In order to accumulate electricity for the production of light or motive power, the author has arranged secondary batteries, which differ from those of M.G. Plante. At the negative pole he uses a sheet of palladium, which, during the electrolysis, absorbs more than 900 times its volume of hydrogen. At the positive pole he uses a sheet of lead. The electrolyzed liquid is sulphuric acid at one tenth. This element is very powerful, even when of small dimensions. Another secondary element which has also given good results, is formed at the negative pole of a slender plate of sheet-iron. This plate absorbs more than 200 times its volume of hydrogen when electrolyzed in a solution of ammonium sulphate. The positive pole is formed of a plate of lead, pure or covered with a stratum of litharge, or pure oxide, or all these substances mixed. These metallic plates are immersed in a solution containing 50 per cent. of ammonium sulphate. Another arrangement is at the negative pole, sheet-iron; at the positive pole a cylinder of ferro-manganese. The electrolyzed liquid contains 40 per cent. ammonium sulphate. * * * * * THE TREATMENT OF QUICKSILVER ORES IN SPAIN. Though known from remote times, the date of the first opening of the famous mines of quicksilver of Almaden has not been precisely determined. Almost all the writers on the subject agree that cinnabar, from Spain, was already known in the times of Theophrastus, three hundred years before the Christian era, although there is evidence in the writings of Vitruvius that they were worked at a still earlier date, Spanish ore being sent to Rome for the manufacture of vermilion. Such ore constituted a part of the tribute which Spain paid to Rome emperors, and there are records of its receipt until the first century after Christ. The history of Almaden during the reign of the Moors is so much involved in doubt that some writers deny altogether that the Arabs worked the deposit; still the very name it now bears, which means "the mine," and many of the technical terms still in use, give evidence that they knew and worked that famous deposit. As for their Christian conquerors, there are stray indications that they extracted mercury during the twelfth and thirteen centuries. In 1417, Almaden was given the privileges of a city, and from 1525 to 1645 the working of mines was contracted for by the wealthy family of Fugger, of Augsburg, Germany. Since then, the mine has been worked by the state, though the Rothschilds have controlled the sale of the product.