Curiously enough, the experiments with these guns ceased at the very time when there was the most reason for continuing them, to wit, while they were giving evidence of their ability to stand a long series of continuous rounds. The mode of testing a high pressure gun, upon which all authorities agree, is to fire it, round after round, until it bursts or shows weakness. There is authority for the statement that there is not a 12 inch steel gun in Europe which has been fired two hundred rounds, and yet, just as soon as these cast iron guns gave promise of withstanding successfully such a test, a peremptory order came from the Ordnance Bureau to cease firing and stop further experiment. The failure of steel guns in Europe is frequent, though there is good reason for the belief that we only hear of a tithe of them, the balance being kept secret. Only the other day a big steel gun exploded at the muzzle, on the French trial grounds, and news comes that both in the war ships Collingwood and Ajax a number of steel guns have been condemned. Because of these facts it is not at all surprising that the majority in the House of Representatives, though willing to appropriate money for guns, are averse to having the outlay controlled by the Ordnance Bureau, which is wedded to the steel gun theory and others not much better sustained. THE COCAINE HABIT. A number of cases of confirmed cocaine habit have recently been reported. While some of them lack confirmation, it is certain that several physical and mental wrecks have been caused by the excessive use of this alkaloid. The South American Indians, long famous as coca eaters, seem as a rule not to succumb to its effects. They use the dried leaf, which they chew, previously introducing a small amount of alkali, to set the cocaine free. In civilized countries the alkaloid as a chloride is usually employed, and is administered by hypodermic injection. The practice of using it habitually in excess is hitherto reported as almost confined to physicians. Its effects upon its victims are very sad. The brain becomes permanently or for a period affected, a species of lunacy being produced. Just as in the case of opium eaters, the moral nature is undermined. One doctor was reported, so recently as to be within the memory of our readers, as having turned on the gas in a drug store where the alkaloid was refused him, with the design of asphyxiating the clerk, in which attempt he nearly succeeded. Another doctor, within a space of some sixteen months, has gone insane from the cocaine habit and has been removed to an asylum, leaving his wife also ill from the effects of the same drug, with which he had experimented on her. If the cases continue to multiply, there may be room for questioning the utility to man of the discovery of this anæsthetic. It is doubtful if all the services in local anæsthesia rendered by it can compensate for the ill it has already done. Pyrofuxin--a New Tanning Substance from Coal.