An invention which is likely to revolutionize the watchmaking industry has been perfected by a Swiss watchmaker, David Perret of Marin, near Neuchatel. It is a watch which goes by electricity. It was severely tested by experts, and it was found that it gained only seven-tenths of a second in five weeks. The expert at the observatory at Neuchatel declares the watch to be equal in precision to an expensive chronometer. The watch resembles an ordinary gentleman's lever, and will run, so it is claimed, fifteen years without being rewound.

In the construction of a municipal electrical generating plant for the city of Geneva, Switzerland, the engineers found themselves confronted with a great difficulty in the constantly-varying water level of the river Rhone. In order to overcome this inconstancy of the water supply, a two-story station was constructed, with two turbines built one above the other on the dynamo shaft. The plant comprises 18 sets of these turbines.

The high price of coal will undoubtedly spur inventors towards perfecting oil burning furnaces for household use.

An important paper has recently been published by Dr. Selim Lemstrom, of Helsingfors, on the use of electricity as a plant fertilizer. His experiments show that for plants growing on arable land of medium quality an increase of 45 per cent, in the crops is obtainable, the better the field is tilled the greater the increase; on poor soil the effect is trifling. Certain plants, such as cabbages and turnips, do not respond to electrical treatment until after being watered. Electricity applied when the sun is shining strongly is almost invariably injurious.

An instance of non-familiarity with simple scientific facts, says Cassier's Magazine, is illustrated by an article that goes the rounds of the press once or twice annually, namely, the story of the electrified house. The article usually states that some one has discovered that everything he touches in his house - the radiators, picture frames, banquet lamps, etc. - give him an electric shock. Hence, he fears that there is some connection between the arc-light wires and the water near his residence. The electric light inspector is therefore summoned, and reports that the wires of his company are intact, and that the electricity must come from another source. It does not dawn on any of the people consulted that the discoverer of the phenomenon is unconsciously performing one of the simplest and oldest of electrostatic experiments, the shuffling of his shoes over the dry carpet raising the potential of his body to several thousand volts, which discharge at every opportunity. One may even get electrical discharges from his knuckles to the brass lock of a handbag which he may be carrying while walking on a stone pavement during cold, dry weather. But, dismissing newspaper science, it is somewhat astonishing, in view of the many ways in which in cold, dry countries electricity is unintentionally developed and manifested by sparking, that the first knowledge concerning this phenomenon did not come to the ancients in this way rather than by the attraction of light substances by amber. The explanation of this, however, may be that the scientists of bygone days did not reside in cold, dry climates.