This was in accordance with the instructions to our commissioner, who was told that an indispensable preliminary to the negotiation would, "of course, be an acknowledgment on the part of the Paraguayan Government of its liability to the company."

All the preliminaries had been hitherto carried on under the superintendence of Major Douglas, professor of engineering at the Military Academy at West Point; but, owing to some disagreements, Mr. J.B. Jervis was the engineer eventually selected to carry out the undertaking.

This we know now is not an important matter, and it is sufficient to say that the first preliminary is a thinning down of the horn of the quarter with the rasp over the position occupied by the cartilage.

Lord Stanhope declared, in the name of England, that no peace was possible, unless its preliminary were the dismissal of the pernicious minister.

The school of Treitschke looked for the establishment of a German world-empire, and held that the essential preliminary to this scheme would be the overthrow of France and England.

A necessary preliminary for the successful working of the convoys was a central organization at the Admiralty.