The invention of Messrs. Thomas & Gilchrist, by which a very large field of ironstone is now, for the first time, made available for the purpose of making good steel by the Bessemer process, bids fair to make very considerable alterations in the steel-making trade, and in the hands of Mr. E. Windsor Richards it has been made a great success, while in Germany there are several works also using the process largely. Mild steel is now being used to a great extent for the construction of steam boilers as well as of ships, and in steel castings for a variety of purposes, such as spur wheels, frames of portable engines, manhole door frames, etc., etc. Among the uses to which steel may be put is the manufacture of steel sleepers in place of wood. It is a very encouraging fact that there are now, or rather there were already, at Dusseldorf, in 1880, 70,000 tons of iron or steel railway sleepers in use in Germany. Mr. Webb, of Crewe, has exhibited a very promising arrangement of sleepers and fastenings, to be made either of iron or steel. Steel sleepers should also be used for tramways. If, now, some clever ironmaster could only accomplish the task of making a good "street pavement" of cast iron, the increased demand for pig metal would be enormous. It has nearly been accomplished already, by several different modes of construction; and there are very many streets where the luxury of wood pavement, which wears very rapidly, cannot be afforded, and where macadamizing will not stand the wear and tear of the heavy traffic. The use of ingot steel, or very mild steel, for making tin-plates is now an established thing, and manufacturers are now taking this metal for making large tinned sheets up to seven by three feet. The making of casks by machinery, cheaper and better than those made by hand, is now an accomplished fact by Mr. Ransome's machines. There are twelve factories already established abroad, some turning out 2,000 or 3,000 casks a week. This is a good case of English invention taking the lead in a manufacture. Among good mechanical appliances that have been proved to be highly valuable to the civil engineer may be mentioned the excavating machine, which answers well for certain soils and situations, though not for all; and the dredger of Messrs. Bruce & Batho, for excavating from the inside of piers in water. In manufacturing chemistry, which, with its numerous mechanical appliances, is much indebted to mechanical science and engineering, great advances have been made during the last dozen or twenty years. Aluminum has been brought into practical use to a large extent, it being at once a very light metal and a very cleanly one. "Anthracine," obtained from coal tar, has been manufactured largely for the purpose of producing the various brilliant dyes now so common.