The Press.
London, England, 1853-09-03 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

cessary than most new-comers possess. The holes are now
sunk to greater depths than when the workings began, and
are rather mines in miuiature than mere excavatil els. A
hole, seventy or eighty feet deep, or even BM, may be
called a shaft; when the vein is round, side galleries are
driven under it, and the bed containing the gold is re-
moved by working from beneath it. These veins are
followed, if rich in metal, as far as it can be done with
safety, without regard to the limits of the claim on the
surface. It is often a keen competition between the
parties in two neighbouring holes which can sink to the
gold vein first, so as to undermine the other completely,
and clear out the precious deposit before his rival gets
down to it. It may be imagined what chance a party of
London shopmen or clerks have against neighbours of the
hard-handed sort to whom the work is familiar. In works
of this depth some rough kind of machinery is also re-
quited,—boarding for the shaft and supports for the side
galleries. For anything but surface work same skill and
a little capital are necessary ; the best organised parties
now generally include • carpenter and blacksmith; and
those who come out thinking that mere digging, as the
term is generally understood, will do, will be grievously dis-
appointed. But when a great `find' is made, the
brilliancy of the result blinds those at a distance to the
laborious nature of the process, and the rush to the gold-
fields continues. A little experience cools the ardour of
the new-comers considerably, and both in Melbourne and
Sydney numbers of persona arc to be found who have re-
turned in despair to do what they had better have done at
finit,—resort to ordinary labour for a living. Those who
know a trade, the skilled workman or mechanic, will make
high wages, and unless he takes to drinking—the great
peril—will do well. But the condition of the many edu-
cated men, the weak gentilities, clerks, accountants, shop-
men, and those of half or no professions, who, having no
other resources, have failed at the diggings, is pitiable in
the extreme. There are university graduates in the colony
breaking stones on the road, and dashing men upon
town' driving drays. If extremely lucky they may get
appointed to the police; but, if they cannot descend to
actual work, they are in danger of starvation.
The true gold-mines are the public-houses at Melbourne
and the several diggings ; the publicans make large and
rapid fortunes, and thousands of pounds a►e freely given
for the goodwill of a house of the lowest class—the lower,
indeed, the better, for in them greater profits are made
than in the respectable hotels. The diggers frequently
give their gold to the landlord, drink it out, and go back to
the fields as poor MK they came. If they deposit it in a
bank, the simplest forms of business are a puzzle to them;
in some cases the proffered pass-book has been indignantly
refused, under an impression that it is something equivalent
to a convict's tick-.' 'leave. It is calculated that a large
Melbourne lsu►ks will never be

amount of gold in the
claimed, the depositors having drunk themselves to death,
or died by accident or disease at the mines, where casualties
are by no means rare. Those who save their earnings, to
invest them in land or business, are in the minority, the
prudent or educated; but fortune is capricious, and the
luckiest are not always the most deserving.
The Victoria gold-helds continue to produce the greatest
duantity of the metal, and have drawn away most of the
iggers from the northern province. There is a sameness
in the accounts from all the fields: reports of the greater
productiveness of certain spots, and the invariable rush to
them from others, complaints of the enormous prices of
provisions and forage, anti the uon-arrival of the post, form
the staple of news. The roads are in a terrible state, and
will be worse as the winter comes on ; in the same fWaSOII
last year, 1001. per ton was paid for the eitruisge of goods
front Melbourne to the gold•tields, and even the diggers
regard with apprehension the prices provisions are likely
to reach within the next few months.
(bold has unhinged every industrial pursuit, and at the
diggings money has almost lost its value. Governmunt
are pitying, at liendigo, KR for every 'bound of low for
the horses of the escort and police; cats were V. .ss. a
bushel; bran, 16s. the 101 b.; 10a. was the cost of shoving
a horse, and :Ms. a night was charged fin livery."

HOLYHEAD HARBOITR OF REFUGI4'..

MN recent transit of her Majesty through Holy-
head, en route to Ireland, has directed attention to
the progress already effected toward' the completion
of that grand national undertaking, the Holyhead
Harbour of Refuge, and the means that have been
adopted for its accomplishment.
As the most direct route from London to 'Dublin,
the passage rid Holyhead has always engaged the
attention of Government, and, before the introduc-
tion of railroads, they bad caused to be formed one
of the finest mail-coach roads in the kingdom. This
great work, executed by Telford, in the beginning of
the present century, was considered his chef-
u rre, with the graceful suspension-bridge
spanning the Menai Straits, and the road terminating
in Holyhead, at what is now called the Old Harbour,
from whence sailing-packets carrying the mails
then took their departure direct for Kingstown.
The next road constructed to the port with the
object of shortening the distance between the two
capitals was an iron one, and Stephenson constructed
the now world-known Britannia Tubular-bridge,
through which the mails and passengers from
London pass at a level of 100 feet above the tide,
and then across the IFland of Anglesca to Holyhead
Harbour, where the company's and mail steam-
packets are waiting to receive them, and 44 hours of
sea passage, for the 04 miles intervening, land them
in safety in Ireland.
The increasing importance of this station, toge-
ther with its applicability, induced the Board of

SATURDAY,

Admiralty, at the suggestion of their engineer, Mr.
Itendel, to select this spot for the formation of one
of the national harbours of refuge, and this work is
now being carried out there with a speed anti
activity, aided by appliance of steam and machinery,
which the science of the present day has developed,
in a manner positively surprising.
The harbour was commenced in 1840, and is
intended to include a total area of 300 acres, two-
thirds of thatspace having a minimum depth of seven
fathoms at low water. Accommodation will thus be
provided for about 400 vessels of all classes, including
70 men-of-war as large as the Duke of Wellington.
The north or great breakwater will be 5,000 feet
long and 170 feet wide, and of this immense work
4,00) feet have already been completed to low-water
mark-3,500 feet of it being from 14 to 15 feet above
high water. The depth at low water thus tilled up
is from 45 to 48 feet ; and some idea may be formed
of the magnitude of this mole from the fact that the
stonework which surmounts it is about 80 feet above
the foundation. The smaller or eastern breakwater,
which protects the harbour on the landward side,
will be 2,1(M) feet long, and 1,000 feet of it have
already been formed, in a depth of 30 feet at low
water, and to a width of 100 feet. Since the works
were begun, 2,400,000 tons of stone, in blocks vary.
ing in weight from 10 tons downward, have been de-
posited in the sea; and the rate at which this gigantic
operation is carried on is said to be from 22,0(M) to
27,000 tons per week, and from 4,000 to 5,000 tons
per day.
. The method adopted by Mr. Itendel for carrying
out this breakwater is by means of a timber staging
of five roads, 40 feet above the water, and 150 feet
wide, supported on piles 80 feet long, which piles
remain buried in the bank of stone as the work
advances. The loaded stone-waggons are taken
down these five roads by locomotive engines, then
tilted, discharging their contents, each of from eight
to ten tons of stone, through the staging into the sea,
forming a bank of nibble•stone, from► the bottom
upon which the piles rest to above the surface of the
water. Whole trains of waggons can thus be made
to deposit simultaneously, and with a rapidity and
certainty that no other system would admit of. The
staging is constantly kept in advance of the work
by means of cranes upon the stage itse:f, which
lifts the piles (80 feet in length) f'ro►u the water till
they become upright ; they are then properly adjusted
in their place by the aid of a lilliputian screw• steamer,
(0) feet long, when the framing and roads are then
placed upon them, and rails laid to receive the wag-
gons; the discharged waggons are again drawn up
to the quarries for a fresh supply of stone, and the
movement from the quarries to the end of the staging
goes on continually. This five-road timber stage of
the north pier, as above described, has now advanced
4,000 feet to sea; and the length of breakwater
already formed has afforded shelter to hundreds of
vessels for the last three winters, and 00 to 80 sail
at a time of wind-bound vessels may now occasion-
ally be seen anchored within the area of the new
harbour.
In order to obtain so large and unprecedented a
supply of rock, blasting upon a large scale has been
introduced, and at the foot of the mountain called
Holyhead Mountain (which is of a hard schistose
quartz rock) quarries have been opened and formed,
which, for extent, height of face (about 200 feet),
and yield of stone, are certainly unparalleled. Fifty
or sixty shafts and galleries are sunk or driven
into the rock, which is of so hard and impenetrable
a nature that only one foot upon an average can be
driven in twenty-four hours by the three relays of
miners, who continually go on driving day and night.
After the chambers or galleries are completed, two
or three of them are sometimes discharged simul-
taneously with charges of gunpowder varying from
3,00 lbs. to 10,000 lbs. ; the instantaneous ignition
of which is brought about by means of the galvanic
battery, and the result set: free at once from 30,000
to 50,000 tons of rock. About 20,000 lbs. of gun-
powder, or 10 tons, are thus expended weekly, in
large and small blasts.
In the quarries appears the largest amount of
activity of any part of this great work-50 moveable
cranes (some with steam-power) for raising the
stone, 200 to 300 wrought-iron waggons for conveying
it, N locomotives, and about 50 horses for the move-
ment of it—these, together with a staff of men on
the work of about 1,400, are daily employed by the
contractors in pressing forward to its completion this
great national undertaking.
The average daily progress of this breakwater is
stated to be, upon comparison, no less than 250
times more rapid than that of the Plymouth Break-
water, constructed early in the century, and with no
greater practical difficulties to surmount. The ex-
pense is also very largely reduced. Under the pre-
sent contracts, Holyhead Harbour is to be completed
for 800,000 t, of which about one-half has been
already expended. This also includes some extensive
purchases of laud in the vicinity.
The once small town of Holyhead, situated in a
remote corner of Anglesea, is thus, year by year,

1

SEPTEMBER 3, 1853.

becoming an increasing and more imiwortant place.
The applicability of the port as a transatlantic packet
station will soon b... considered, and the town will
atilt further rise in importance as having been se
lected as the point ft ,r carrying out so great a national
work—a work of that class of which a nation like
England may well be proud—a harbour, as a public
undertaking, achieved on a most dangerous and un-
protected coast: establishing, upon a barren, rock-
blunt' island adjoining our mainland, a secure
haven, within which the mightiest fleets may take
refuge, and where the great transatlantie steamers
will, two years hence, at the nearest point on their
homeward voyage, tind a convenient place of debar-
kation for their passengers and mails.

tortign anb Colonial ai attilignut.

•
FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE.
lfun•s.i:l.s, September 1.
MY last letter was a report of national festivities. I
regret to be obliged to till the present ore with the
report of riots, which, though possessing apparently
no political tendency, have nevertheless brought
about one of the worst crises this country has yet
traversed, and have, moreover, the inconvenience of
coinciding with the visit of the King and Royal
Family to the more important provincial towns to
present to the population the young Duchess of
Brabant. I have informed you already of the pre-
sence among our working c!a,ses of French emissa-
ries, who endeavour to excit,.• troubles on account of
the exorbitant price to which the rise in corn has
driven bread. On Monday last, our market day, the
people at Liege surrounded the corn-merchants, vo-
ciferating for cheap bread, and threatening to throw
the most unpopular among the merchants into the
river Meuse, which flows in the vicinity. The riot
becoming too strong for the policemen and town
soldiers, the gendarmes were called out and drove
the rio't's to another end of the town. Meantime
the mob had attacked the doors of the royal manu-
factory of small arms, and trampling over the body
of the sentinel, who was very much illtreated, pene-
trated into the room of the director, an officer of high
rank, where they took possession of half a dozen
model rifles. Meantime the gendarmes had come
to the ieseue, and drove the rioters in all directions,
but not without five or six charges on horseback, in
which sonic ten or twelve persons of the mob were
seriously bruised, two wounded by sabre cuts, and
one thrown down and killed under the feet of the
horses.
The gendarmes took the stolen guns from the
hands ot• the rioters, and arrested forty-eight persons,
among whom were one German and one Dutchman.
The night passed quietly, and the excesses were not re-
newed the next day ; but the whole garrison remained
under arms in the barracks, and other military pre-
cautions have been taken. The burgomaster has
published a proclamation exhorting the people to be
quiet and have confidence in the Government and
local authorities. Unhappily the fact is not an
isolated one. Besides Liege, Bonapartist and revolu-
tionary proclamations have been diffused among the
people in Ghent and Brussels. In the little town of
St. Hubert, in Belgian Luxembourg, some hundred
and fifty people attempted a riot, and the gendarmes
were obliged to disperse them. At I'hilippeville, a
small fortified town in the province of Namur, on
the French frontier, the factious mob threatened
the life of the commanding officer, and perpe-
trated many indignities upon the bust of the King.
These circumstances, as I said before, are the more
to be regretted because they coincide with the public
festivities arranged in the provinces for the reception
of the Royal Family, who are now at Bruges, and will
visit successively Ostend, Ghent, Namur, Liege, and
Spa. Everywhere large sums have already been
spent in preparations, and brilliant fetes are or-
ganising. In this crisis the Government has found
nothing better to do than to abolish altogether the
fixed duty of one franc per hectolitre on corn, which
may now be imported free. But an official article
in the Moniteur announces that the Ministers have
resolved not to prohibit the free exportation of
wheat.

PARIS, September 1.
The Emperor and Empress continue to enjoy health
and happiness at Dieppe, though they meditate an
excursion by sea to Boulogne. l'robably the
Empress will remain at this latter town during the
visit of the Emperor to the camp near St. Omer.
In the meantime an army of engineers and workmen
are cleating away all obstructions to the fine marine
view on the shore of Dieppe. The monticules of
sand or rock, the old sheds and miserable huts are
being levelled, and an extensive marine parade will