VI. ARCHITECTURE, ETC.--The Building Stone Supply.--Granite and its sources.--Sandstone.--Blue and gray limestone.--Marble.-- Slate.--Other stones.--A valuable summary of the sources and uses of quarry products. VII. ASTRONOMY. ETC.--How to Establish a True Meridian. By Prof. L. M. HAUPT.--Introduction.--Definitions.--To find the azemuth of Polaris.--Applications, etc. VIII. MISCELLANEOUS.--A Characteristic Mining "Rush."--The Prospective Mining Center of Southern New Mexico. The Food and Energy of Man. By Prof. DE CHAUMONT.--Original food of man.--Function of food.--Classes of alimentary substances.--Quantity of food.--Importance of varied diet. Rattlesnake Poison.--Its Antidotes. By H. H. CROFT. The Chinese Sign Manual.--The ethnic bearing of skin furrows on the hand. Lucidity.--Matthew Arnold's remarks at the reopening of the Liverpool University College and School of Medicine. * * * * * SOAKING PITS FOR STEEL INGOTS. ON THE SUCCESSFUL ROLLING OF STEEL INGOTS WITH THEIR OWN INITIAL HEAT BY MEANS OF THE SOAKING PIT PROCESS. By Mr. JOHN GJERS, Middlesbrough. [Footnote: Paper read before the Iron and Steel Institute at Vienna.] When Sir Henry Bessemer, in 1856, made public his great invention, and announced to the world that he was able to produce malleable steel from cast iron without the expenditure of any fuel except that which already existed in the fluid metal imparted to it in the blast furnace, his statement was received with doubt and surprise. If he at that time had been able to add that it was also possible to roll such steel into a finished bar with no further expenditure of fuel, then undoubtedly the surprise would have been much greater. Even this, however, has come to pass; and the author of this paper is now pleased to be able to inform this meeting that it is not only possible, but that it is extremely easy and practical, by the means to be described, to roll a steel ingot into, say, a bloom, a rail, or other finished article with its own initial heat, without the aid of the hitherto universally adopted heating furnace. It is well understood that in the fluid steel poured into the mould there is a larger store of heat than is required for the purpose of rolling or hammering. Not only is there the mere apparent high temperature of fluid steel, but there is the store of latent heat in this fluid metal which is given out when solidification takes place. It has, no doubt, suggested itself to many that this heat of the ingot ought to be utilized, and as a matter of fact, there have been, at various times and in different places, attempts made to do so; but hitherto all such attempts have proved failures, and a kind of settled conviction has been established in the steel trade that the theory could not possibly be carried out in practice.