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Automatic-Electric Warning Against Floods. A VALUABLE deviCT* to automati- cally notify the inhabitants along river tanks and low districts of an increase in the water-courses of the regions higher up, and to warn in time against inundation has t>een constructed by Mr. Montis Otto, of Saint Raphael (Yar), France. It is thus described in a commun- ication to La Xature : • In any public buildfdg, say the mayor's office, or a schoolhousa. in each commune, he places a gaU^inoyjeteV'so arranged as to indicate automatitall)\t eyery moment, day an$l night, the water-leve^as it exists in the upper district, say at a distance of 30 miles (or more, if necessary). The galvanome- ter he uses is an ordinary Mariel Duprcz, with magnet. Referring to the sketch be- low, the movable needle, AB, runs around a sector whose divisions correspond to the various heights of the waters. The frame of the galvanometer, represented in section on the sketch, between the two poles of the magnet, N and S, is inclined sufficiently so as to allow a wider play for the movements of the needle. On the glass face of the ap- paratus is another movable needle. J>K, which may be placed at any division requir- ed of the graduated-Sector. As the level of '64 the waters rises, so soon as the indicator- needle,^AP, strikes against the end (bent at a right angle) of the needle PE, so soon does it close the circuit of a local pile which has a l>ell inserted at C, and this logins to ring. This takes place only in case of extreme danger. A resistance is arranged at S in the general circuit which is intended to regulate or check the amplitude of the de- viations in the galvanometer. To protect the galvanometer from the effects of light- ning, the inventor has arranged a lightning- rod of fusible wire with points. The next arrangement is one that enables anyl>ody to read constantly the height of the water in a river or torrent situated at a dis- tance from the observer. A hollow iron post is placed upright in the bed of the river or stream; and the line wire ends on an in-