There is a great difficulty to explain the vast accumulations of clay deposits on the ocean bed, and it has been suggested that some minute organisms may produce these deposits, as others give us carbonate of lime.  Is there not a very great probability of some of the apparently insoluble rocky formations being answerable for these accumulations?

We must not forget the peculiar changes which such an apparently stable substance as feldspar undergoes when disintegrated and exposed to the chemical action of sea water.  As these deposits contain both sodium and potassium, our chemical operations must provide for the analytical results; in other respects the analysis can be proceeded with according to the operator’s analytical knowledge.

Few operators are aware of the usefulness of an ordinary deep sea grapnel rope, as used for cable work, in recovering specimens of the fauna of any locality.  The grapnel rope should be left down for a few months, so that the denizens of the deep may get used to it and make it their place of residence and attachment.  The stench caused by their decomposition, unless the rope be kept in water, when hauled up will be in a few days intolerable, even to an individual with a sea-going stomach.  I tried several chemical solutions for preserving specimens thus recovered, but nothing answered so well as the water itself drawn up from the same depth as the rope was recovered from.—­Chem.  News.

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THE SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

ARCHITECTS AND BUILDERS EDITION

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This is a Special Edition of the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, issued monthly—­on the first day of the month.  Each number contains about forty large quarto pages, equal to about two hundred ordinary book pages, forming, practically, a large and splendid MAGAZINE OF ARCHITECTURE, richly adorned with elegant plates in colors and with fine engravings, illustrating the most interesting examples of modern Architectural Construction and allied subjects.

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No other building paper contains so many plans, details, and specifications regularly presented as the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN.  Hundreds of dwellings have already been erected on the various plans we have issued during the past year, and many others are in process of construction.

Architects, Builders, and Owners will find this work valuable in furnishing fresh and useful suggestions.  All who contemplate building or improving homes, or erecting structures of any kind, have before them in this work an almost endless series of the latest and best examples from which to make selections, thus saving time and money.