In a paper read by Mr. F. S. Greene before the New England Cotton Manufacturers' Association, the claim is made that for power transmission in textile mills ropes are superior either to belting or electricity. The power may, he states, be thus economically transmitted a distance of 500 ft., and the two shafts coupled by the rope need not be in the same line. As compared with belting, a rope pulley is only half to two-thirds the width of a corresponding belt pulley. A rope drive is, moreover, noiseless, and electricity is not generated in the same way as it is with belting, with which constant trouble is experienced under this head in New England cotton mills. In cases in which 200 h. p. or more is to be transmitted, and where the shaft centers are more than 30 ft. apart, rope transmission is, he claims, much cheaper than electrieity or belting. Estimates made for a mill in which a total of 1500 h. p. had to be distributed to three floors showed that the total cost of transmitting the power by ropes would be $4941, by belting $5999, and by electricity $25,400. At need, shafts less than 30 ft. apart can be driven by ropes ; and Mr. Greene quotes a case in which 100 h. p. is transmitted by ropes (with a quarter twist) between shafts only 16 ft. apart and at right angles to each other. In this case, moreover, in order to get the requisite speed in the follower, it was necessary te use pulleys less in diameter than the usual standard minimum of 40 times the thickness of the rope. In fact, the small pulley is only 34 in. in diameter, and on it run ten 1 1/8-in. ropes, the speed being 5150 ft. per minute.

Palm kernels, which are the product of the palm-oil tree, are very important in the life and trade of the native African. They have a varied utility, but are principally used for making an oil called nut oil and a sort of butter called palm butter. Abroad they are used for the manufacture of soap, candles and artificial butter. The finest groves of oil palms are in Liberia at Cape Palmas, where for miles the graceful trees wave their branches. The decline of Liberian coffee has caused some farmers to consider the palm as a possible staple upon which to bestow their future labors.

We of the North are helping to ruin the next generation of Southern pines by lavish use for decorations of the young trees of about two feet high, crowded with the long drooping emerald needles. The little cut-off pine lasts a week or two in a parlor - it took four or five years to grow!