Dr. Grangier, surgeon in the French army, writes from Algeria: "A few days after the occupation of Brizerte, when the military authorities had forbidden, under the severest penalties, the discharge of firearms within the town, the whole garrison was awakened at three o'clock one morning by the tremendous explosion of a heavily loaded gun in the neighborhood of the ramparts; a guard of soldiers rushed into the house from whence the sound had come, and found a woman lying on the floor with a newly born babe between her thighs. The father of the child stood over his wife with the smoking musket still in his hand, but his intentions in firing the gun had been wholly medical, and not hostile to the French troops. The husband discovered that his wife had been in labor for thirty-six hours. Labor was slow and the contractions weak and far apart. He had thought it advisable to provoke speedy contraction, and, following the Algerian custom to _scare the baby_ out, he had fired the musket near his wife's ear; instantanously the accouchement was terminated. After being imprisoned twenty-four hours, the Arab was released."--_Cincinnati Lancet._ * * * * * "ELASTIC LIMIT" IN METAL. The _Engineering and Mining Journal_ raises the question whether steel, which is becoming so popular a substitute for wrought iron, will, when it is subjected to continuous strain in suspension bridges and other similar structures, do as well as iron has proved that it can. Recent tests of sections from the cables at Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, and at Niagara Falls show that long use has not materially changed the structure. The _Journal_ says: "It is a serious question, and one which time only can completely answer, whether steel structures will prove as uniformly and permanently reliable as wrought iron has proved itself to be. In other words, whether the fibrous texture of wrought iron can be equaled in this respect by the granulated texture of steel or ingot iron. In this connection it is interesting to note that the fibrous texture referred to is imparted to wrought iron by the presence in it of a small proportion of slag from the puddling furnace, and that this can be secured in the Bessemer converter also if desired. The so-called _Klein-Bessemerei,_ carried on at Avesta in Sweden for several years past, produces an exclusively soft, fibrous iron by the simple device of pouring slag and iron together into the ingot mould. This requires however a very small charge (usually not more than half a ton), and a direct pouring from the converter, without the intervention of a ladle, which would chill the slag." The effect of the introduction of slag would seem to be to retrace the steps usually taken in producing steel, viz., to separate the iron from its impurities, and then to add definite quantities of carbon and such other ingredients as are found to neutralize the effects of certain impurities not fully removed.