Near the bottom of the shaft, branches are taken off to supply light to the principal roadways and to the haulage engine-room, the main cables being carried into one of the sections of the mine a distance of half-a-mile. After a careful inspection of the lamps at the pit bottom, the party were photographed in three groups, with the aid of the electric light, by Mr. Annan, of Glasgow, who may well be credited with the distinction of being the first to exercise his skill in the bowels of the earth. They were then led to the haulage engine-room and into the workings, where they witnessed the effects of the light. At the latter point, while, of course, the visitors were at a safe distance, a shot was fired, bringing down a large mass of coal. Having spent fully an hour below ground, the party returned to the surface.--_Colliery Guardian_. * * * * * LIGHTNING AND TELEPHONE WIRES. M. Bede, of Brussels, has an article in _L'Ingénieur-Conseil_ on the above subject. He considers that a system of such wires forms the best and most complete security against lightning with which a town can be provided, because they protect not only the buildings in which they terminate, but also those over which they pass. At each end they communicate with the earth, and thus carry off safely any surplus of electricity with which they may become charged. It is, however, important that they should be provided with lightning conductors of their own, to carry off such surplus directly from the transmission wire to the earth wire, without allowing it to pass through the fine wires of the induction coils, which it might fuse. Such lightning conductors usually consist of a toothed plate attached to one wire, close to another plate not toothed attached to the other wire. The copper even of such a conductor has been melted by the powerful current which it has carried away. In telephonic central offices, M. Bede has seen all the signals of one row of telephone wires fall at the same moment, proving that an electric discharge had fallen upon the wires, and been by them conveyed to earth. This fact shows that wires, even without points, are capable of attracting the atmospheric electricity; but it must be remembered that there are two points at every join in the wire. M. Bede insists strongly upon the uselessness of terminating lightning conductors in wells, or even larger pieces of water. The experiments of MM. Becquerel and Pouillet proved that the resistance of water to the passage of electricity is one thousand million times greater than that of iron; consequently, if the current conveyed by a wire one square mm. thick were to be carried off by water without increased resistance, a surface of contact between the wire and the water of not less than 1,000 square meters must be established.