The Sun.
London, England, 1839-10-22 00:00:00

DEMOLITION OF THE WRECK OF

THE ROYAL GEORGE.

(From the Hants Telegraph.)
The operations have been continued with great vi-
gour during the whole of this week. On Monday last
a small charge of 45ibs.. failing to move a large frag-

ment of the wreck, another charge of the
_same quan-

tity was fired near it ; after which it yielded to the cap-
stan, and when brought up proved to be the lower part
of the fore-mast, perfect from the step upwards, to the
length of 24 feet ; about 16 feet of which had been

under the mud, above which it was nearly, but not en-
tirely, cut in two by one of those small charges. The
same afternoon a charge of 2601b5. of powder was fired
under the ship's starboard quarter, which was knocked
to pieces, and part of the counter got up in con-
sequence. On Tuesday the large wrought iron cylin-
der, which did not explode on Saturday last, having
in the mean time been emptied and filled again,

was fired by the voltaic battery, at twenty mi-
nutes before three. George Hall, the active and
skilful Whitstable diver, had prepared the place for
it in the morning, by fixinc, a block and pulley, with
ropes passed through the latter to one of the chain-

.
sweeps, placed round the wreck nearly two months
ago by Mr. Sadler ; and on this occasion, instead of
trusting to the ropes, he was directed to go down with
and guide the charge into its place, which he did by
making signals from below, and occasionally coming
up to explain himself when not perfectly understood ;
about an hour was consumed in this process, which
he conducted with great deliberation, until he got the
cylinder near to the stem of the vessel, about three

feet from the bottom. He then came up, and when
he had made made his report, the lighter from which
the cylinder had been lowered was moved to the dis-
tance of about 50 or 60 yards from its original position ;

and the conducting: wires of the voltaic battery, pre-
viously connected with the charge, were veered out
from a boat in which the battery was placed ; this

also removing to a similar distance. Colonel Pasley,
who was on board the lighter, directing those
arrangements, then caused a bugler to sound the
preparative, as a signal that the explosion
was about to take place, and soon after
he ordered the same bugler to sound the fire,
the last note of which was still audible, when the shock
of the explosion was heard and felt ; the voltaic circuit

having at that moment been completed by Lieutenan
Symonds, who had taken post at the voltaic battery for
that purpose ; he having previously assisted in carrying
all the preliminary arrangements into effect. The mass
of water thrown up did not appear to be more than lo
feet in height, and the spectators were amused by seeing
an old boat which Mr. Sadler, by permission of Admiral
Bouverie, had placed over the spot, carried up into the
air in the column of water thus thrown up to the
height of six or seven feet, after which it was turned
over, and fell upside down, and for a little while dis-
appeared. The subsequent circle of water gradually
increasing in diameter, and swelling all round from
the centre of the explosion was not so black as on
former occasions, but had a browner tint, as if coloured
by iron-rust, and a yellow vapour passed off to leeward,
seen by all, and supposed, by most of the spectators, to
be smoke—a phenomenon which has never been ob-
served in any of Colonel Pasley's former great explo-
sions. The weather (unpromising in the morning) was
beautiful, and a vast number of spectators were present
in yachts and boats, both from Portsmouth and the Isle
of Wight. The tide ran too strong for the diver to
examine the result that same day ; but this explosion
has since been ascertained to have been most effective.
The whole fore-part of the ship has been broken into
large pieces. On Wednesday the larboard and star-
board sides of the bow were got up, each consisting of a
mass of timbers, with the outside planks and inside breast-
hooks, &c. attached to them, and each having two
hauseholes, and their leaden pipes perfect, as well as a
large massy iron knee to each part, one of which had
been broken in two by the shock. One of these frag-
ments of the bow, measuring 18 by 21 feet in extreme
width and length, was obliged to be lashed to the side
of the Lively lighter, as it was too large to be got on
board, and in that state it was conveyed to the dock-
yard, where it was necessary to take it, as well as the
other side of the bow, to the sheers, as either of them
would have broken down the crane by which all the
former fragments of the wreck had been landed. On
Thursday morning, the stem consisting of a great num-
ber of massy pieces, bolted together, was got up, and in
the afternoon the ship's coppers or fire-hearth was got
up with great difficulty, which had often been attempted
before unsuccessfully. The boilers were of pure copper
divided into two compartments, by a vertical partition
of the same metal, with two brass cocks, one of which
was broken, but the other turns as freely as it could
have done when new. The size of these boilers has
been estimated at rather more than four hundred gallons.
They were enclosed in an iron case of much larger size,
to which the bars of the fire-place were fixed, and which
the diver found perfect when he first went down, but
which were broken by a small explosion that Colonel
Pasley ordered to be fired the week before, for the
purpose of loosening the coppers. A good deal of
brickwork and some paving stones were attached to
the iron case above alluded to, the mortar of which was
quite soft, as all common chalk lime mortar must be
when immersed under water. There can be no doubt
that the last great explosion, by removing the whole of
the stem and bows of the wreck, which stood 30 feet
above the bottom, and thus admitting the tide to wash
away the mud, has cleared the way for getting up the
coppers. Those officers and gentlemen who have paid
frequent visits to Spithead, to see the operations, and
who have examined the state of the fragments brought
up, are now unanimously of opinion that it would have
been perfectly chimerical to have attempted the re-
moval of the wreck of the Royal George, in its present
state, by any mechanical means, however powerful,
without the aid of gunpowder, in large masses. The
charge fired on Tuesday was about 2,4001 b. The
cause of its not exploding on Saturday last was ascer-
tained in the most satisfactory manner. Both the
large charge of gunpowder and the small priming charge
of about three pounds were found to be perfectly dry ;
but the two conducting copper wires attached to a
rope had rubbed hard against the wreck on lower-
ing the cylinder down, and thereby they had
been deranged and brought in contact with each
other, and thus the voltaic circuit was com-
pleted, and the spark came back without reaching the
powder. The wires thus acted upon were prepared
about a year ago at Chatham, and not in so perfect a
manner as another set fitted up lately on board the Suc-
cess hulk, to which that accident could not probably
have happened, and which will be used exclusively in
future. Colonel Pasley has had two of the cylinders
made at Chatham-yard taken to pieces, and has ascer-
tained the cause of their insufficiency to have been a
mistake on the part of the ingenious and skilful me-
chanic who superintended the making of them. The
Colonel had ordered each cylinder to be composed of a
wooden buoy inside, to be made and finished exactly
like the mooring buoys for shipping, by caulking and
paying it over with pitch and tar, which was then to he
inclosed in a leaden cylinder, perfectly water.tight, se-
cured by pieces of elm, as well as by matting, and by a
rope moulding, against the injuries to which that soft
metal would have otherwise been liable. Nothing could
possibly have been better than the workmanship both of
the leaden and wooden cylinders ; but, unfortunately,
the caulking and paying over of the latter had been
omitted. Hence, in the first cylinder which failed, two
small holes having been made through the lead by some
point—probably the end of a bolt projecting from the
wreck, the water penetrated through the pores of the
wood, and spoiled the whole of the powder. In the
second cylinder, there was careless workmanship, not on
the part of the men who made the buoy, nor of the
plumbers; but in putting on the outer casing, and moulding
to secure the lead, one nail had been driven entirely
through the metal, and some others nearly through
it ; and thus the water got in, and forcing its way
through the pores of the wood, about one-fourth of the
powder was spoiled, though it had only remained
under water about an hour. By this unfortunate mis-
take in the construction, about 3,0001b5. of gunpowder
were spoiled, and a good deal of time lost in conse•
quence, whilst the two divers, whose services might have
been better employed, were exclusively engaged in at-
tempting to get up the first cylinder, which was not re-
covered until a week after it went to the bottom. Co-
lonel Pasley has made up his mind, in consequence,
never to use a double casing in future for such explo-
sions, but to confine himself to one material, whether
wood or metal : but upon the whole he considers the
wrought-iron cylinders, with conical ends (of which he
used a number of small ones, made, under his direction,
by Mr. Stebbing, and one large one by Mr. Taplin), to
be the best and most convenient vessels for submarine
explosions, especially if it be necessary to empty and
refill them, which may sometimes be required.
SATURDAY, THREE F.M.--The Lively has just gone
into harbour with a cargo from the Royal George,
which has been recovered since Thursday, consisting
of the stern and stemson, with the remains of the knee
of the head—a fragment of several tons, a perfect
breast hook, part of the counter or buttock timbers,
with planking, rider, and knee. The whole, from their
size, being portions of the wreck worth seeing, they will
be landed this afternoon or Monday morning. Seven
muskets have also been got up in the course of this
week. The boat blown up has been recovered with but
little or no damage.
Of

A child, two years old, was so dreadfully burnt,
at Oswestry, on Tuesday, that death cased the poor
infant from its sufferings the next day. It was playing
in a neighbour's house with another, when the woman
of the house went on the bed, and locked the chil-
dren in. It is supposed the child's clothes were burn-
ing a quarter of an hour before its screams were beard.

- -
A FINE LEAP.—On Friday morning last, a fat
heifer, the property of Mr. George Taylor, butcher, of
Newark, that had been put into the yard of the Robin
Hood Inn, Newark, for security, made her escape by
leaping the gates, a height of 6 feet 4 inches, which she
performed in the most gallant style.—Doncaster Gazette.