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Globe, Volume IV, Issue 330, 3 July 1875, Page 3

The working of deep coal-mines (mentioned in last Month, March) would appear to be facilitated by a method of raising coal by atmospheric pressure, which has been tried for some time in the Oreuzot mining district in France. An air-tight iron tube is fitted from top to bottom within the shaft of the mine. In this tube a piston works. To this piston a cage is attached, in which the tubs of coal to be raised are placed. Air is then admitted beneath the piston, and it rises to top with the coal ; and at the same time more than seventy thousand cubic feet of foul air are discharged from the mine. Valves and doors are made in the tube for regulating the supply of air, and running the tubs in and out: and it will be understood that the same apparatus which raises and lowers the tubs will also raise and lower the miners. And we need scarcely point out that for each discharge of foul air from the mine, there is a corresponding inrush of fresh air from the surface. The “ Transactions of the North of England Institute of Mining Engineers,” vol 23, contains full particulars of this important mechanism, with diagrams. It seems almost incredible that the long heavy ropes and the hauling machinery can be dispensed with. During the cruise of the Challenger in August last eleven natives of Api, who had been working a three years’ term in Fiji, were conveyed gratuitously to their home. They were put on shore at Api, and Professor Wyville Thomson and some of the officers landed, but did not venture far from the boats, because of the menacing look of the natives, who were almost entirely naked, and bore a very savage and forbidding aspect. “ One of them,” says Professor Thomson, “ was manifestly greatly superior to the others, and appeared to exercise a considerable influence over them. He wore trousers, and a shirt, and a felt hat, and could speak English fairly. He recognised me at once as having seen me at the sugar-plantation in Queensland, where he had been for the nsual three years’ engagement, and showed me, with great pride, a note from his former employer, saying that the bearer was anxious to return to his service, and that he would willingly pay hiti passage-money and all expenses in case of his being given a passage to Brisbane. I had been paying some attention to the South Sea labor question, and had formed a very strong opinion of the value to the inhabitants of these islands of the opportunity given them by this demand for labor, of testing their capacity to enter into and mix with the general current of working-men. and thereby possibly avoid extermination ; and I was greatly pleased to see the result in this instance.” Some of our readers may feel interested in this incident, as an example of the favorable side of the labor question;