The Austrian government has ordered thirty-seven engines arranged to burn kerosene, for use in the Arlberg tunnel, in which lack of proper ventilation at present causes the tunnel to remain filled with smoke.—Uhland's Wochenschrift.

One of the first essentials to modern military enterprise is the establishment of a military railway system for war purposes. To be in a position to carry out efficiently and speedily what we may expect to be called upon to do on the outbreak of serious war, previous preparation in time of peace is an absolute requisite. In connection with General Sherman's operations in Georgia, during the American civil war, an army was supplied for six and a half months over a line 473 miles long. The corps of workmen was 10,000 strong, and on one occasion replaced 35,000 sleepers and nine miles of rails in seven days. The true defense of the line was effected by the engineers always having men and material ready. In spite of the large and skilled railway population on which the army could call, and of the fact that practically the nation was in arms, it was found extremely difficult to keep this railway construction corps together until they were placed under a severe military discipline.—United Service Gazette.

A hospital car has been introduced on the Belgian railroads, says The Engineer. It is designed for use in the event of a serious railway accident, and can be run to the spot where the wounded may be picked up and carried to the nearest city for treatment, instead of being left to pass hours in some wayside station while awaiting surgical attendance. The interior of this car is divided into a main compartment, a corridor on one side and two small rooms at the end. The largest compartment, the hospital proper, contains twenty-four isolated beds on steel tubes hung upon powerful springs; each bed is provided with a small movable table, a cord serving to hold all the various small objects which may be needed, and each patient lies in front of two little windows, which may be closed or opened at will. The corridor on the outside of the hospital chamber leads to the linen closet and the doctor's apartment; in the latter is a large cupboard, the upper portion being used for drugs, while the lower is divided into two sections, one serving as a case for surgical instruments and the other as a receptacle for the doctor's folding bed.

The dust collected from the smoke of some Liege furnaces, burning coal raised from the neighboring mines, produces, when dissolved in hydrochloric acid, a solution from which considerable quantities of arsenic and several other metallic salts may be precipitated. Commenting on this fact, ascertained by M.A. Jorissen, M. Francis Maur asks whether this breathing of arsenic and other minerals in a finely divided state may not account for the singular immunity from epidemics enjoyed by certain industrial districts, such as that of Saint Etienne, and hopes that some mine doctor will throw additional light on the subject. In the meanwhile, it may be suggested that the ventilating effect of the numerous chimneys in iron making and other industrial centers has its due share in constantly driving off the vitiated air and replacing it by fresh quantities of pure air. At any rate, when pestilence was raging in the high and pleasant quarter of Clifton, its inhabitants migrated to the low-lying and not overclean parish of St. Philips, Bristol, where the air is black from the smoke of numerous chimneys, but where also the mortality compared very favorably with that in the fashionable quarter.

A two-speed movable sidewalk, of the Blot, Guyenet and De Mocomble type, is to be used for conveying visitors at the Paris Exposition, says Engineering News. It differs from those of Chicago and Berlin in the reduction of the weight of the moving platform by spacing the driving wheels 127.5 feet apart and using electricity as a motive power. The driving wheels are mounted in the bed of the track and impart motion to a central rail on the under side of the platform. Bearing wheels, spaced about 20 feet apart under this rail, also carry the platform, and the central rail supports one-half the total weight of the platform; small side wheels carry the other half on side tracks. This arrangement enables the platform, which is divided into sections and hinged, to pass around quite sharp curves. The high speed platform, 4 feet 3 inches wide, is supposed to move at the rate of 6½ miles per hour on a 35½-inch gage track; the slow platform is 31½ inches wide, moves at half speed and runs on a 17¾-inch gage track. The whole structure will be elevated on girders carried by cast iron columns, with stations about 656 feet apart. The high speed platform weighs 146 pounds per lineal foot; and with passengers, nearly 400 pounds per foot. The slow speed platform weighs about half this. The track will be about 2½ miles long; the initial motive power is figured at 472 H. P. and the carrying capacity at 38,880 per hour.

The "schlamm," or mud, thrown down from the water of coal washing has hitherto been regarded as worthless, says The Engineering and Mining Journal, except that sometimes a portion of the coal particles it contained have been separated and made of value by a washing process; but Bergassessor Haarmann, of Friedrichsthal, has invented a new method for treating it dry and dividing it into two products, one of which, with low ash content, is distinguished by its granular nature, while the other contains a large proportion of ash and is of the fineness of flour. The former of these two products is, on account of its low ash content, useful for various purposes, and the latter constitutes a fuel quite ready for use in coal dust firing. The method is founded on the circumstances, hitherto lost sight of, that the incombustible constituents of the "schlamm" chiefly consist of clay which was formerly more or less dissolved in the wash water; and on the mud being dried and subjected to a suitable mechanical process, the clay falls into fine dust, while the coal particles, on the contrary, retain their granular nature. The method is carried out by drying the mud and a subsequent fine sifting, which effects a breaking up of the lumps that occur in the dried "schlamm," and a separation into the two products above named. The dust that falls through the sieve has a high ash content, being in the nature of flour, while what remains behind is granular and has a low ash content. It seems to us that this game is hardly worth the candle.