The blast required has been experimentally determined at 40-50 cubic meters per minute at 15 lb. pressure. This will be supplied by a single cylinder engine of 900 millimeters blast, and 786 millimeters steam piston, diameter 786 millimeters, stroke making fifty revolutions per minute, which is also to work a Root blower and the accumulator pumps. Having regard to these very different demands upon the power of the engine, it will be provided with expansion gear, allowing a considerable variation in the cut-off. A single boiler of 70 to 75 square meters heating surface will be sufficient. The accumulator is intended to work at 300 lb. pressure. The cost of the plant, including one of each of the following items, converter, converter truck, blowing engine, accumulator, ingot crane, centesimal weighing machine, and accumulator pump, is estimated at £2,050 to £2,100; and that of the steam boiler, £325. The buildings may be of the simplest and cheapest possible character. As the productive power of such a plant contrasts very favorably with its cost, the author considers that it may be fairly expected to meet the competition of large works, especially in the manufacture of a high-class product.--_Stahl und Eisen_, vol. iv., page 524; through _Proc. Inst. Civ. Eng_. * * * * * TRIPLE COMPOUND ENGINES. [Footnote: Paper read before the Institution of Naval Architects, March 27, 1885.] By Mr. A.E. SEATON. My attention was first called to the modern triple compound engine by the published reports of the trial trip of the yacht Isa, and in it I plainly discerned the germs of a successful new type of engine; but it was not until I had seen the engines of the screw steamer Aberdeen erected in the workshops of Messrs. Robert Napier & Sons that I became convinced that it was the engine of the immediate future. It is, however, due to the farsightedness and enterprise of Mr. C.H. Wilson, M.P., that I was enabled to try the merits of the new system and compare it with the old. Mr. Wilson had already viewed the triple compound engine with more than ordinary interest, and it required little persuasion on my part to allow the company to which I have the honor to belong to construct a triple expansion engine in lieu of the ordinary compound for one of four sister ships which it then had in hand for Messrs. Thomas Wilson, Sons & Co., the latter only stipulating that it was to be of the same power as the engine already contracted for. As I was quite convinced that economy was due to the system rather than to the higher pressure, it was decided not to increase the boiler pressure more than was necessary to suit the triple system. The other three ships already alluded to were being fitted with engines having cylinders 25 inches and 50 inches diameter by 45 inches stroke, and supplied with steam of 90 lb. pressure from a double ended boiler 13 feet 9 inches diameter by 15 feet long, having a total