(2) Certain large, heavy, naturally ugly horses kick through sheer viciousness.  In this case, while the current is being given it should be gradually increased in intensity, and the horse’s foot must be seized during its action.  In most cases the passage of a current through such horses (whose mucous membrane is less sensitive) produces only a slightly stupefied and contracted position of the head, accompanied with a slight tremor.  The current must be shut off as soon as the horse’s foot is well in one’s hand, and be at once renewed if he endeavors to defend himself again, as is rarely the case.  It is a mare of this nature that is represented in the annexed figures.

We know that this same system has been applied for bringing to an abrupt standstill runaway horses, harnessed to vehicles; but knowing the effect of a sudden stoppage under such circumstances, we believe that the remedy would prove worse than the disease, since the coachman and vehicle, in obedience to the laws of inertia, would continue their motion and pass over the animals, much to their detriment.—­Science et Nature.

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ESTEVE’S AUTOMATIC PILE.

Mr. Esteve has recently devised a generator of electricity which he claims to be energetic, constant, and always ready to operate.  The apparatus is designed for the production of light and for actuating electric motors, large induction bobbins, etc.

We give a description of it herewith from data communicated by its inventor.

The accompanying cut represents a battery of 6 elements, with a reservoir, R, for the liquid, provided at its lower part with a cock for allowing the liquid to enter the pile.  The vessels of the different elements are of rectangular form.  At the upper part, and in the wider surfaces of each, there are two tubes.  The first tube of the first vessel receives the extremity of a safety-tube, A, whose other extremity enters the upper part of the reservoir, R. This tube is designed for regulating the flow of the liquid into the pile.  When the cock, r, is too widely open, the liquid might have a tendency to flow over the edges of the vessel; but this would close the orifice of the tube, A, and, as the air would then no longer enter the reservoir, R, the flow would be stopped automatically.  The second tube of the first vessel is connected with a lead tube, 1, one of the extremities of which enters the second vessel.  The other tubes are arranged in the same way in the other vessels.  The renewal of the liquids is effected by displacement, in flowing upward from one element over into another; and the liquids make their exit from the pile at D, after having served six times.  The electrodes of the two first elements are represented as renewed in the cut, in order to show the arrangement of the tubes.

[Illustration:  ESTEVE’S AUTOMATIC PILE.]