inder by
railway and steam-boat. There were six foreign mail-routes on which
the annual transportation was estimated at 615,206 miles. The gross
receipts of the post-office department for the year amounted to
6,786,493 dollars, being an increase of nearly a million over the
preceding year. If, after this, we can only get Ocean Penny Postage,
we will give the republican postmaster work to do that shall add some
score of pages to his report.

You will perhaps remember my telling you, some time ago, of the
discussion that had been going on in the United States respecting a
prime meridian. Something has now come of it. The committee appointed
by Congress to consider the subject, have recommended 'that the
Greenwich zero of longitude should be preserved for the convenience of
navigators; and that the meridian of the National Observatory--at
Washington--should be adopted by the authority of Congress as its
first meridian on the American continent, for defining accurately and
permanently territorial limits, and for advancing the science of
astronomy in America.' This decision, though it may disappoint those
who consider it derogatory to the national honour to reckon from the
meridian of Greenwich, is nevertheless the true one. In connection
with it, the Americans intend to bring out a nautical almanac.

Another topic from the same quarter is, that Professor Erni of Yale
College has been making an interesting series of experiments on
fermentation--a process of which the original cause has never yet been
satisfactorily explained, and is still a moot-point with chemists.
They tell us it is one by which complex substances are decomposed into
simpler forms, as some suppose, by chemical action; others, by
development of fungi, different in different substances. Among the
experiments, it was observed that the yeast of cane-sugar solution
produced no fermentation whatever when poisoned with a small quantity
of arsenious acid; with oil of turpentine, and creasote, similar
negative results were obtained. The introduction of cream-of-tartar
along with the arsenic neutralised its effect, but not so with the
other two; and, singularly enough, the appearance of the liquor always
shewed when the poisoning was complete; 'the nitrogenous layer on the
cell-membrane seeming to have undergone a change similar to that
produced by boiling.' Judging from the results, Professor Erni
believes 'that alcoholic fermentation is caused by the development