The Sun.
London, England, 1863-04-01 00:00:00

No. M.—An Account showing the Revenue and other Receipts of the Quarter ended 111Ptrch 31,the Application of the same ; and. the Charge
of the Consolidated Fund for the said Quarter, together with the Surplus or Deficiency upon such Charge.

Surplus Balance beyond the charge of the Consolidated Fund, for the Quarter
ended Dec. 31, 1862, viz.:—
_

Great Britain ....
Ireland

924,490

Income received in the Quarter ended M arch 31, 1863, as shown in Account I 19,213,746

Amount raised per Act 23-24 Vict., cap. 109, on account of Fortifications, &c..... 200,000

Amount received in the Quarter ended March 31, 1863, in repayment of Advances
299,792
for Public Works, &c.

£20,638,028

Naval and Military Intelligence.

THE NAVY.
Several trials have taken place during the past
week at the Royal Clarence Victualling-yard with
Mr. Grant's patent oven, ordered by the Lords of
the Admiralty to be fitted on board the Hannibal
screw line-of-battle ship, depot ship for seamen of
the Royal Navy, at Portsmouth. This oven was de-
signed by Mr. Grant as a supplementary aid to the
cooking galleys at present in use on board her Ma-
jesty's ships, with a view of giving the seamen, when
in harbour or anchored in a roadstead, a change of

diet, by enabling them to have a baked dinner alter-
nately with a boiled one, in lieu of the soup and
bouilli with which they have hitherto been exclu-

sively fed vi hen on fresh meat allowance. The oven
which has been on trial, and which will be at once
transferred to the Hannibal, is about Eft. in height,
the same in breadth, and 2ft. 4in. in depth. A very
_ _

small fire furnishes the necessary heat for the jacket
which encircles the oven, and ventilators and
dampers are fitted for regulating the heat. The fire
space is, however, so well proportioned to the space
to be heated that there is absolutely no occasion for
the use of any regulating power, and the maximum
amount of heat required being attained, a few hand-
fuls of fuel maintain the temperature afterwards as
long we may be noooesary. In appearance the patent
oven resembles somewhat a small wardrobe, and its
great simplicity, economy of working, and cleanli-
ness render it peculiarly suitable for use on board
her Majesty's ships. The oven, which is made of
iron exclusively, is capable of baking at one time
,bout 5001 b. of meat or 3001 b. of soft bread. Tne
trials carried out with bread and meat have been
most satisfactory. All parts of the oven have been
sound to possess a uniform temperature. When the
meat has been sezved up in dishes from the oven it
has been found cooked in a manner superior even to
meet roasted carefully in front of a fire, the juices of
the meat being more perfectly retained, and the
wasta in weight being very much less than with
meat roasted.

The 51,--inch French armour-plate which was tested
at Portsmouth on the 20th ult., in company with a
41-inch French plate and some English plates, and
which stood the trial in so suttee: ful a manner,
fter wards becoming the subject of a correspondence
in the newspapers of the 27th and 30th of March,
has been unbolted from the side of the Powerful
target-ship, where it was tested, and removed to the
erecting-shop of the steam factory in the dockyard.
There a portion of the plate is being cut off by ma-
chinery by order of the Admiralty, which will be
forwarded to town for inspection by the members of
the Special Committee, now sitting on iron armour.
Now that both sides of the plate can be seen, the
damage inflicted is found to be much more serious
than had been supposed. The peculiarly soft,
spreading appearance which the metal of this plate
had when struck by the shot on its obverse side,
did not raise any apprehensions of serious injury to
its reverse, beyond the ordinary and inevitable
bulging of the metal. An inspection of the plate
now, however, reveals the full extent of the damage
the plate has received, and the rupture and separa-
tion of the metal is much greater than has been the
ease with some of the best English plates which
have been tested at Portsmouth, the latter being, it
is true, selected from some hundreds of trials, but
then, as has been ,before observed, the history of
these French plates is not yet known. It will be
remembered that in our report of the trials in 7he
Sun of the 23d inst. we stated " That the sk-inch
plate had five shots planted in a space of 17 inches
by 12, but no through penetration was made, nor
were there any cracks of consequence." On now
examining the reverse, or back of the plate, how-
ever, there is found behind these five shot marks an
irregular oval figure, 18 inches wide and 25 inches in
length, where the metal has entirely broken away
from the body of the plate to an average depth of 2
inches, large cross fissures at the same time extending
across the plates, bulging right through to where
the shots struck, the apparent damage to the plate
being, no doubt, considerably lessened by the
spread of the metal before referred to. At the
fracture of the metal upon the plate's reverse there
is a peculiarly bright, soft, or lead-like appear-
ance; but the layers of metal (the plate is a rolled
one) are very much opened. On the upper edge the
plate was struck by a single shot, the whole circum-
ference of the blow being on the plate's surface and
clear of the edge, but on a bolthole. Here the back
of the plate in the immediate vicinity of the blow is
entirely broken up and rendered useless for all de-
fensive purposes. Tile body of the plate on the edge
has opened up, the welding being, as stated in the
report of the trial, very imperfect, and a semi.circu-
Mr fracture extends from the edge 91-in. in depth, the
chord of the arc being nearly 2ft. In cutting the
piece out of this plate yesterday for the Special Com-
mittee the iron was found to be unusually hard,
taking off the edge of the cutting tool in a manner
that surprised the workmen engaged upon the work.
It must be borne in mind that this 52 inch plate
was imperfectly welded in its manufacture, and that
the 41-inch apparently stood the best, compara-
tively, in the trial.
The sum of £10,260 has been taken in the votes
this year for the purchase of new machinery for
Chatham dockyard. Among the new machinery
intended to be purchased are 12 overhead travellers,
to lift from 10 to 15 tons each ; one 80cwt. steam
hammer, one 15cwt. ditto, two 12ft. bed latheeetw

Amount applied out of the Income for the Quarter ended March 31, 1863, in
redemption of Exchequer (Deficiency) Bills, for the Quarter ended Dec. 31,
1862

Amount applied out of the Income to Supply Services, in the Quarter ended
March 31, 1863

Charge of the Consolidated Fund for the Quarter ended March 31, 1863, viz.:—
Interest of the Permanent Debt X5,715,487
Terminable Debt 690,080
Principal of Exchequer Bills 6,300
Interest of Exchequer Bills
Interest of Deficiency Bills
The Civil List
Other Charges on Consolidated Fund
Advances for Public Works, &o.

7,384,612

Surplus Balance beyond the charge of the Consolidated Fund, for the Quarter
ended March 31, 1863, viz.
Great Britain £19.1,290
Ireland

£20,638,028

Bft. ditto, two drilling machines, two planing ma-
chines, one punching and shearing lever, one set of
rollers for bending plates, besides other descriptions
of machinery. The estimated cost for labour and
materials for the repair of the above is £2,940.
Her Majesty's ship Firebrand,Commander Shute
B. Piers, from the Mediterranean, was yesterday
warped into the fitting basin at Woolwich,and com-
menced dismantling and returning stores, in readi-
ness to pay off on Wednesday, the Bth inst. Com-
mander Piers's commission in his present rank bears
date May 10, 1856. He has been decorated with a
number of foreign orders,and according to seniority
will shortly be promoted to post rank.
The paddle steamer Vivid was yesterday admitted
into the basin at Woolwich, to be surveyed and
fitted with new boilers.

The steam storeship Wye, from the West Coast of
Africa, yesterday left the basin at Woolwich for
Sheerness, to be placed in the hands of the ship-
wright department of that yard, on account of the
crowded state of the basins at Woolwich.

The steam storeship Fox, laden with 350 tons of
machinery for the iron-cased ship Ocean, at Devon-
port, still remains under the shears in basin at
Woolwich, awaiting the spring tide to tax() her
departure. She is expected to eail about Tuesday
next, when the Rhadamanthus will take her place
and ship the boilers and the remainder of the Ocean's
gear, after which the basin will be cleared and
dredged. The caisson will then be removed and the
lower shelf or coping of the entrance be reduced, to
admit of a greater draught of water, in preparation
to receive the Caledonia, where she will be fitted
with her boilers, ten in number, the weight of which
will amount to about 300 tons, After this she will
be despatched to Sheerness to be completed for ser-
vice.

A large number of mechanics and labourers,
amounting to about 800 men, were yesterday cis-
charged from the department of Woolwich Arsenal,
it being the close of the financial year of 1862-63.
The following appointments were made yester-
day at the Admiralty :—Commander M. R. Pechell
to the Geyser, vice Campbell, promoted ; Lieut. W.
G. England to the Meeanee ; Lieut. Francis M. Om-
manney to the Sparrow ; Sub-Lieut. the Hon. E.
S. Dawson to the Marlborough ; Sub-Lieut. W. E.
Mitchell and Sub-Lient. W. B. Bridges to the
Archer ; Adolpus Fitz George, midshipman, to the
Edgar ; M. C. C. Roberts, W. M. Anuesley, W. F.
P. Popham, and J. E. Greenhow, midshipmen, to
the Archer; Wm. H. Haswell, assist-pay roaster in
charge, to the Rhadamanthus ; John A. P. Williams,
assist-paymaster, to the Dauntless ; Blackney,
assist.-paymaster, to the Sutlej, as supernumerary ;
Charles Love, second-master, to the Squirrel ; Wm.
H. Panter, second-master, to the Revenge ; John
M. Lloyd, Edward K. Barnes, and John W. Morris,
second-masters, to the Euryalus, as supernumeraries;
John H. Smith and Wm. Couzens, master's-assis-
tants, to the Archer ; Harry Williams, chief engi-
neer, to the Archer; Geo. Lynch, engineer, to the
Archer ; Thos. Baldwin, first-class assist.-engineer,
to the Fisgard, as supernumerary ; Henry White
(a) and John Dingwall, assist.-engineers, to the
Archer.

Mr. Glaisher's Scientific Balloon Ascents.

The first of the second series of four high ascents
in Mr. Coxwell's large balloon, for which the Bri-
tish Association voted £2OO at the Cambridge
meeting, took place yesterday afternoon from the
grounds of the Crystal Palace. The ascent has
been in contemplation for several days, and on Sa-
turday the balloon was partially inflated, but the
wind was too high, and in a wrong direction, and
it had to be postponed from day to day. Mr.
Glaisher took possession of his half of the car at
four o'clock, with Mr. Coxwell for his sole vis a-vzs.
His instruments were arranged on a bench before
him, from which they bristled up in such a close
array as nearly to hide him from sight. With two
exceptions they were constructed for these expedi-
tions by Messrs. Negretti and Zambra, the instru-
ment makers to Greenwich Observatory. The fol-
lowing list of them will show how carefully the
observations have been planned, and how much
more complete the second series of ascents will be
in this particular than the first :-1. Ozone box,
with twelve tests, for determining the quantity of
ozone at different heights. 2. Spectrum apparatus
for observing Franenhofer's lines in the solar s.pec7
tram (the identical instrument used by Piazzi
Smith at Teneriffe). 3. Solar radiation therbmolb
meter. 4. Minimum ditto. 5. Dry and wet. u.
ditto. 6. Ditto ditto under influence of artifi.cia,l
current. 7. Reynalt's hygrometer. 8. s
ditto. 9. Aneroid. 10. Adie's mercurial baro-
meter. 11. Compass. A few minutes after four,
Dr. Lee, the venerable President of the Astronomi-
cal Society, handed Mr. Glaisher the mercurial
barometer, and after waiting for a favourable mo-
ment, at 4.17 the balloon started, and sailed easily
off right in the eye of the declining sun. The wind
was fresh and sharp from the east. The balloon
passed close to the North Water Tower, and for a
few minutes obeyed the direction impressed upon it
at starting, but it soon entered another current,
which stopped its onward course and brought it
back towards the 'starting point. The course was
then slowly upward, with little horizontal motion.
A stiller ascent, and therefore a finer one for the
purpose, could hardly be imagined.