Some improvements have recently been made by Mr. Alexander Glegg and the inventor in the well-known Jamieson grapnel used for raising submerged submarine cables. The chief feature of the grapnel is that the flukes, being jointed at the socket, bend back against a spring when they catch a rock, until the grapnel clears the obstruction, but allow the cable to run home to the crutch between the fluke and base, as shown in the figures. In the older form the cable was liable to get jammed, and cut between the fixed toe or fluke and the longer fluke jointed into it. This is now avoided by embracing the short fluke within the longer one. The shank, formerly screwed into the boss, is now pushed through and kept up against the collar of the boss, by the volute spring, which at the same time presses back the hinged flukes after being displaced by a rock. The shank can now freely swivel round, whereas before it was rigidly fixed. The toes or flukes are now made of soft cast steel, which can be straightened if bent, and the boss is made of cast steel or gun-metal. [Illustration: JAMIESON'S GRAPNEL.] * * * * * WRETCHED BOILERMAKING. _To the Editor of the Scientific American_: As long as I have been a reader of the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN I have been pleased with the manner in which you investigate and explain the cause of any boiler explosion which comes to your knowledge; and I have rejoiced when you heaped merited censure upon the fraudulent boilermaker. In your paper in December last you copied a short article on "Conscience in Boilermaking," in which the writer, after speaking of the tricks of the boilermaker in using thinner iron for the center sheets than for the others, and in "upsetting" the edges of the plates to make them appear thicker, goes on to say: "We call attention to this, because the discovery of such practice has made serious trouble between the boilermaker and the steam user. We would not believe that there were men so blind to the duties and obligations which rest upon them as to resort to such practice, but the careful inspector finds all such defects, and in time we come to know whose work is carefully and honestly done, and whose is open to suspicion. In States and cities where inspection laws are in force that give the methods and rules by which the safe working pressure of a boiler is calculated, there is no alternative except to follow the rules; and if certain requirements regarding construction are a part of the law, there is no authority or right to depart from it, and yet there are boilermakers who try to force their boilers into such localities when their work is not up to the requirements of the law."