26 AUGUST 1865, Page 2

Two French discoveries of merit have been recorded this week.

One, which is authentic, enables copper smelters to utilize their pestiferous smoke so perfectly that Mr. Vivian, head of the greatest firm in Swansea, says he shall be able to turn out 1,000 tons of sulphuric acid per week, restoring incidentally many thousand acres of land to cultivation. The other, which is less authentic, is a new mode of tanning in turpentine, said to be so rapid that twelve hours will tan a skin at half the former cost. That is good news for shoe-wearers and bad news for the Scotch proprietors, who have for years been covering their unculturable hills with young oaks, the bark of which they sell to the tanners.