According to cable dispatches from Gibraltar, the new battleship "Neptune" has recently made a test of a new system of aiming the main battery, which has been originated by Percy Scott, the father of the modern system of target firing. It is stated that while the "Neptune" was steaming at 13-knots she fired two broadsides in quick succession at a target moving at the same speed at a distance of 8,000 yards, and that every shot went home. The aiming and firing of the guns is done entirely from the conning tower, the duties of the gun crews being merely to load the guns. If this be true, Scott has made an advance second only in importance to his famous improvements of five or six years ago.
At Douen, in France, on the River Seine, there is a bridge that is a sort of aerial ferry. In order to avoid interference with shipping at this point, it was determined to place no structure in the stream or near its surface. Instead of a bridge in any of the ordinary forms, a horizontal flooring, sustained by steel towers and suspension cable, was stretched across the river at an elevation of 167 feet. On this flooring run electrically-driven rollers, from which is suspended, by means of steel ropes, a car that moves at the level of the wharves on the river banks. The car is 36 feet wide and 42 feet long, and is furnished, like a ferryboat, with accommodations for carriages and foot passengers. The ropes that carry the hanging car are interlaced diagonally in such a manner that the support is rigid, and a swinging motion is avoided.
To secure sound rock for the entire length of the Catskill aqueduct tunnel it has been necessary to go down over one thousand feet below the river surface. Investigation was made by wash borings, by diamond drills operated from scows on the river, and by inclined diamond borings started from the bottom of shafts sunk 300 feet on each side of the river. One of these inclined holes was over 3,000 feet long. The inclination was determined by sinking the shaft glass tubes filled with hydrofluoric acid, which etched a true horizontal line on the interior surface.
WITH THE FUNNY FELLOWS.
Shockit—Does learning the bicycle require any particular application? Sprockitt—No; none in particular. But arnica is about as good as anything.
Visitor—What makes you so ugly, Tommy? Don't you love your baby brother? Tommy (viciously)—Well, I did till somebody came in and said he looked like me.
Waiter (seeing dissatisfaction on guest's face)—Wasn't the dinner cooked to suit you, sir? Guest—Yes; all but the bill. Just take that back and tell them to boil it down a little.
"George, I wish you'd leave this little package at the express office." Me carry a bundle? I guess not. Besides, I've got to lug both my tires and a handle bar down to the repair shop.
Lawyer—I'll defend you, Sambo, in this bigamy case, but what defense have you? Sambo—I kin prove an alibi. Lawyer—An alibi? How will you prove it? Sambo—By two odder wives whut I had.