The Express.
London, England, 1865-11-13 00:00:00

NAVAL AND MILITARY.

A oi4 IRALTY, Nov. 11. —APPOINTMINTS. —Captain
IL R. Old6eld, to the Malacca, 17, 'crow corvette, at
Portsmouth.
Muter P. V. James, to the Malacoa.
Surgeon W. H. Cruice, late of the Alecto, on the south.
east coast of America, to the Malacca.
Assistaot-Surgeous J. May, from the Revenge to the
Spiteful, 6, paddle sloop, at Woolvich ; G. B. Beale, M.D.,
late of the Meunse, to the Excellent, gunnery ship, at
Portsmouth.
Clerks' Assistant G. T. Carter, to the Malacca.
First Class Assistant Engineer W. W. Watts is pro-
moted to risk with seniority, dated from Oct. 14, 18G5.

PORTSMOUTH, Nov. 12.
The Royal Sovereign, 5, screw turret ship, Cap-
tain Herbert, made an experimental trial of her guns yee-
terday, in the presence of Rear• Admiral George G. Wel-
C. 8., and Captain Astley Key, C. 8., of the gunnery
ship Excellent.
The Malacca, 17, screw corvette, will, it is rumoured, be
commissioned in the course of a few days by Captain itedol-
phus 13. Oldfield, for foreign service.

EXPERIMENTS BEFORE THE QUEEN WITH
GALES PROTECTED GUNPOWDER.

On Friday afternoon the Queen, accompanied by
their Royal Ilighneesm Prices's Helena, Princes' Beatrice,
Prince Leopold, and Prince Louis of HMO, witnessed
experiments with Mr. Gale's protected gnaporder is the
orangery at Windsor Outdo. The experiments were con-
ducted by Mr. Gale and Mr. Saunders, sod throughout
the proceedings her Majesty manifested the greatest
interest. A bowl of the protected gunpowder having
been produced, a portion of it was separated iu order to
show the facility with which the gunpowder could be
restored. The bowl with the remainder of the protected
powder was thee held by Mr. Gale, while a slow match was
allowed to burn down into the powder. This produced no
effect beyond lighting a few grains. Vesuvirsis wen then
thrown io, and finally Lord Bury's test was applied, which
consists of exploding a small quantity of neat gunpowder
in the midst of the protected powder. This part of the
proceedings appeared to be especially interesting to her
Majesty, who expressed her concern that Mr. Gale was
holding the bowl too near to himself. It was, how-
ever, soon apparent that there was no danger. The Princess
Beatrice and Prince Leopold. who were not present
at the commencement. joined the Queen at this
moment, and her Majesty was pleased to request that the
experiments might be repeated. As they were performed
a second time her Majesty herself explained them to
the royal cbildren' is a manner which showed her
desire that they should understand them. The Queen
asked Mr. Gale if he had recently discovered the in-
vention, to which he replied that the explosion of the
siege train at hike:mann was the first oat:salon on which
his attention was seriously directed to the subject, and
since that time he had been making various experiments
in order to perfect the invention. The experiments were
brought to a close by placing a bag of protected gunpowder
upon a fire, when it was gradually consumed without any
approach to an explosion. The Queen, on leaving, said :
"Mr. Gals, I thank you. I have been much pleased and
interested in the experiments. It is a wonderful in-
vention,
and ought to be made very, very useful." It
had been arranged that the experiments should not occupy
more than a quarter of an hour, but her Majesty
manifested so much interest is them that they were ex-
, tended over a period of more than forty minutes. Instead
of using an ordinary sieve in the experiments before her
Majesty, a new model separator was used, by means of
which a more perfect and instantaneous separation of the
gunpowder is made. This machine enables the gunpowder
to be sepsrated just as fast as it may be required for use in
filling shells or making fireworks, or any similar operation
in which danger now arise" from the accumulation of ax-
is"' powder.