0 Wooden Railways. correspondent.of the - Montreal Gazette gives this interesting account of a wooden . railway now in operation at Clifton, in Northern New York, near the Canada line, and on` which- immense, quantities of iron ore are transported from the Adirondack mines : 2,-.The grading is the same as for an iron ' road, except that , stiffer grades car. be is , cended. The ties are of the ordinary de scription' 'but are not squared on any side, and on the Clifton road are placed at the usual diatance of three feet apart, except' on the trestles, where there are three tree to every two yards. In future, howeier, the engineer proposes to put the three ties: to every two yards, as he proposes running heavier engines. The rails are of maple, six inches by four; but in future their shape will be altered a' , little without increasing the quantity of timber, making.theM three and a halfinchei --- on top, by seven 'lnches deep, so as-to - be better adapted to he increased weiiht-of engines . (fourteen I tons instead of ten). ' Notches are cut in the-round ties to-such a depth es to'keep the bottoth of the rail about two inches from the ground after the road, is ballasted. and the rail projects sufficiently above the notched tieto allow the flange of the wheel to pass, . The rails are fastened to the ties by a couple of hard wood - wedges; driven in opposite directions on the outside of the rail, within the notch. This has the effect of making the whole stmerstructitre one solid mass, without the adtion of any spikes or pins. _ In making . the curies, the fail,itself is, bent to the required shape, so that there is no angularity whatever in- the line of rails._- The trestles are of the simplest description. , They consist:of two upright sticks of square timber, immediately under the rails, let into a transverse stick, which= are braced to the sticks of timber laid lengthwise from one trestle to another, immediately under the 'line of rails, in each direction. i This is further supported by a similar stick of tim ber at each side, from the head of the trestle to the base, in a slanting direction, the whole of which is litinfo a squared log at i the base. The wooden rail is not a new n vention, but Mr.. Hulbert;-:the engineer, has succeeded in making `it 'available without using a particle of iron in the whole struc-c -tare, and has, moreover, -demonstrated that each railways can be used forlong distanees at a moderate cost, and this through corm- , try where an iron line, as ordinarily con- ' stracted, would be practically an engineer ing impossibility. Mr. Hulbert says that he is willing to' contract to lay - the superstrae-, tare of a wooden railway of his own - proved construction at the rate of one thou sand five hundred dollars, - American cur rency, a mile, where maple and hemlobk can be obtained at reasonable rates. -Since any visit I have become so convinced of the extreme usefulness of such linei of railways developing the resources of a new COUll h7,and acting as feeders to, the trunk lines, that I have no hesitation in prophesying that_before manr_yeara we; shall find them running in dtr.vtions' through- the Do= BM - The Vltigan Colliery F , ~[pioalon On the morning , of the 28* of NoveMber, - About nine o'cloc k , a terrible — arplosion of fire damp occurred in - the Arley mine-cif the Eindleygreen collieries, about two .. and a half miles from Leigh and- abcF ut fourteen from Manchester. At the time ofthe accident . upwardsof thre e hundred men were in the pit. The mine is about three hundred yards deep, and is worked with an up and dOWn shaft: %The- niderground manager 4t , as 'at theWiE•rks -at thelime of the explo `slon _which occurred'inst a ft er the men had breakfasted. In.- the immediate vicinity of - the-:eiplosion itself the whole of the men, and" boys were killed or seriously injared. .-There was at oncea rush of those unin ,Jtted to .;" - the pit-eyes, and large numbers were - rescued, suffering only from fright. The injured, about twenty in number, were Tircolight away and at once attended to. The ~.:task of removing the bodies of the killed was necessarily a very 'slow and painftt: one, as the workings took fire. By;_pro o'clock in the afternoon thirty-eight bodies ..,i;i.fere brought to the surface, and a larke 7 , ` number, variously estimated at from forty to eighty, were missing. - The origin of.,the accident is unknown, as the ventilation was said to be excellent. It is suppdsed that some workman must have removed the top from his lamp and that a sudden rush of gas caused the explosion. The at,' mosphere was very heavy at the time. The bodies were in many cases . fearfully ured, rendering identification very diftlaUlt. It is remarkable that all the men igh iF out were yqung men, the eldest' not' being apparently over thirty years of-age. A portion of the wcaltingi - were on fire l rendering it difficult to get at the whole - ef the bodies. The number of those left in the pit this afternoon was unknown. Forty seven persons, it is thought, were killed and ten others severely burned by the explosion. At six a'clock in the afternoon the firemen made an inspection and reported:that all was safe. Both of the firemen were killedi" The workings extend east and west.-- On the east side one hundred'and fifty men worked and on the west sixty or seventy. All on the east aide escaped; nearly all on the west were killed. Several escaped with burns. A few penetrated the ihoke damp and one was restored by artificial respiration; bat fifty-six were suffocated and one has died from his burns. The extremity of thework ings was not reached until:-six hours after the explosion. Fifty-four bodies now lie in the.workings near the Ipit. The Govern inspector has been ddown the pit since noon. <<~:: ~~ti _ . A Man Killed by Bears. , The bayton (Oliki) Journal of Monday says: Captain Worst, of the canal boat-Senti nal, No. 2, met with 'a tragic fate one day last week. Captain W. started from the Junction for a deer hunt, to be absent only a portion the day. He did not return the same evening; and not getting in the next - forenoon,his mea• thought that something was wrong, and started in quest of him. About the middle of the afternoon they found his dead body. He had evidently had a combat with bears, and he had been over. powered and most terribly torn by their fangs. His gun lay a kw feet from his; and the.barrel was bent out of shape, and the stock had bean hammered into frag. ntente, which plainly indicated thatthe eon. filet had been terrific. -A few rods distant away, a large buck was "swung up" against a tree, arid a portion of it had been devoured by bears./.—the tracks indicating the kind of animal which had made the attack on him: It is the most terrible death in the woods that we have heard of for a number of years. The Captain hid evidently bad a very bard fight—the grounds being beaten with the tracks of the combatants for several rods around—and he had died game. The probability is that Captain Worst came upon the ears after they had begun to feast on hick, and in attempting to despatch the ferocious brutes Ahey turned - on Mtn, and proving more than a match. for him,! he .! lost his life in a manner so fearful that it makes one shudder to contemplate the affray. • • • . - • • . . . . • • - . a ; The Theory of Getting' Drunk. Most of thatclass of persons who indulge in tippling are filly acquainted` with the - 1 practice of getting boozy, but are ,unac -1 quainted with the theory of how it is 'done. 1 1 4 their benefit, as well as those who have neierindulgedin the practice, we give the folrowing theory from the North British Review: "At the biginning of - a carouse of a drunkard; alcohol stimulates the action - of the heart, which now sends blood rapidly to the Itings for aeration. A large supply, gt of blood disks conaequentiy reach the brain,- which 'is ' stimulated into activity. The ideas f the drinker7-now flow rapidly—at_ first coherently, but without control; the brain matter wastiatoo rapidly, !and delft.- urn ensues.— Dminglhis time the volatile alcohol-is - Iliffusiiik itself through the sys tem, converting arterial inte-yenotis blood, and 'biding that fluid with a spirit which has a tendency to prev e nt change in the tissues, so that the drun k ar d becomes stu pid, falls off his chair in the stupor "of sleep, or if too far gone, dies of venous apoplexy." ♦' Mlii A Wholesale Poisoner. The Geneva papers sumounce a trial which is destined to create a great sensation in Switzerland. The accused, a nurse, named Seanneret, is charged with poison ing not fewer than nine different persons, whom she had , within the space of six months lieen engaged to attend. The sub stances used were belladonna and antra phine, an extract of the same. - and to obtain them she simulated a partial ' blindness for which they are employed as a remedy. ' The woman appears to have had a monomania of crime, as she neither robbed her victims nor derived any benefit from their death; she is even said to have nursed them with great tenderness. She was at length detect _nd by a French painter named B—,Whose wife she had attended. Madame at . ter showing symptoms of poisolung, recov ered, when the accused,