As electric railway was built on the ice across the river Neva at St. Petersburg, Russia, last winter, and cars crossed in safety for several months. There are few bridges at this point, says the Tramway World of London, and the ice railway did a big business. The river is nearly a mile wide at this point. The trolley poles were set by chopping holes 18 inches deep in the thick ice, and pouring in water around the frames. When the water froze the poles were as firm as if set in the earth.

Information comes from Cairo, Egypt, of interesting scientific discoveries in the Fayum made by the Egyptian geological expedition. Remains of large vertebrate animals of the lower miocene were found, which indicate the early forms of rhinoceros and elephants. A representative of the geological department of the British Museum has gone to examine the remains.

Ensign Nelson, expert in charge of the torpedo station at Fort Royal, has given remarkable testimony before the House Committee on Naval Affairs relative to the merits of submarine torpedo boats, which many have condemned because of the great danger of explosion. He declared that a submarine boat of the Holland type could drive an entire hostile fleet out of a harbor, be-cause the enemy, if wise, would put out to sea to avoid attack which could not be prevented, because it would be delivered entirely out of sight. A fleet dare not approach the harbor near enough to cover the landing of troops or to make effective use of small calibered guns against shore defenses. The moral effect of a submarine boat, he declared, was even greater than its destructive ability. He predicts that the submarine boat is destined to produce as vast a change in naval architecture as that which followed the success of Ericsson's "Monitor," and urges that the United States at once develop a fleet of submarine boats of the latest and best types.

A salt lake, the water containing 25 to 30 per cent salt, is described by the English Consul at Buenos Ayres. This lake lies in the southern portion of the Province of Buenos Ayres, Argentina, near San Bias. The rock-salt deposit underlying the lake is pierced by several springs; a syndicate is now working the deposit by running the water from these springs into banks, allowing it to settle, and then forcing it through iron pipes to the coast, 26 miles off. At the coast the water runs into evaporating pans. The syndicate is now turning out 25,000 tons of salt per annum, but the output could be increased to 100,000 tons. The Bay of San Bias is 800 miles south of Buenos Ayres ; it has a deep channel and sheltered anchorage, and the syndicate is building a pier to facilitate loading.

An Inquest ox a Mummy. - "Our British friends can sometimes do the unconsciously humorous thing to perfection," says the Philadelphia Medical Journal. " They have lately been holding an inquest on a Peruvian mummy. But this 'crowner's quest' was no more funny than the gravity with which the British Medical Journal assures its readers that the coroner did right. The British public have finally awakened to the fact that the coroner should be laughed at, and the mummy has been pronounced dead, because the coroner 'sat on it.' The innocent cause of all the trouble was a Peruvian mummy which some one was sending by express to a museum in Belgium. The unfortunate relic was discovered in a box in a railroad station in Liverpool. It was undoubtedly dead, but the coroner was sent for to certify to the fact. . . . He succeeded in spoiling the mummy; and a lawsuit followed, with big damages." .