_Shale._--Says the Boston Transcript: Shale is to be no longer the outcast of the rock and soil families. It is fit to make into brick to be laid down for the best of highways. In the past to point at a bit of land and say, “Shale,” meant that the sale for any price above the waste lot figure was impossible. The shale land farmer never prospered. The word was good only for the novelist to write into the descriptions of places where ghosts were found. But shale is about to be respected. It may be fit punishment for that despised rock and soil derived from that rock that it should be placed under the feet of men, the hoofs of horses and the rubber of the auto tires, to be pulverized slowly into dust, but that does not matter. Shale is making a reputation. Governor Glynn of New York has announced that the tests of brick made from shale about the Elmira reformatory have proved that the bricks are right for laying down for the surface of highways. Samples of the brick sent to the makers of clay brick machinery have been found to fill all the requirements of the experts there employed, and that means that shale almost anywhere may be made into brick with such economy that it is forthwith regarded as one of the best materials for surface highways. The advantage of the shale about the Elmira reformatory is that the convicts there can be employed to collect the material and make the brick for State roads. The highway commissioner and a scientist are to direct the construction of buildings at the reformatory for the manufacture of brick. Convicts are to make the brick and put up the plant for permanent operations of the same materials. In many reports of industrial enterprises of late there is used the expression, economy was the result of finding the building materials on the spot or close by. The use of shale in many sections is bound to come under that head. Brick is now made of many materials which in the past have been tabooed. Sand is considered as good as clay for making brick, and it is handier to many places. The use of different materials makes a variety in the building materials of blocks. Cities look better because of that variety. But one of the best uses for brick appears now to be the surfacing of roads for the joy machines as well as the business motors of all kinds, and for horses. In the course of time the country turnpikes may be generally paved like city streets, at least with hard brick and that will have been done at reasonable cost to the country because of the employment of convict labor. * * * * *