The movable portion, designed to receive the action of the wind and to indicate its direction, is designated by the letters C D and coarse lines. It consists of (1) a zinc tube, K, provided at intervals with copper rings, and entering the rod, A B, which serves as a guide for it; (2) of a bronze disk covered by an external ornament, O, fixed to the tube and resting on the balls; (3) of the vane, G, properly so called; and (4) of the cap, C, provided with bayonet catch, crowning the tube and covering the point of attachment of the wire of transmission. This latter consists of a simple brass or galvanized iron wire, f f, perfectly taut, and made fast in the top of the tube. After traversing as many stories as necessary this wire terminates, in the interior of the room where the observations are made, in a copper rod to which is fastened a horizontal arrow, F. The wire traverses the floorings through small zinc tubes; and, in the rooms through which it passes, it is protected by iron tubes. To the ceiling of the observing room there is affixed a wind-rose, R, on which the arrow reproduces all the motions of the vane. [Illustration: RICHARD'S WEATHERCOCK.] This apparatus is now in operation in the different stations that the Versailles waterworks has established near the reservoirs of the plateau of Trappes, and it is also installed in several primary normal schools, where it is giving very good results.--_La Nature_. * * * * * CHARRED CLOVER. A correspondent of the _Ohio Farmer_ reports an experiment in curing clover, showing how he just missed breeding fire in his barn, and illustrating the importance of ventilating hay mows: In 1861 I used a horse fork for the first time. The haying season was not a bright one, and our clover was drawn a little greener than usual, and went into the mow in large and compact forkfuls. The result was intense heating, and consequently very rapid evaporation and sweating of the mow. On a bay holding ordinarily twenty tons we put at least thirty tons, as every load at the top seemed to make room for another. The barn was rather open, which allowed quite free evaporation on all sides as well as at the top. The result was that I had very bright and excellent hay at the bottom, top, and sides of that mow, but severals tons in the center were as completely charred as though burned in a coal pit. What prevented combustion has always been a mystery to me. Since that escape from a conflagration, I have not deemed it prudent to put clover in so green as to cause intense heating, or to fill a mow too rapidly. If we haul six loads per day to one mow, weighing thirty hundred each, which will shrink during the sweating process to one ton each, we have three tons of water to be thrown off by evaporation.