Meanwhile the inventors were not idle, and the press fairly teemed with novel suggestions for the defense of the city. It was proposed to run all the oil stored in the Williamsburgh refineries into the lower bay, and set it on fire when the enemy's fleet appeared. The _Herald_ suggested the raising of a regiment of divers to live in a submarine fort, the guns of which should be arranged to fire upwards into a vessel floating above, and immediately offered to contribute $250,000 to begin the construction of such defenses. General Newton proposed the building of continuous earthworks on both shores of the bay and Narrows, behind which a broad-gauge railroad should be constructed. On the track he placed heavy platform-cars, each car carrying one heavy gun. Embrasures were made at regular intervals along the embankment. His idea was, that if a hostile vessel made her way into the Harbor, the gun-cars should move along behind the earthworks, keeping abreast of the ship, and thus pour into her a continuous fire. Measures were promptly taken to follow this plan. Mr. T.A. Edison announced that he had invented everything which, up to that time, any one else had suggested. He invited all the reporters to Menlo Park, and, after elaborately explaining the merits of a new catarrh remedy, showed some lines on a piece of paper, which, he said, represented huge electro-magnets, which he proposed to set up along the coast, say, near Barnegat. When the enemy's iron ships appeared, he proposed to excite these magnets, and draw the vessels on the rocks. Somebody said that this notion had been anticipated by one Sindbad the Sailor, whereupon Mr. Edison denounced that person as a "patent pirate." He also said that these magnets would be exhibited in working order next Christmas Eve. Professor Bell proposed the "induction balance," as a way of recognizing the approach of the enemy's iron vessels. He went down the Bay with his instrument, and sent back some telegrams which were alarming, until it was discovered that the professor had made a slight error in the direction from which he asserted the ships were coming, it being manifestly impossible for them to sail overland from the Pacific, as his contrivance predicted. The condition of affairs in the city reminded one of the early days of the Rebellion. Wall Street was panicky--chiefly because of the immense depreciation in railway securities. Government four-per-cent bonds, however, had gone up to ninety-eight. Provisions were high, and, through the stoppage of European commerce, the cost of imported articles, such as dress-goods, tea, etc., became excessive. Recruiting was going on everywhere; the regiments, as fast as organized, being dispatched to different points along the sea-board, or to swell the numbers of an army under command of General Sheridan, which was preparing to sail to Key West, to invade Cuba.