e which always
characterizes a new manufacture, while numbers of them are also due
to the hasty and careless methods of erection adopted in America.
Both these causes may be expected to decrease rapidly in the future,
particularly if the municipalities insist on the mains being placed
underground, instead of being strung on poles in the streets. Mr.
Brown is well-known from his persistent opposition to the alternate
current system; he never misses an opportunity of insisting upon its
dangers, and of comparing it, to its detriment, with the
direct-current system. Now as the alternate system is rapidly
spreading all over London and also in many parts of the kingdom,
this is a question which interests us directly. Are we running
special risks by permitting its establishment? As far as lighting
currents of fifty or one hundred volts are concerned, it certainly
matters little or nothing whether they are direct or alternate, for
neither will produce any serious injury on the human frame. When it
comes to currents of distribution of two thousand volts, then it is
quite conceivable that death is more certain by the alternate
current, but unfortunately it is also fairly certain with the direct
current, so that there is very little to choose between them. A
house in which the fittings were charged to such a potential would
be as dangerous as a battlefield. What is wanted is sufficiently
good workmanship to prevent contact ever being made between the
distributing mains and the service wires, and this there should be
no difficulty in obtaining. Even if a leak should occur the device
of putting the service main to earth at one point will prevent it
doing any harm. Mr. Brown refers to two cases in which men were
killed by contact with a perfectly insulated wire, their death being
caused by the static charge. We feel considerable doubt as to the
possibility of any one being killed by a static charge under these
circumstances; we prefer to believe that the insulator was bad,
probably a mere taping of non-waterproof material. Just as the
death-rate on a railway varies inversely as the perfection of the
signalling appliances, so the fatalities in America from electricity
will decrease as better materials are adopted, and more care is
expended in erection.--_Engineering._

* * * * *

THE MONOLITHIC CHURCH OF ST. EMILION.--About twenty miles to the
north-east of Bordeaux is Libourne, one of the principal t