for the Lucifer Match is always continuous, for it is a perishable article. The demand never ceases. Every match burnt demands a new match to supply its place. This continuity of demand renders the supply always equal to the demand. The peculiar nature of the commodity prevents any accumulation of stock; its combustible character--requiring the simple agency of friction to ignite it--renders it dangerous for large quantities of the article to be kept in one place. Therefore no one makes for store, but all for immediate sale. The average price, therefore, must always yield a profit, or the production would altogether cease. But these essential qualities limit the profit. The manufacturers can not be rich without secret processes or monopoly. The contest is to obtain the largest profit by economical management. The amount of skill required in the laborers, and the facility of habit, which makes fingers act with the precision of machines, limit the number of laborers, and prevent their impoverishment. Every condition of this cheapness is a natural and beneficial result of the laws that govern production. TUNNEL OF THE ALPS. The Sardinian Government is about to execute a grand engineering project; it is going to pierce the summit-ridge of the Alps with a tunnel twice as long as any existing tunnel in the world. A correspondent of the _Times_ announces the fact. From London as far as Chambery, by the Lyons railroad, all is at present smooth enough; and the Lyons road is indeed about to be pushed up the ascents of Mont Meillaud and St. Maurienne, even as far as Modane at the foot of the Northern crest of the Graian and Cottian Alps: but there all further progress is arrested; you can not hope to carry a train to Susa and Turin unless you pierce the snow capped barrier itself: this is the very step which the Chevalier Henry Maus projects. The Chevalier is Honorary Inspector of the Génie Civil; it was he who projected and executed the great works on the Liége railroad. After five years of incessant study, many practical experiments, and the invention of new machinery for boring the mountain, he made his final report to the Government on the 8th of February, 1849. A commission of distinguished civil engineers, artillery officers, geologists, senators, and statesmen, have reported unanimously in favor of the project; and the Government has resolved to carry it out forthwith. The "Railroad of the Alps," connecting the tunnel with the Chambery railway on the one side and with that of Susa on the other side, will be 36,565 metres or 20-3/4 English miles in length, and will cost 21,000,000 francs. The connecting tunnel is thus described: