It is said that the St. Gothard Tunnel is diverting the bulk of the Italian trade into the hands of the Belgians, Germans, and Hollanders with startling rapidity. Without breaking bulk, early fruits are taken from all parts of Italy to Ostend, Antwerp, and Rotterdam, whence they are carried by fast steamers to London and other English ports. But, on the other hand, Germany is sending into Italy large quantities of coal, iron, machinery, copper, and other articles of which the latter received nothing before. In two months alone, the Italians imported 1,446 tons of paper. * * * * * THE HEAT REGENERATIVE SYSTEM OF FIRING GAS RETORTS. The system of heat regeneration in the firing of gas retorts, in accordance with the principle which Dr. C.W. Siemens has worked out in such a variety of ways in the industrial arts, has lately been applied with very marked success at the Dalmarnock Station of the Glasgow Corporation Gas Works. Notwithstanding the fact that a period of about twenty years has elapsed since Dr. Siemens successfully adapted his system to the firing of retorts at the Paris Gas Works, it seems to have made but little progress up to the present time; for what reasons it is perhaps difficult to explain. It is certain, however, that so-called regenerator furnaces of various forms have, from time to time, been brought into use at gas works for the purpose in question both on the Continent and in this country; and in recent years the subject has received much attention from gas engineers, the general opinion eventually being that the adoption of such a system of working would be certain to result in so great an amount of economy as to put gas as an illuminating agent on a more secure footing to compete successfully with its modern and somewhat aggressive rival, the electric light. Of course, it is now admitted that the mode of adapting the heat regenerative principle at the Paris Gas Works was attended with a degree of complexity in the structural arrangements that was so great and so expensive as to place it practically beyond the reach of gas companies and gas corporations generally, when the expense as well as the scientific beauty and practical efficiency of the new mode of applying and utilizing heat had to be considered. Fortunately, however, Dr. Siemens was enabled two or three years ago to demonstrate that there was no such thing as "finality" in that department of invention which he had made almost exclusively his own. About the time mentioned he placed his most advanced views on gas producers and on the regeneration and utilization of heat before the world, and within that period a most decided step in advance has been made, the structural arrangements now required for gas producers and regenerator furnaces having been immensely simplified and cheapened, while their practical utility has in no way been interfered with.