MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 27 



Rustchuk, and Bucharest, managed this line. As to printing, a lithographic 

 press, at head-quarters, sufficed at lirst for the wants of the service ; but when 

 the siege commenced, General Canrobert found it necessary to issue two or 

 more copies of so many orders, that he procured a complete typographic ap- 

 paratus from Paris. 



Transport. Lastly, Marshal Vaillant tells us of the vast maritime pre- 

 parations not for fighting the Russians but for conveying French armies 

 over the sea, that they might fight the Russians. 



The French imperial navy lent 132 ships to the army for this service; and 

 these ships made 905 voyages, carrying either going or returning 

 270,000 men, 4,300 horses, and 116,000 tons of material. Besides this, the 

 English Admiralty lent eight ships-of-war and forty-two chartered vessels to 

 France, to aid in carrying the enormous military burden. But far larger in 

 number were the merchant-ships directly nolise, or chartered by the French 

 government, amounting to 1264 of all kinds. A fine fleet of sixty-six 

 steamers and twenty-two fast clippers was constantly making to-and-fro 

 voyages during the war ; and in addition to these, there were vessels em- 

 ployed in carrying food and fodder from various parts in Turkey and Asia 

 Minor to the Crimea. Taken in its totality, including all the voyages made 

 by all the men, horses, and materials, there were conveyed by the French 

 government, during a period of two years and a half, 550,000 men, 50,000 

 horses, and 720,000 tons of materiel. 



The marshal adds : " The personnel and the materiel embarked at Mar- 

 seille were brought to that port, in the larger proportion, by^lic line of rail- 

 way stretching from Paris towards the Mediterranean. If that iron road had 

 not existed, the operations of the war would have certainly lost much of 

 their ensemble and their rapidity." 



Here closes our brief notice of this remarkable document, which, it will be 

 seen, relates wholly to that part of the warlike proceedings in which the 

 French Minister of War was concerned, excluding all that came under the 

 Minister of Marine. 



RECENT FRENCH INVENTIONS OF IMPORTANCE. 



The following prizes were awarded last year by the French Societe 

 d'Encouragement pour 1'Industrie Rationale for inventions and improve- 

 ments in manufactures : 



Gold medals were awarded : To M. J. Dubosc for having executed the 

 first portable stereoscope, thus rendering the iise of that instrument ex- 

 tremely easy. Stereoscopes are now sold in France to the amount of 

 several millions of francs. To M. Gue'rin, the inventor of a system of self- 

 acting brakes for railway trains. When the stoker has shut off the steam, 

 and taken the usual precautions for stopping the train, the effect is, that the 

 nearer the carriages are to the tender, the closer they approach each other, 

 so that, while the last and forelast vehicles of the train are still apart, the 

 butters of the first and second have already met, and their shafts are driven 

 further in than those of the third, fourth, etc. This circumstance has been 



