[In reference to Prof. Attfield's statement contained in the closing paragraph, we remark: It is well known that mercury is an ingredient of the solder used in some canning concerns, as it makes an easier melting and flowing solder. In THE SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN for May 27, 1876, in a report of the proceedings of the New York Academy of Science, will be seen the statement of Prof. Falke, who found metallic mercury in a can of preserved corn beef, together with a considerable quantity of albuminate of mercury.--EDS. S.A.] * * * * * VILLA AT DORKING. The house shown in the illustration was lately erected from the designs of Mr. Charles Bell, F.R.I.B.A. Although sufficiently commodious, the cost has been only about 1,050_l_.--_The Architect_. [Illustration: SUGGESTIONS IN ARCHTECTURE.--AN ENGLISH COTTAGE. COST, $5,250.] * * * * * Valerianate of cerium in the vomiting of pregnancy is recommended by Dr. Blondeau in a communication to the _Societe de Therapeutique_. He gives it in doses of 10 centigrammes three times a day.--_Medical Record_. * * * * * [Illustration: ARM CHAIR IN THE LOUVRE COLLECTION, PARIS; FLENISH RENAISSANCE.--_From The Workshop._] * * * * * TECHNICAL EDUCATION IN AMERICA. If there is one point more than another in which the exuberant youth and vitality of the American nation is visible it is in that of education, the provision for which is on a most generous scale, carried out with a determination at which the older countries of the Eastern Hemisphere have only arrived by slow degrees and painful experience. Of course the Americans, being young, and having come to the fore, so to speak, full-fledged, have been able to profit by the lessons which they have derived from their neighbors--though it is none the less to their credit that they have profited so well and so quickly. Technical and industrial education has received a more general recognition, and been developed more rapidly, than the general education of the country, partly for the reason that there is no uniform system of the latter throughout the States, but that each individual State and Territory does that which is right in its own eyes. The principal reason, however, is that to possess the knowledge, how to work is the first creed of the American, who considers that the right to obtain that knowledge is the birthright of every citizen, and especially when the manual labor has to be supplemented by a vigorous use of brains. The Americans as a rule do not like heavy or coarse manual labor, thinking it beneath them; and, indeed, when they can get Irish and Chinese to do it for them, perhaps they are not far wrong. But the idea of idleness and loafing is very far from the spirit of the country, and this is why we see the necessity for industrial education so vigorously recognized, both as a national duty,