iltlistellantous.

The Queen Dowager left London on Tuesday, for Germany. Travelling to Ramsgate by the South-eastern Railway, her Majesty and suite embarked on board the Black Eagle steamer, for Ostend; where they arrived during the even- ing. On the following day her Majesty was to proceed to Brussels, on a visit to the King of the Belgians.

It is rumoured that Sir James Graham is about to be raised to the Peerage, by the title of Lord Preston; and that Lord Francis Egerton will be created Baron Ellesmere. The death of the Pope makes the King of Hanover the oldest sovereign in Europe. The King of the French is his junior by two years.

The Gazette of Tuesday notifies the following appointments—Keppel Robert 'Edward Foote, Esq., to be Arbitrator on the part of her Majesty in the Mixed British and Portuguese Commission established at Boa Vista, in the Cape Verde

Islands, for the Suppression of the Slave-trade; Thomas Crowley Weston, '

Esq. to be Registrar to the several Courts of Mixed Commissions established at Sierra Leone, under treaties with Foreign Powers for the Suppression of the Slave-trade; Thomas O'Brien, Esq., to be Colonial Secretary for Sierra Leone.

The Peet-office "earl delivery" in the City is to cease. The following order by the Postmaster-Genera, dated the 13th, has been exhibited in the Letter-carriers' office. " On the 25th instant, the early delivery on the City walks will be discon- tinued. The sub-sorters, who deliver the City walks, will on and after that .date act as assistant letter-carriers on their respective walks. Mr. Kelly will snake proper arrangements to carry these regulations into effect. To insure the above order of his Lordship being carried into complete operation with the small- est passible inconvenience to the public, the letter-camers holding such walks will prepare statements of the present deliveries, so that they may be equalized And regulated in compliance with the above order." (Here follow the names of upwards of fifty of the early-delivery walks.) "In order that all employed on the walks may be thoroughly acquainted with every part of this order, it is intended that the letter-carriers and their assistants, as the case may be, shall be changed to the different divisions of the same walks periodically." Twelve letter-camers were added to the staff on Monday.

Additions to the fortifications at Gravesend and Tilbury Fort are in progress: fifteen additional guns to be mounted at Gravesend, and sixty-nine at Tilbury.

A bill for the formation of a railway, by the South-eastern Company from Greenwich to Gravesend, which had passed a Committee of the House of Com- mons, seems likely to be stopped, or the line changed in one part, by .a resolution of the Admiralty passed since the bill came out of Committee. It is proposed that the railway shall pass through Greenwich Park, by means of a tunnel, at a distance of 850 feet from the Observatory. This the Board of Admiralty origi-

nally sanctioned. Experiments have since been made over-a tunnel on the Bir- mingham Railway, and it has been found that the passing of trains caused a con- siderable vibration of mercury at the distance of some hundreds of feet from the tunnel. The results of this experiment having been submitted to the Board of Visiters of the Royal Observatory, they have passed the following resolution- " That it is the opinion of the Board, no very serious inconvenience would probably result to the observations from the passage of a railway in a tunnel of the distance of 850 feet from the observing-rooms, provided that provision is made for regula ting the speed and weight of the railway trains in their passage near the 0 r- watery ; and also that a power of stopping the trains altogether be reserved with the Astronomer Royal during the time when important observations are in pro-

But the Board beg leave further to observe, that this question has been

frrusght under their notice so suddenly that they have not been enabled to give it that deliberate consideration which its great importance deserves." To this the Admiralty demur. They say that other scientific authorities differ in opinion from the Board of Visiters; and therefore, " however unwilling to deprive the public of what is considered by them an important accommodation, they deem it to be on the whole most prudent to withdraw their sanction to the tunnel through Greenwich Park for the proposed railway being proceeded with, at least :until another session of Parliament, when further experiments may induce a more con- curring opinion as to the real effects such a measure will 'have on an observatory situated at the distance stated from such railroad tunnel."

The recent stoppage of the atmospheric traction on the Croydon line has not been owing entirely to the heat melting the sealing-composition. The Railway Record mentions a great defect, which is now to be remedied. "The longitudinal valve which covers the atmospheric tube is composed of a strip of leather, the entire length of the opening in the pipe, fixed between plates of iron. On the Dalkey section of the Dublin and Kingstown Railway, this strip of leather is co- wired by another piece of the same substance, but narrower, being of the same width as the iron plates, which are in lengths of about eight inches from the ex- ternal covering of the-valve. This has been found to work well on the Dalkey line for nearly three years; but previous to the opening of the Croydon line, the patentees considered that an improvement could be made by substituting thin i plates of steel, about four inches in length, in place of the second piece of leather. These, they imagined, would prove sufficiently elastic to admit the action of the valve, and at the same time protect the leather from the friction occasioned by the action of the outer iron plates. This plan, however, instead of being an im- provement, has turned out one of the greatest possible hindrances to the proper development of the system; inasmuch as we find, from personal inspection, that nearly the whole of the thin steel plates have been snapped asunder, so that the • Marc edges came in contact with the leather each time the valve rose in many instances cutting it completely through: hence the vast increase of lear, and

• -15Nrient decrease of power. An entirely new valve is now being clown, even the double leather principle, as originally. used upon the Daley line; and all parties connected with the system are sanguine as to the results." A new seal- ing-composition has been invented to withstand a wide range of temperature. The asphalts pavements in Manchester have melted with the heat of the sun; and the pedestrians have in some instances found difficulty in releasing their feet from the pitchy substance.

The accounts of the battles of the 8th and 9th May, between the United States troops and the Mexicans, was brought by a boy only thirteen years of age from Montgomery to Mobile, a distance of one hundred and ninety miles, in thirteen hours, during the night; he having to catch and saddle the horses on every oc- casion. Be was rewarded with a purse of seventy dollars.—American Paper.

Sir Robert Peel was puzzled by the Protectionists when asked what the price of wheat would be when the new Corn Bill came into operation. But this question, though puzzling, was far less difficult than the following. Sir Joseph Radcliffe, i a few days ago, in looking over the works on the Church Fenton and Harrogate Railway, near Follyfoot, and casting a mechanical eye down a shaft that was being formed, observed to the workmen employed, that it was not circular. One of the men, evidently not pleased with the remark, called out from the bottom of the Midi at the top of his voice, " I say, maister, can you tell me how many square yards of reek will make a bushel of soot? "—Times.

Ntrabtehr. of Spring. Annual Symotie (or Epidemic, Endemic, and Contagious) Diseases 126 • ... average. e ...a isa

Dropsy, Caneer,and other diseases of uncertain or variable seat 86 ... 98 ... 105 Diseasea of the Bruin, Spinal Marrow, Nerves, and Senses 152 ... 155 ... 157 Diseases of the Lungs, and of the other Organs of Respiration 237 ... 271 ... 294 Diseases of the heart and 13lood.vessele 'Diseases of the Stomach, Liver, and other Organs of Digestion 75 ... 65 ... 72 Diseases of the Sift Sc Childbirth, diseases of the erteres, litheumatJsm,diseases Of the Bones, Joints, Sc

Diseases of the Skin, Cellular Tissue, Sc.

'Old Age " Violence, Privation, Cold, and Intemperance . -.— Total (including unspecified causes) 6 21 ... 692 ...

39 ... 60 ... 67

.066

Results of the Registrar-Generals return of mortality in the Metropolis for the ateekending on.Satiuday last-

The temperature of the thermometer ranged from 104.7° in the sun to 47.0° in the shade; the mean temperature by day being warmer than the average mean temperature by 7A°. The mean direction of the wind for the week was South- west.