A generation ago engineers of eminence were attempting the transmission of energy in a variety of ways. Ropes and wire cables were installed for considerable distances in Germany and Switzerland; in France there was an extensive piping of compressed air, still in evidence at the capital; and water under high pressure is to some extent to-day employed in London. All these schemes, together with the old methods within a shop itself of taking motion from motor to machine by belt or chain, have been wiped off the slate by the electrical engineer. With a tax of the lightest he carries for many miles in a slender wire a current whose energy takes any form we please,--not only mechanical motion, but chemical action, light or heat. Can simplification go farther than this, or the future hold for us another gift as golden? Painting by Immersion. Binders, reapers, and mowers have irregular surfaces which it would be costly to paint by hand. Even to use the painting machine which works by compressed air would be somewhat expensive. In the painting shop of a factory both brushes and nozzles are banished. The large floor is fitted up with a series of tanks: overhead are the lines of a suspension railway. The tanks are filled with paint, the articles to be treated are run in on the rails, lowered automatically for their bath, and then carried off to drip and to dry. In this way a large and complicated agricultural machine can be painted in a few seconds. Were deep tanks employed, this method would squeeze oil, varnish, or paint into the pores of wood very thoroughly. Churning the Air in a Telescopic Tube. Astronomers suffer much from the inaccuracy of the images viewed in their telescopes in consequence of the disturbances in the atmosphere, common even in clear weather. Hence observatories have, of late years, been established at Arequipa, Peru, and at other stations where the atmosphere is calm and little disturbed by currents. On investigation Professor S. P. Langley, of Washington, discovered that a good deal of the perturbation of telescopic images arises from currents within the telescopic tube itself. As a remedy he adopted the heroic, yet simple, measure of thoroughly stirring up the air in the tube by a blower or other suitable means. Its air, thus brought to uniformity of condition, yielded images much clearer than those usually obtained. Especially convincing in this regard are capital photographs of artificial double stars whose beams were entirely confined within a horizontal tube in which they traveled to and fro through no less than 140 feet of churned air. These pictures showed that the disturbance within the tube itself appeared to be wholly eliminated by the device of vigorously stirring the air column.