Sir James Douglass said all those questions were of the utmost importance to a maritime country. In regard to experiments with oil on troubled water, he had witnessed them, and he had carefully studied all the reports, and had come to the conclusion that they were all very well in a tub of water or a pond, but on the ocean they were utterly hopeless. He would stake his reputation on that. They had been tried in the neighborhood of Aberdeen, and he had prophesied the results before they were commenced. It was utterly hopeless to think that a quantity of oil had the power of laying a storm--all the world could not produce oil enough to bring about that result. There might be something in maritime telegraphy, and he hoped the experiments of Mr. Graham Bell, in transmitting through two or three mile distances, would come to something. He did not believe in powerful lights. Increase the lights to any very great extent, and a dazzling effect was the result. In regard to sound, he wondered that no more effective alarm was used than the whistle. It was well known that, as the whistle instrument was enlarged, the sound became more and more a roar. He would have ships use all their boiler power in sounding a siren, so that the sound could be heard at a distance of not less than two or three miles in any weather. With such a signal as that there ought to be, not absolute safety, but collisions would be more easily prevented. He was glad to say that a universal system of buoys had been practically arranged, thanks to the Duke of Edinburgh and his committee, so that, as soon as an old system can be changed to a new one, all the buoys would bear one universal language. Admiral Pim pointed out that a red light would show four miles, while a green light was only visible for two miles and a half, so that, if a green light were seen, it indicated that the two vessels were within two miles and a half of each other. Sir James Douglass said there was undoubtedly a weakness in regard to these lights; and he held that in the manufacture of lights effect should be given to the difference that existed in the various lights, so that, by making the green light more powerful, it could penetrate as far as the red, and in the same way making the red and green lights proportionately more powerful, so that they would penetrate as far as the white light. Sir James Douglass said he had seen a parabolic reflector for sound tried, but, unfortunately, the reflector so intensified and focused all the sounds about the vessel and the noise of the sea that the operator could hear nothing but a chaos of sound. * * * * * A PLAN FOR A CARBONIZING HOUSE.