The Sun.
London, England, 1864-06-20 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

SlR,—The balloon left the gardens of the Crystal Palace
at seven o'clock on the 13th inst., with a temperature of
62 deg. When 300 feet above the ground the temperature
was 59 deg., and declined gradually to 51} deg. at the
height of 3,100 feet above the level of the sea. The balloon
then fell to 2,500 feet. The temperature increased to 53
deg. ; then declined to 46 deg. on the balloon rising to
3.500 feet. We kept on this level for 20 minutes, and the
variations in temperature were very small. From 7h. 35m.
to 7h. 50m. the height of the balloon varied but little from
2,700 feet, with a temperature varying from 51 deg. to 52
deg., being the same as when we first reached the eleva-
tion. At 7h. 54m. the height was 2,000 feet, and from
that time to reaching the earth, at Bh. 14m., the tempe-
rature was 53 deg. without variation. On the ground it
was found to be 534 deg.
The temperature on the earth during the flight of the
balloon had decreased from 9to 10 degrees. The air at the
height of 600 feet above the sea had decreased by about 6
degrees between ascending and descending, but at heights
exceeding 2,000 feet no change had taken place.
The temperature at which water was deposited on bright
substances was 44 deg. on the ground, 40 deg. at 2,500 feet
high, and 38 deg. at 3,000 feet.
The degree of humidity of the air was 51 deg. on the
ground on starting, complete saturation being represented
by 100 ; it was between 60 and 70 in the air till 7h. 50m.,
and then increased to 77 on the ground.

A very delicate blackened bulb thermometer in the full
rays of the sun read from 1 to 10 degrees above another
delicate thermometer placed near to it with its bulb shaded
from the sun's rays. At times, when so situated that the
sun did not shine on the blackened bulb, the two thermo-
meters were alike.

The sky was cloudless, the air was clear, excepting in the
direction of London, and the successive views at the ordi-
nary elevation we reached were very beautiful. Shooter's-
hill and the several known localities were dwarfed to plains.
At the height of 3,000 feet sheep were easily distinguished,
but the earth seemed to without inhabitants, as the naked
eye could with difficulty distinguish man. The river was
seen to its mouth—the white cliffs at Margate were just
seen through mist—the horizon was misty all round. The
contrast between the thiokly studded towns and villages in
Kent and the few in Essex was very marked.
There were in the car of the balloon, besides Mr Coxwell
and myself, the following officers :—The Hon. R. A, J.
Talbot, and Mr Charles Needham, of the Ist Life Guards ;
the Hon. W. B, Cust, Grenadier Guards ; Capt. T. Leslie,
Mr Mylles B. B. Adderley, Mr F. G. Burnaby, Mr H.
Emerson Westcar, and Mr J. Boswell, of the Royal Horse
Guards; and Captain Turner, of the Rifle Brigade.
All these officers enjoyed the magnificent views so much
that at times I think they forgot their position in the car of
the balloon, being themselves insensible of any motion, and
all regretted our proximity to Sea Reach, which compelled
Mr. Coxwell to descend.
The balloon touched the earth at a quarter past 8, on tho
farm of Mr. Squier, about five miles from Brentwood.
Blackheath, June 18. JAMES GLAUBER,.

Mit. KIIIIE'S CONCERT.—The recital of classical
and modern pianoforte music by this consummate
artist, announced to be given at th
orn Queen's Concert Room,
Hanover-square, on Thursday, prises a great treat to all
lovers of first class music worthily interpreted.
ENGLISH ROADS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CEN-
TURV.—So bad were some of the roads, that it was
not at all uncommon, when a family intended to travel, for
servants to be sent on beforehand to investigate the coun-
try and report upon the most promising track. Fuller tells
us that during his time he frequently saw as many as six
oxen employed in dragging slowly a single person to church.
Waylen says that 800 horses were taken prisoners at one
time during the civil ware by Cromwell's forces, "while
sticking in the mud." Many improvements were made in
modes of conveyance during the century. A. kind of
stage
coach was first used in London about 1608 ; towards the
middle of the century they were gradually adopted in the
metropolis, and on the better highways around London.
In no case, however, did they attempt to travel at a greater
speed than three miles an hour. Before the century closed
stage coaches were placed on three principal roads in the
kingdom—namely, those between London and York, Ches-
ter, and Exeter. This was only for the summer season;
"during winter," in the words of Mr Smiles, "they did
not run at all, but were laid up for the season, like ships
during Arctic frosts." Sometimes the roads were so bad,
even in summer, that it was all the horses could do to drag
the coach along, the passengers, per force, having to walk
for miles together. With the York coaoh especially the
difficulties were really formidable. Not only were the
roads bad, but the lo'w midland counties wart particularly
liable to floods, when. during their prevalence it was
nothing unusual for passengers to remain at some town
[ en route for days together, until the roads were dry..—Ber
Majesty's 13fatils.

"A whole treasure-house of learning," said Dean
Stanley yesterday in Westminster Abbey, " has
descended into the untimely grave" of William
Cureton, the most eminent Syriac scholar in Eng-
land, and almost in Europe. Dr. Cureton, a canon
of Westminster, and rector of St. Margaret's, chap-
lain in ordinary to the Queen, and the royal trustee
of the British Museum, died on Friday morning at
his country seat, Westbury, near Shrewsbury. The
doctor had received a shock on the railway, some-
where near Streatham, about a year ego, and not
more than three days before his death had obtained
from the company an unusually large amount of
compensation, £3,170, for himself and his little
daughter, who had sustained som injuries. But his
last illness was attributable in a much greater degree
to recent annoyances and disappointments. He has
never been well since an unexpected occurrence at
the close of last year; he went to his seat in Shrop-
shire a brokensdown invalid some weeks ago ; and
there he sickened and died of rheumatic fever.
There can be no doubt that his death is a very con.
siderable loss to the world of letters, and, as the
Dean of Westminster truly remarked yesterday, he
has left no one to fill his place in the peculiar line
of scholarship which he had marked out for himself
from his early manhood. _

William Cnreton, D.D., F.R.S., a member of the
French Institute and of nearly every learned society
in Europe, was born about 1808. There is no secret
about his early struggles in life, which Dean
Stanley twice feelingly alluded to yesterday. One
circumstance should be indeed recorded to his
honour. He inherited from his father a
small in come which might have enabled
him to enter as a commoner at the nnivers
city, bat this he resigned to his mother who
was not left very well provided for, and matricu-
lated in the humble position of servitor of
Christ Church. In Michaelmas term, 1830, he gra-
duated as a double third class, when the Bishop of
Salisbury, Dr. Manning, the Rev. William Palmer,
and the Rev. H. W. Wilberforce (the latter three
converts to Rome) were first class men. In 1834,
shortly after his ordination as priest, when he was
a chaplain of Christ Church, he became sub-librarian
of the Bodleian Library at Oxford, in succession to
the Rev. Ernest Hawkins, now secretary of the
S.P.G. and prebendary of St. Paul's. In 1837 he
removed to London, on his appointment as assist-
ant keeper of the MSS. in the British Museum, at
which post he remained, working diligently, till
1849, when he received a canonry at Westminster,
to which an act of Parliament—which all Church-
men condemn, and always have condemned—had
attached or bound the rectory of the great parish
of St. Margaret's. Two years previously be had
been appointed chaplain in ordinary to the Queen
—an honour due to the remarkable character of his
literary labours, which secured the hearty patronage
of the late Prince Consort.

Dean Stanley spoke yesterday of the late canon
as a man of truthfulness, candour, perseverance,
and honesty, as hating subterfuges and shams, and
as always avoiding controversial intolerance. Cer-
tainly due honour was paid to the doctor yesterday,
for the Dean preached in the morning at St. Mar-
garet's, and in the afternoon in the Abbey, in his
honour. At three services was the " Dead
March in Saur' played, and all the anthems and
psalms in the abbey and the church were of a
funereal character.

Dr. Cureton married about 18 years ago the
daughter of Mr. Blore, the eminent architect, by
whom he leaves a large family, an infant only a
few months old being the youngest. Two of his
sons are at Westminster School. It was Mrs.
Cureton who executed the facsimile of the MSS.
on the authority of which the Spioo text, e4'•
the Epistles of Sr. Ignatius is based. For her and
her family much sympathy is expressed in West-
minster, and, whatever may be the differences which
estranged the doctor from his parishioners, there is
no difference on this point. It only remains to be
added formally that Dr. Cureton was honorary D.D.
of Halle, corresponding member of the Institute of
France, and of the Oriental Society of Germany,
member of the Asiatic Society of Paris, honorary
member of the Historico-Theological Society of
Leipsic, &c. In fact, he was universally honoured
abroad, and, by scholars, at home, and it is much to
be regretted that he was ever placed in a position
which he could not fill with comfort to himself or
satisfaction to his parishioners.

DEATH OF PROFESSOR JAMES MILLER, OF
EDINBURGH.—This eminent surgeon and medical
author expired on Friday morning last. He was born in
1812, the son of a minister, and received his education
from his father till he was entered at the University of St.
Andrew's. He studied medicine at Edinburgh as pupil of
the great Liston, whose assistant he became, and whom he
virtually succeeded in his practice when Liston came up
to kettle in London. He became M.D. and Licentiate of
the College of Surgeons, and in 1842 was elected Professor
of Surgery in the University of Edinburgh. He was also
Professor of Anatomy at the Royal Academy, Surgeon in
Ordinary to the Queen for Scotland, a Fellow of the Royal
Society, and he held a long list of important appointments
in connection with the hospitals and public institutions of
Edinburgh. His literary works are highly esteemed. The
principal are "A System of Surgery," and "Surgical Ex,
perience of Chloroform." He was, moreover, the author of
the article on surgery in the new edition of the "Encyclo-
paedia Britannica."
Two MEN DROWNED AT ABERDEEN.—Friday,
during the breakfast hour, three young men, ap-
prentice carpenters in Messrs. Hall's shipbuilding-yard,
Aberdeen, were taking a pleasure sail in a boat in the har-
bour. The boat missed stays, and there being some wind
at the time, it filled with water and settled down, all the three
on board being thrown out. The dockmaster (Mr. Lep)
and others at onoe put off in boats, and succeeded in res-
cuing one of the young men, named M'lntosh, who was
taken home and is expected to recover. The other two,
however, named Milne and Robb, were drowned. The ages
of the young men varied from 17 to 21.

THE ALLEGED MURDER AT ANERLEY.--AppRE4
HENSION OF THEoSUSPECTED
ThomsonM EN . - Tat° Isge hr g
et
ahne
act
ThomastivitY from tehkeilidetective department of the metropolitan
police, Scotland-yard, the supposed murderers of Louisa
Dyer have been apprehended and conveyed to the lock-up.
The excitement in the district is very great, and as the hor-
rible nature of the outrage becomes more publicly dissemi-
nated the feelings of disgust and abhorrence of the perpe-
trators of such a dreadful crime increase in intensity. It is
anticipated that the two suspected men will be taken before
the local bench this morning.

A VERY OLD JOKE
rechaujee (in the Saturday
Review).—" My dear fellow," said an old and intimate col-
lege friend to another, looking down from the balcony of
St. James's Hall over the crowd of bonnets below, " do just
take the trouble to count in the second block, far away in
that corner of the room, the sixth and seventh places of the
eighth row ; there are two of the most astonishing figures
I ever beheld in my life; you must look at them—one looks
so like a cook, and the other so like a housemaid." "I see
them," his friend answered very quietly—" the cook is my
aunt, and the housemaid is my conoin."
MR. MATTHEW MARSHALL.--Mr. Matthew Mar-
shall, whose name has been so long prominently and
honourably identified with the Bank of England, has just
resigned his responsible office as chief cashier. Mr. Mar-
shall's labours in the service of the Bank extend over no
less a period than 54 years, for 29 of which he has been
chief cashier. His retirement now, at 73 years of age, is
solaced by a well-deserved tribute on the part of those
in whose employment he has passed a lung and laborious
life.
FRIGHTFUL EXPLOSION.—On the 26th ult. a
train was conveying a number of soldiers and negroes
and four torpedoes from Newbern to Bachelor Crest, West
Carolina, the latter intended to complete the blockade of the
Neuse river in the direction of Kingston. The last of the
four was about reaching the station platform, when an
accidental blow from a log of wood striking upon the cap
exploded the torpedo. The concussion was so great that
the other three followed on the explosion of the first, and so
quick as to make but one mighty report like the crash of a
thousand pieces of artillery fired simultaneously. Heads,
bodies, and limbs were scattered for a quarter of i mile
around, and in many instances it was found impossible to
recognise the remains of the unfortunate victims. The
signal tower and a commissary building, 20ft by 80ft, built
of logs, were thrown into the air a distance of 800 ft, and
Armed the country for a great distance around with the
fragments Forty soldiers and negroes were killed.