OUR contemporary, The Engineer, suggests doing away with windsails on board steamers entirely and substituting electric fans. In warships the fan ought to be placed where room can be found for it low down in the ship, far below the water line. An electrically driven horizontal fan, with its motor, can be got into the thickness of a deck with its beams, if needs be. This would clearly be better than depending on a flimsy construction, which would certainly be greatly damaged, if not entirely shot away, in action. If clear decks are wanted, the windsail is about as inconvenient as it is ugly, and that is saying a great deal. SINCE January 1, last, a new and reduced telephone tariff has been in force in Switzerland, and from reports to hand it appears to have worked satisfactorily all round. The former charge per annum for a telephone, with an annual limit of 800 conversations, was 80 francs (£3 4s.) The new tariff now in force is 40 francs (£1 12s.) per annum, plus an additional charge of 5 centimes for each local connection. The charges for interurban connections, with a time limit of three minutes, are as follows: Up to a distance of thirty-one miles, 3 d.; up to sixty-two miles, 5 d.; and above sixty-two miles, 7½ d. The telephone system throughout Switzerland is owned by the government, and the service, says the Electrician, is first class in every respect. "THERE ARE three ways by which high temperature may be measured," says the Electrical Engineer, London. "The first uses an air thermometer of refractory material; the second depends on the change in the resistance of a platinum wire with change in temperature; and the third is based on the employment of a thermo couple of relatively infusible metals. According to Messrs. Holborn and W. Wein, in a paper published in Wiedemann's Annalen, the air thermometer method was valueless until recently, as suitable vessels could not be made. But now these are produced from refractory clays, and permit of measurements up to 1,500° C. (2,732° F.) The results are, however, vitiated by the effects of capillarity in the interior of the vessel. The resistance method has also its disadvantages. At high temperatures the resistance generally increases, but the temperature coefficient is irregular. The presence of free hydrogen also affects the resistance. The third or thermopile method is favored by the authors, who prefer a circuit of platinum and an alloy of platinum with ten per cent. of rhodium. Temperatures up to 1,600° C. (2,912° F.) can be measured by it, and it is remarkably constant under various conditions."