The Sugar-Beet in Virginia and North Carolina. Professor Page, of the University of Virginia, reports experiments on the growth of the sugar-beet. "The poorest lands, treated with about four hundred pounds of superphosphate of lime per acre have produced beets richest in sugar, and imported seeds have given beets richer in sugar than the native." The sugar in the crops of 1878 varied from 9.3 to 13.6 per cent.

Dr. Ledoux, director of the experiment station at Chapel Hill, N. C., in a report of 50 pages, summarizes the history of the sugar-beet industry in this country, gives results of experience in Europe, and reports results of a large number of experiments on the growing of the beets in North Carolina in 1878. Of the samples grown in different parts of the state, five gave from 10.2 to 11.5 per cent. "Of the remaining sixteen lots, more than three fourths go over 5 per cent.-by no means a very bad showing."

THE DISPOSAL OF THE SEWAGE OF CITIES.

Experience in England.

Dr. Voelcker sums up the results of experience in the disposal of sewage in England as follows:

"1. In my judgment, the most economical plan to dispose of town-sewage is to carry it, if possible, bodily far enough into the open sea to destroy any chance of its being brought back again by the tide.

"2. When sewage cannot be taken out into the sea, and land fit for downward intermittent filtration can be acquired, the sewage, partially clarified by subsidence, may be dealt with partly in the way of ordinary irrigation, with a view of realizing a profit in growing Italian rye-grass and other crops, and partly by way of concentrated or downward intermittent filtration, with a view of getting rid of the excess of sewage for which the sewage farmers cannot find a profitable use.

"3. When such land cannot be procured, recourse should be had to the purification of sewage by chemical precipitating agents.

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4. Town - sewage, in my opinion, far from being a valu

able agricultural commodity, is a nuisance which can only in exceptional cases be turned to profitable account. It cannot, therefore, be reasonably expected that the agriculturist should have to pay the costs which the disposal of sewage entails, and which ought to be defrayed by the rate-payers, who enjoy the luxury and comfort of a system of waterclosets and thorough town-drainage."

The Sewage of Paris.

The sewage of Paris (which includes only part of the ref use of water-closets, that from many houses being taken to cesspools and carted off), amounting to some 73,000,000 gallons daily, is taken from the city sewers to Asniers, in the suburbs, where about one third is now used for irrigation, and the rest let into the Seine. The irrigation by this means of some thousand acres on the peninsula of Gennevilliers is the beginning of an attempt, thus far very successful, to prevent the pollution of the river and utilize the material for agriculture. The water is pumped up some twenty to thirty feet, and carried, by gravity, over the land, the distribution being accomplished by ditches. The water is completely purified. Garden crops are raised of great size and the best quality in the market. The rent of the lands supplied with sewage has increased fourfold. The expense of the enterprise was borne by the city. Sanitarians and agriculturists are alike gratified with the outcome.

ENGINEERING.

By WILLIAM H.WAHL, Ph.D.,
PHILADELPHIA, PA.

THE JETTY WORKS AT THE SOUTH PASS OF THE

MISSISSIPPI,

from all that can be reliably ascertained, do not appear to have effected much, if any, improvement in the condition of the channel, by reason of the work done in 1878, over that of 1877. This will appear from the following tabulation of the surveys of the government engineer appointed to inspect the work, and whose reports we present from the 28th of July, 1877—when the jetty work was sufficiently advanced to manifest a decided improvement in the navigability of the channel-to the 13th of July, 1878, since which time no reports have appeared, the epidemic of yellow fever presumably having forced the temporary suspension of the work.

REPORTS OF GOVERNMENT ENGINEER. CAPT. M. R. BROWN FROM THE JETTIES.

The jetties have now been completed, and their permanent effects in scouring a channel will not long be a matter of

doubt. Before another year we shall doubtless be able to record the success or failure of the experiment which Captain Eads has pushed forward with such admirable perseverance and energy. The act of Congress relating to this work, it will be remembered, provided that the same should be undertaken at the risk of the contractor; and that payments should be made of specified sums in instalments as rapidly as a channel of specified depth and width should be obtained the completion of the work being based on the obtaining of a channel thirty feet in depth and two hundred feet in width, for maintaining which permanently a specified yearly payment is also provided for.

THE SUTRO TUNNEL,

the approaching completion of which we noted in last year's Record, together with a brief outline of the character and magnitude of the work, reached the Comstock Mines during the past year, connection with the 1650-foot level of the Savage Mine having been effected on the night of July 8, 1878. Much remains to be done before the objects of its projectors will be in condition to be realized; but its beneficial effects in improving the drainage and ventilation of the deep workings, and in reducing their temperature, which have been very serious and expensive drawbacks to the profitable exploitation of the Comstock Mines, are said to be already very plainly manifest. It will no doubt soon be settled in what way it can be made most useful, and whether the advantages gained by draining, ventilating, and cooling the deep workings will or will not be seriously impaired by choking it with trains of cars, as it is thought will be the case, if the ores are to be taken through the tunnel to be concentrated and reduced at Carson, where the mouth of the tunnel is located, and to which place the Tunnel Company contemplate the removal of most of the mining and milling operations now carried on at Virginia City. Under any circumstances, however, the value of the tunnel is conceded on all hands; and the editor of the Engineering and Mining Journal even affirms that "there can be no doubt, that in one way or another, it will be the salvation of the deep workings on the Comstock lode.".

THE INTEROCEANIC CANAL.

The interest which the subject of the canalling of the American Isthmus has lately excited in France, and to which we referred in brief in our Record of 1877, appears to have culminated during the past year in the formal ratification of a contract between the government of the United States of Columbia and the International Committee for the Construction of a Canal across the Isthmus of Darien. This appears to be in keeping with all precedent upon this subject-first a survey, then the location of a "favorable" route, then some enthusiasm, followed by the ratification of a treaty with unlimited concessions, then some more enthusiasm, and nothing

more.

The contract above referred to specifies that the canal shall be completely neutral and open to the commerce of the world, and that it shall be completed before the year 1895. The concessions embrace the free use of all building materials on the Isthmus, the grant of a strip of land two hundred yards wide on both sides of the projected line, and the right to select, at pleasure, one million acres of land in addition to the foregoing grant. The details of the project that have as yet appeared are, in the main, the same as published in last year's Record-the line favored by the present projectors being that located by Lieutenant Wyse of the French Navy, starting on the Atlantic side from the Point of Gande, along the Tupisa and Tiati valleys, to the river Tuyra, close to where it discharges into the Gulf of San Miguel, on the Pacific side. The total length of this line would be about seventy miles. Another and shorter route was located by the Wyse party, as would appear from the proceedings of the late meeting of the International Congress of Commercial Geography, held at the Trocadero Palace in Paris, of which no details have been published, save that its entire length would not exceed 50 kilometers (31.05 miles). Both of these routes, it is further stated, will require tunnels of 14 and 7 kilometers (4.34 and 8.68 miles) respectively. It would appear to be probable that this last route is not far from being identical with that from the Gulf of San Blas (on the Atlantic) to the mouth of the Bayano (on the Pacific), which has been steadily urged by the veteran engineer Traut