11 
President of the Association, the Duke of Northumberland. She 
is capable of carrying thirty people beside the crew, her speed is 
about eight knots an hour, and from full speed ahead she can be 
brought up in thirty-two seconds, and way can be got on her again 
in four seconds. She is stationed at Harwich, and is likely to afford 
invaluable aid in cases where an ordinary life-boat would be useless. 
A new scheme for a Channel Tunnel has been devised by a 
talented young French engineer, M. Bunau Varilla, who claims that 
it can be easily constructed, finished in five years, rendered abso- 
lutely safe against danger in times of international warfare, and 
that it would only cost the trifling sum of sixteen million sterling. 
This scheme, however, does not appear to offer any advantage over 
that suggested by Sir KE. Watkin. 
Recent explorations in the valley of the Seille, near Metz, have 
brought io light some interesting specimens of pre-historic brick- 
work, or briquetage, as it is called. Beneath the remains of several 
Roman villas have been discovered large masses of this briquetage, 
which were evidently thrown upon the marshy ground as founda- 
tions for the Roman buildings. As no tzace of Roman or Celtic 
remains have been discovered among or beneath the brickwork, the 
Abbe Paulus, who is deeply versed in these subjects, considers that 
it is evidently the work of the primitive inkabitants of the country, 
namely of pre-historic man, and that it was made by hin, partly 
for foundations for the lake dwellings and also for salines, for the 
manufacture of salt. There is good reason to believe that the 
marshy land was in those days a lake. ‘The bricks are of various 
colours, red, yellow, green, or black, and of different sizes, varying 
from ten to thirty centimetres in length, and from three to seven 
in width. Some are smooth, some rough, as though from the 
markings of the straw on which they were laid when soft, while 
others still bear the marks of their maker’s fingers, and im some 
cases they even show the markings of the skin. All such discoveries 
which tend to throw light on these long past ages, must always 
afford the keenest interest to the scientific and enquiring mind. 
The coal field in our neighbourhood is a subject of vast import- 
ance, not only to ourselves, but to the world at large, for with the 
increasing demands upon our coal supply, not only for fuel and gas, 
but for purposes of machinery it must sooner or later be exhausted. 
It is estimated that the annual consumption of coal is, for each 
inhabitant in England, seven thousand four hundred pounds, in 
Belgium, four thousand two hundred pounds, in Germany three 
thousand pounds, and in France one thousand five hundred and 
sixty pounds, wood and charcoal in that country being largely used 
in place of coal. It is an interesting fact in connection with the 
discovery of coal in Kent, that more than a quarter of a century 
