Why, American engineers have scarcely yet been able to organize themselves into an association for mutual advancement in their profession, much less to give the reading public the benefit of their experience and labors! This fact alone ought, of itself, to satisfy _Engineering_ that no such journal could profitably exist in this country. Whenever our American engineers are ready to support such a journal, there will be no difficulty in finding a publisher.
_Engineering_, in its casual reference to the various technical journals of America, omits to name our leading scientific monthly, but introduces with just commendation a venerable cotemporary, now upwards of three score years of age. Now, it is no disparagement of this really modest monthly to say, that perhaps there are not sixty hundred people in the States who know it, even by name; and so far as the use of "scissors and paste" are made available in our technical journals, we venture the assertion that the editorial staff expenses of the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN are as great, if not greater, than those of _Engineering_. The question, however, is not so much one of original outlay, but which of the two journals gives most for the money. In this very essential particular, and with no intention to depreciate the value of _Engineering_, we assert, with becoming modesty, that the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN occupies a position which _Engineering_ will never be able to attain.
When people boast of extraordinary successes in processes the details of which are kept profoundly hidden from public scrutiny, and when the evidences of success are presented in the doubtful form of specimens which the public has no means of tracing directly to the process, the public is apt to be skeptical, and to express skepticism often in not very complimentary terms.
For a considerable time, the public has been treated to highly-colored accounts of a wonderful metallurgic process whereby the best iron and steel were said to be made, from the very worst materials, almost in the twinkling of an eye. This process has been called after its assumed inventor, or discoverer, the "Sherman Process." The details of the process are still withheld, but we last week gave an extract from an English contemporary, which throws a little light upon the subject.