While this would be a serious loss to some communities, there would be compensating advantages for the public, as the cost of transportation would be lessened in like measure. Many believe stringent laws, enforced by commissions having judicial powers, will serve the desired end, and the writer was long hopeful of the efficacy of regulation by State and national commissions; but close observation of their endeavors and of the constant efforts--too often successful--of the corporations to place their tools on such commissions, and to evade all laws and regulations, have convinced him that such control is and must continue to be ineffective, and that the only hope of just and impartial treatment for railway users is to exercise the "right of eminent domain," condemn the railways, and pay their owners what it would cost to duplicate them; and in this connection it may be well to state what valuations some of the corporations place upon their properties. Some years since the "Santa Fe" filed in the counties on its line a statement showing that at the then price of labor and materials--rails were double the present price--that their road could be duplicated for $9,685 per mile, and the materials being much worn the actual cash value of the road did not exceed $7,725 per mile. In 1885 the superintendent of the St. Louis & Iron Mountain Railway, before the Arkansas State board of assessors, swore that he could duplicate such railway for $11,000 per mile, and yet Mr. Gould has managed to float its securities, notwithstanding a capitalization of five times that amount. (_Concluded next month_.) THE UNKNOWN.[1] PART II. BY CAMILLE FLAMMARION. [1] Translated by G. H. A. Meyer and J. Henry Wiggin, from the manuscript of Camille Flammarion. The human soul would seem to be a spiritual substance, endowed with psychical force, capable of acting outside bodily limits. This force, like all others, may be transmissible into the form of electricity or heat, or may be capable of bringing into activity certain latent energies while it yet remains intimately united with our mental being. We propound questions to the table, already impressed with our nervous impetus, on subjects interesting to ourselves; and then we ourselves unconsciously inspire the responses. The table speaks to us in our own language, giving back our own ideas, within the limits of our own knowledge, conversing with us about our opinions and views, as we might discuss them with ourselves. This is absolutely the reflection--direct or remote, precise or vague--of our own feelings and thoughts. All my efforts to establish the identity of a stranger spirit, unknown to the persons present, have failed.