s
for the working-classes--3,000,000 of the sum being set apart for
Paris--and has offered 5000 francs for the best design. If such works
as these continue, we shall soon cease to hear that enough is not done
for the working-classes; and they will have, in turn, to shew how much
they can do for themselves.

A portable electric telegraph has lately been introduced on some of
the French railways, by which, in case of accident, the conductors may
communicate with the nearest stations. It is all contained in a single
box, the lower portion of which contains the battery, the upper, the
manipulator and signal apparatus. When required to be used, one of the
wires is hooked on to the wires of the telegraph, and the other
attached to an iron wedge thrust into the earth. It answers so well,
that the directors of the Orleans line have provided thirty of their
trains with the portable instruments. In connection with this, I may
tell you that Lamont of Munich, after patient inquiry, has come to the
conclusion, that there is a decennial period in the variations of the
magnetic declination; it increases regularly for five years, and
decreases as regularly through another five. If it can be discovered
that the horizontal intensity is similarly affected in a similar
period, another of the laws of terrestrial magnetism will be added to
the sum of our knowledge.

NATIVITY AND PARENTAGE OF MARSHAL MACDONALD, DUKE OF TARENTUM.

M. de Lamartine having made a mistake in his _History of the
Restoration_, in describing Marshal Macdonald as of Irish extraction,
it may be worth while to state what really was the parentage of that
highly respectable man.

When Prince Charles Stuart had to voyage in an open boat from the isle
of South Uist in the Hebrides to Skye, he was guided and protected, as
is well known, by Miss Flora Macdonald. On that occasion, Flora had
for her attendant a man called Neil Macdonald, but more familiarly
Neil Macechan, who is described in the _History of the Rebellion_ as a
'sort of preceptor in the Clanranald family.' This was the father of
Marshal Macdonald. He remained more or less attached to the fugitive
prince during the remainder of his wanderings in the Highlands, and
afterwards joined him in France, under the influence of an
unconquerable affection for his person. It was thus that his son came
to be born abroad.

Neil Macdonald, though a man of humble rank, had received the
education proper for a prie