The Sun.
London, England, 1852-02-11 00:00:00

THE SIGNALS AND TRAIN-SIT 'SIGNALS.
! An important concession has lately been made by the
South-Eastern Railway Company on the representations
of the Astronomer Royal, for the establishment of elec.
tricol communication between the Royal Observatory at
Greenwich, and the London-bridge Railway Terminus.
The subject has, for a considerable time, engaged the at-
tention of Mr. Airy and Mr. Charles Walker, the tele-
graph engineer of the South-Eastern Railway Company.
and their plans are now matured.
The operation for erecting the wires have commenced
this week, and will very shortly be completed. Wires,
are to be laid underground from the Royal Observatory
to the Lewisham station by the Electric Telegraph
Company, and thence to London along the line of rail-
way by the South-Eastern Railway Company. Froze
the London station wires will diverge to Westminster, to
the Royal Exchange, and to the Central Telegraph Sta-
tion at Lothbury.
The objects the promoters have at present in view
arc—

l. To transmit Greenwich time and corrected time to
»nil from the clock at the New Houses of Parliament,
Ind the Royal Exchange.
2. To transmit Greenwich time throughout the king-
dom by the various lines of electric teicgraph.
3. To compare the transits of stars at Greenviich with
the same at Paris.
The tranantis4ion of time signals will be automatic;
Shepherd's eta-etric clocks will be placed in the Royal Ob-
servatory, in conju,:ctiln with an automatic apparatus to
he appended to tit,• chicks ar the varf.us stations. With
pect to the, signal to thu N,-w Houses of Puritamnft, a
cert:lin time wfli be a+.r.,ed upon, an.-: the adjustment at
(ir6t•nwich will be made accordingly. There will be a
permanent electric circuit maintained bawetn West-
winster and Greenwich, broken only at the clock at
Greenwich, and in three places: one of these breaks is
completea every minute, one every hour, and one every
twenty-four hours, at the time agreed upon, and,
as these three contacts will occur simultaneously
only once a day, at the precise hour, minute,
and second determined upon, the signal which
then passes will be the true time required, and it will
be made accurate to 1.20 th of a second. In the first
stance this signal will be made manifest at Westminster
by the motion of a needle. The pendulum there will be
furnished with two oscillating bars, one for r,OO fast,.
and the other for " too slow," and either this or that may
be made to act on the pendulum by the clock inspector,
as the case may require, and for a certain short time.
At the end of half an hour the Westminster clock will
automatically send its time to Greenwich to be ob-
served and recorded.
To distribute time throughout the kingdom, the clock
at the London terminus of the South-Eastern Railway
will be provided with special wheels and studs. A cer-
tain hour will be determined on for transmitting time to
Dover for example, and about fifty or sixty seconds be-
fore this time the London clock will disconnect the
Dover telegraph wire from the telegraph instrument at
London, and will place it in connexion with the wire
that leads to Greenwich. Precisely at the last second
of the minute the Greenwich clock will place this
same wire in connexion with the voltaic batteries of the
Royal Observatory, and a signal will be visible at Dover
The
LondonG ree n
andwich actoanitlaoctthwe
will
stations
instantaneous,
toantahneesoamu s
e
will remain a few seconds longer, always allowing a
butwir ei that
a ht
margin for the variation of the ordinary clocks. As the
Greenwich wire is taken off the Dover wire, it will be
placed in contact automatically with the Lothbnry wire,
where a clock may be fitted with contacts corresponding
to such lines of railway and suck towns or stations as
may require the time signals.
The transits of stars at the two observatories at
Greenwich and at Paris will be occasionally compared in
the following manner. The old mode of noting the
time of the transit of stars was to take time from the
clock before applying the eye to the instrument, and
then while watching the stars with the eye to count the
seconds with the ear, and afterwards note the result. In
the present case an hour will be fixed upon, when the
telegraph wire can most conveniently be spared. The
connexion will be either made by hand or by studs to be
pressed into the clock-wheel at any required time, and
arrangements will soon be completed so that as the eye
sees the star in contact with the wires in the transit in-
strument, the fingers will press a stud; and in another
room of the Observatory an electro-magnetic record of
the time will have been accurately and permanently im-
pressed on a revolving cylinder.
Mr. Airy at Greenwich, and M. Arago at Paris, will
thus be able to fix a time when the eye of each shall be
directed to the same star at the same time; and signal to
each other as each wire is passed; the comparison of
times will give them the relative longitude of the re-
spective places, and will assist them in the solution of
other problems.

We can scarcely overrate the importance of those ar-
rangements, and especially that of transmitting Green-
wich mean time to all parts and to all ports of the king-
dom. The falling ball at the Royal Observatory, so
long the standard of reference for mean time, will be
visible, so to speak, throughout the land; and the ma-
riner at the most distant parts of the coast—wherever,
indeed, the network of telegraph wire has penetrated
—will be able to set and to rate his chronometers with-
out the expense and care that is at present incurred.
Railway companie. will find the advantage of these
arrangements, for they will have Greenwich time " at
their fingers' enth," and will really be able to keep uui -
form time.

HEAVY GALE, AND EXTRAORM NARY

HIGH TIDE.

Yesterday morning it blew a very strong gale from
the N.N.E., accompanied with a driving snowstorm,
which, as the morning wore apace, increased in violence,
and was then attended with heavy showers of sleet, and
rain at intervals. At half. flood the immense rlutne of
water forcing its way upwards, between the banks of the
Thames, appeared to resemble more the overpowering
strength of the current that, at certain times during the
prevalence of the S.E. Monsoon, sweep with rapidity
up the river Iloogley, than the natural flow of the tide
in an European river. At this time the scene was ter-
rific, vessels frequently getting athwart hawse, and not
being able to clear each other without damage to spars
or rigging, and several that had anchored in bad
holding ground brought home their anchors, and
drove a considerable distance before they could be
brought up again, and not then in some cas©s without
letting go a second author. At
.tbree-quarters flood the
nearlyivater l
ud
lal ye :
water had nearly attained the height of ordinary spring
tides, and at high water was considerably above it,
overflowing the wharfs and banks in some places. The
accounts received from steam-boats state that in many
parts of Essex and Kent, but particularly up the river
mh theaevs
have
Medway,beientgnasthtoe
isneaanbdeaatteoevoemrpitehteelyelmntrhbivataeno marshesr embankments mda London,
gnn
0, t sodw more
andi
dteh
aolstuhcoahr
violence
irttawyt wasl
o w under water.
base-
ments di oawm espe-
cially
e ggroeoonfuh tnashdes esvbeserioenaunl t hthouseshbesustained, vicinity.
caiondfij tiaynct leae adjacent
to. the consequenceemr erru
hso
musttaf
overflowed; fortunately, . however,
immense,lAig h
tth,
eort edlaesso fells
othemt
ohdese
gale
rtaerieuetcst
subsided,i oftohnat l
tper
low
wed
to a strong breeze, but as the afternoon tide made it had
again
• increased to a
.fresh gale, although not so violent
as that of the morning, and, notwithstanding that the
evening tide was unusually high, it did not threaten
either destruction or damage to er proi ) ty.

TILE
CATASTROPHE AT 110LAIFIRTIL
On Monday three other bodies, one that of a girl, and
the two others the bodies of youths, were discovered.
The girl was found in a milldam at Holmfirth ; the two
other bodies were picked up at Dalton, further down the
river. They had not yet been identified. A meeting
was held at Huddersfield the same evening, presided
over by Mr. Brook, of Armitage-mills, who had on
Saturday subscribed 5001. in aid of the surviving sufferers
by the calamity, and whose workpeople have sub-
scribed
d 1021. At this meeting the sum of 1,6004
raise on Saturday, was increased to within
601. of 5,0001. A series of resolutions were
passed, expressing sympathy with the sufferers,
but declaring that, while a subscription might
be raised here to relieve ressing necessities,
any local effort would be quite inadequate
other towns
Case. A hope was therefore expressed that
Brook stated
would lend their generous aid. Mr. W.
clothing
committee
that a young lady had been to the
u
to the for clothing for a family, who she said p eet the
and Mr. Joseph Charlesworth, who
occur-
rence of this accident were worth up wkanredws of 10,0001.
bt autteed, that the
we
alEarlalso
i Independent
learn that the Rev. John Gle o? .
ocofrproabrounraotuedtbthbeadstparteemmeisnetd.
tletewenna_st.rnis.n.na,
otrnigbuhtilosn
congre-
gation on Sunday, an-
sfennolmfirth. The subscription
Rev. Mr. Macfarlane, 9
minister at Huddersfideld, ratisietd
for
r 4 among
t o thoat Holmfirth has been increased to 1,050/.

LAUNCH OF ANOTHER STEA2I-SI:11P.
The rapid progress which has taken place of late
years in ocean
i steam navigation was strikingly illus-
trated yesterday n the launch from Mr. Patterson'syard,
at Bristol, of ttio fine steam-skip America, originally in-
tended to have been called the Witch. This beautiful
vessel was planned and designed by Mr. William Mor-
gan,of Clifton, many years the consulting engineer and
naval architect to the Austrian Lloyd's Steam
She was built by Mr. Patterson (whose renown as a
shipwright is well known), under the active superinten-
dence of Captain Morgan, R.N., and was originally con-
ealshefirst of
tracted fur Mr. G. Braine, with the view of bCeionmgp_ualntyi-.
ulti-
mately owned by the Eastern Steam Navigation Com-
El"lmeeannt I:dlite,lscreewovtie.ssetsheael
ap Com-
pany,
linoy,
eo
ff
steamersw hi e h he
intendedia thedeputy
eelchairman,er a te
th
communica-
tion between Europe and the
JEo::ptil
has been transferred to Mr,
.visited
director of the Eastern Steam Navigationes
eCiohmpany, by
the purposes
Lloyd's,
e a s i oeu in
companyshe
eayw i rlle
whom
.)ees, B oc-
America has
mmaul:..l crnairl3troe engineers,
a rare
gineers,
otherl scientific
shipbuilders, and
shehas
been
s.f.characters and
gebureirtchh.eesicetrati
um. ormly awarded
dseuarminegn, her
rY
make all parties interested in
the great stren th v i ,
Combination of
These
~.g mt Lompara-
tive lightness.
. ..aB,ll.lQs, Combined with
p a l m
facrwo construction so tbmic: ua ca tt
y" o n
iiob
ry
wo
her look forward . confidence to her proving unri-
valled aeon„ tea going steamers i'or speed and other
wood qualities. tier engines have been constructed by
chiperie, unusually
w
'killer, Ravenhill, and tialkeld on the oscillating prin-
it,hteereiw,neailithhneesr,ing
Edlman paddle-wheels, known as
.goegan s paddle-wheels," and they will b 4.3 erected in
the vessel in the floating harbour at Bristol. 'ne vessel
was named by Miss
---, and the launch was wit-
nessed by many thousands of spectators.
--......—___

On Saturday Lord Cranworth's Bill was printed to
amend the Municipal
Corporations Act, with respect to pro-
prietors of newspapers inserting advertisements relating to
corporations. They are to be saved penalties, and not to be
disqualified from corporation offices by reason of such adver.
tilemeuts.