red
from a speed of twenty to three or four miles an hour, probably the whole
of the passengers would have been crushed between the two engines. The
passengers, therefore, owed their safety to the excellent brake-power
which was at command. The excuse offered by the driver of the passenger
train for turning the engine backwards was the shape of the reversing
screw, which was of a construction not commonly used on the Midland line,
though many of the company's engines were so fitted. The fireman had
also his apology for making the same oversight. He said he was at the
time stooping down to adjust the injector. Major Marindin, though
admitting that the men were experienced, careful, and sober, refuses to
accept either of these excuses; but he can supply no better reason
himself for the amazing oversight they committed. The only satisfactory
part of the report is that in which the working of the brake mechanism is
spoken of. The passenger train had the Westinghouse brake fitted to all
the carriages, and such was its efficiency that, had it extended to the
engine and tender as well, Major Marindin believes the accident would
have been entirely prevented."

REMARKABLE MEMORY FOR SOUNDS.

Among strange mental feats the strangest perhaps yet recorded are the
following singular feats of memory for sound, related in the _Scientific
American_. In the city of Rochester, N. Y., resides a boy named Hicks,
who, though he has only lately removed from Buffalo to Rochester, has
already learned to distinguish three hundred locomotive engines by the
sound of their bells. During the day the boy is employed so far from the
railway that he seldom hears a passing train; but at night he can hear
every train, his house being near the railroad. To give an idea of his
wonderful memory for sounds (and his scarcely less wonderful memory for
numbers also) take the following cases. Not long ago young Hicks went to
Syracuse, and while there, he, hearing an engine coming out of the
round-house, remarked to a friend that he know the bell, though he had
not heard it for five years: he gave the number of the engine, which
proved to be correct. Again, not long since, an old switch-engine, used
in the yards at Buffalo, was sent to Rochester for some special purpose.
It passed near Hicks' house, and he remarked that the engine was number
so and so, and that he had not heard the bell for six years. A boarder
in the house ran to the railr