The Sun.
London, England, 1862-01-23 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, JANUARY 23, 1862.

THE NAVY.

We are informed that Capt. G. H. Seymour, C. 8.,
is appointed to the command of her Majesty's yacht
Victoria and Albert, vice Hon. Josh. Denman, pro-

moted.
The skeleton of her Majesty's screw steamship
Caledonia, 91, building at Woolwich under the
superintendence of Mr. Turner, master shipwright
of the yard, is now complete, and only awaits the
arrival of the iron plates, in course of manufacture
at the Lancefield Works in Scotland, to commence
the construction of her outward frame. Extraordi-
nary care and ingenuity have been employed in
consolidating the formidable mass of timber work
composing the ribs and other uprights, which are
destined to resist any amount of impact or pound-
ing on the heavy armour slabs with which it is
sought to render her invincible. Riders, or girders,
of ironwork run obliquely across the ribs fore and
aft, constituting an additional strength, on a prin-
ciple introduced by Mr. Turner, and highly ap-
proved by the Controller of the Navy.
Four armour plates for the Royal Alfred, 50,
iron•cased frigate, have been received at Portsmouth

Dockyard from the workshop of the manufacturers,
Messrs. Bohn Brown and Co., of the Atlas Iron and

Steel Works, Sheffield. Each plate measures 15

feet in length, 3 feet 6 inches in width, 41 inches in
thickness, and averages four tons in weight. The
shipwrights have commenced fixing the ship's outer
planking of 8-inch teak on her sides, which, when
ready to receive the plates, will give 28 inches of
solid timber in its weakest parts on which to hang
her armour.

In accordance with an order to that effect, re-
ceived from Whitehall, a return has been prepared
and forwarded to the Admiralty, by the officials at
Chatham Dockyard, of the progress made in and

the present condition of the armour-plated screw
frigate Royal Oak, 51, 3,716 tons, 1,000-horse
power, under construction at that establishment.
The officials of the dockyard state that the Royal
Oak could be completed and launched by the month

of September next, provided that 400 shipwrights
were employed on her, this being about double the
number now at work about her. Similar reports
have also been called for from the other dockyards
at which the iron-cased frigates are now building,

namely, the Royal Alfred, at Portsmouth, the
Ocean, at Devonport, and the Caledonia, at Wool-
wich, the Admiralty being desirous of ascertaining
the earliest possible period at which a squadron of
this new class of powerful armour-plated frigates
can be afloat.

The screw sloop Swallow, 9, 486 tons, 60 horse
ewer, Master-Corn, E.Wilds,fitting in the Medway

for a lengthened surveying expedition to Japan and
the adjacent waters, has been inspected by Capt. J.
Washington, F.R.S., principal hydrographer of the
navy, and Capt. H. M. Denham, the eminent nau-
tical surveyor, late of the Herald, surveying ship,
under whose direction she has been fitted with every-
thing required in the prosecution of her important
mission. A number of the most modern and valu-
able surveying, astronomical, and other scientific
instruments have been put on board, in order that
the vessel may leave England in as perfect condi-
tion as possible. The ward room has been converted
into a chart room, and as the number of officers at-
tached to the ship is much larger than under ordi-
nary circumstances, a portion of the steerage has
been taken in for a ward room, thereby materially

curtailing the comparatively limited accommodation
for the ship's company. An application has accord-
ingly been made to the Admiralty for the vessel to
be fitted with a poop, but no directions to that effect
have yet been given by their lordships. A top-
gallant forecastle has been erected, which will
prove of great service for berthing a portion of
the ship's company in a warm climate. The sloop
has been altered in her rig from ship to barque, so
as to render the work easier to the men. She is
only armed with a 32-pounder pivot gun and four
12-pounder howitzers, as a means of protection
against pirates, who invest the waters in which she
will principally be employed. Her ballast is to be
shifted so as to bring her down 12 in. by the stern.
The steam store-vessel Buffalo, Master-Comman-
der Alexander Brown, from the West Coast of
Africa, has dismantled and discharged her stores at
Woolwich, and is ordered to be put out of commis-
sion and paid off on Saturday.
The chartered screw steam transport Parthenon,
Capt. Robinson, which vessel left Woolwich pier
last week, laden with a heavy cargo of war stores
for North America, was detainad at the buoy until
Tuesday, when she sailed for Greenhithe to be ad-
justed for her voyage. The Spartan, laden with a
similar cargo for the same destination, left Wool-
wich pier yesterday morning by the early tide, and,
after adjustment at Greenhithe, will proceed with-
out further delay. In addition to her cargo of shot,
shell, &c., she has shipped flour and bale goods
from the Tower. The Bodotria, Capt. Thomas Lee,
for Cork, yesterday sailed from Woolwich, laden
with two 12 pounder Armstrong batteries, 100
chests of arms, and bale goods from the Tower, to-
gether with 150 barrels of powder, shipped at the
floating magazine off the Royal Arsenal.
Yesterday a detachment of Royal Marine Artil-
lery from the Racoon, 22, screw steamer, left Chat-
ham to join headquarters at Portsmouth. The
Royal Marines who landed from the Racoon were
paid at Chatham yesterday, and each man granted
six weeks' leave of absence. The Royal Marines
from the Calypso, 18, were paid at Chatham the
previous day, and granted a similar period of

absence.
Two 100 pounder Armstrong guns, with sights
fitted on the centre of the line of metal, have been
received at Portsmouth, and will be mounted
inside Capt. Cowper Coles's wooden modelled
cupola, fitted on the deck of the Hazard sloop for
experimental purposes. A cargo of 100 and 25
pounder Armstrongs is being discharged at the gun-
wharf, Portsmouth, from Woolwich. No 40-poun-
der Armstrongs are at present in store at Ports-
mouth, and several of the vessels in the first-class
reserve are incomplete in their armament for want
of them.

Several targets are being constructed for future
experiments at Shoeburyness and Portsmouth from
which very important results are expected relative
to the form and method of affixing armour plates to
ships of war. Two of these targets are having their
plates manufactured expressly for them at the A tias
Works, Sheffield. Others are being manufactured
under the superintendence of Capt. R. S. Hewlett,
C,8., commanding the Excellent, gunnery ship, at
Portsmouth. One of these latter will ba 13ft. in
length by 9ft. in breadth, and will consist of two
thin plates with angle irons 15in. in depth between
them. The presumption is that this peculiar form
of double plate, with air spaces between, will break
up the shot fired against it without the latter doing
any serious injury to the target itself: The whole
of the experiments will be of a most interesting
character.
The following appointment was made at the Admiralty
last evening :
Assistant-Engineer 11. W. Hart (acting 2d class), to the
Imperieuse, for disposal, vice Stewart.

through the night, via Reading, Leamington,
Hampton, Derby, and Leeds. The 2d division,
consisting of the head-quarters, four companies, for
Sheffield, will leave Portsmouth by special train at
6 p.m. to-morrow, travelling through the night via
Reading, Leamington, Hampton, and Derby.
In consequence of the highly satisfactory results
which have attended the system recently intro-
duced by the War-office authorities of augmenting
the corps of Royal Engineers by volunteering from
certain of the cavalry corps and regiments of the
Line, whereby a number of skilled mechanics and
artisans have been induced to join that branch of
the service, arrangements are about to be effected
for keeping up that department of the army almost
exclusively by volunteers from the various regi-
ments, and doing away, as much as possible, with
recruiting. With this view the commanding
officers of the various depot battalions of infantry
will be called on to furnish a return to the Horse
Guards of the number and names of the men under
their command who possess a knowledge of any
of the trades or professions practiced at the
Royal Engineer Establishment, Chatham ; in-
cluding engravers, photographers, telegraphists,
draughtsmen, surveyors, printers, carpenters,
masons, smiths, &c., in order that volunteering may
be opened in those battalions or regiments which
contain a fair proportion of men acquainted with
any of the professions or trades enumerated. The
experience of the past few months has convinced
the authorities connected with the Royal Engineer
department at Chatham that a better class of men
can be-obtaimod- by voluateeraw than by ,arawing
them directly from the recruiting districts, as an
illustration of which it may be mentioned that the
120 volunteers from different regiments who have
joined at headquarters since July last—all of whom
were skilled mechanics or artisans—have now
finished their course of fieldwork instruction in all
its branches, and are fit to be despatched to any
station at which their services may be required.
On joining at headquarters the volunteers were not
put through the course of rifle drill as in the case
of recruits, but after carbine practice were sent at
once to the fieldworks. The first step in the pro-
posed new arrangements has already been taken by
withdrawing the whole of the recruiting parties,
with the exception of the one stationed in Scotland,
another in the south-west of England, and a third
in London. It is probable that recruiting in Scot-
land will be continued some time longer, as that
part of the kingdom sends up yearly a considerable
number of the best and most skilled recruits for the
Royal Engineers.
The military invalids from the West Indies and
Bermuda who arrived in the Himalaya screw
steamer reached Chatham garrison at a late hour on
Teuneesrd.of Assist.-Surg. Gar
d
numbered 24 men of all
Tuesday evening,
troops,
i n chargewho
ranks, belonged to the Ist battalion 14th Regiment,
39th, 63d, and 67th Regiments, and the Royal New-
foundland Regiment. After medical inspection at
Fort Pitt Hospital, 12 of the number were admitted
into that establishment for treatment.

THE DREADFUL COLLIkRr CtIDENT

IN NO.RiIIETHBERLAND.

SHIELDS WEDNESDAY MORIsTIN9.
The seventh day of their imprisonment has broken
upon the unfortunate miners immured 100 fathoms
deep in Hartley New Pit, and it is simply." hoping
against hope" to expect that many of the 216' men
and lads thus entombed in the mine, oppressed, as
they must, have been, by the horrors of their situa.
tion,—starvation, darkness, cold, and, it may be,
deadly gases,—will ever be restored to earth alive.
During the past night operations have been going
on in the shaft to supply a temporary up and down
cast, and to have more fresh air driven in upon the
exploring parties when they recommence their
labours to remove .the obstructions in the shaft. The
sides of the shaft have been far from secure, although
the work was laid off from Sunday night until
Monday to have them made so ; and until the men
who have to drive their way into the mine are
reasonably reassured that they will not be buried
alive by the sides of the, shaft falling in upon them,
or stricken down by the poisonous gas, it can hardly
be expected that they will venture down again.
Yesterday afternoon Mr. Donaldson, engineer,
Backworth, arrived at the pit by 'special engine
from Messrs. Hawks and Crawshay's works, at
Gateshead, with 90 fathoms of chain in
two lengths, for the purpose of slinging the
pumps, which were in a dangerous position in the
shaft, and might at any moment have slipped and
destroyed every one employed. The engine beam
in its descent had struck the bottom part of these
ffimps,- -and -thrown -a great -portion- of- tho upper
part of them to the opposite side of the shaft. The
chain has been suspended from two strong beams of
wood laid across the top of the shaft, from which
the pumps are hung. Pipes from the high main to
the boiler fires have also been put down to assist in
clearing the shaft of gas, and this morning it is
working well.
_ _

It is only fair to the brave men who have been
risking their lives in the shaft. during the past six
days, and who aTe willing to do so again, to men-
tion these facts, as showing the difficulties and dan-
gers they have had to contend with, quite apart
from the mechanical obstacles that have arisen, from
the very limited area in which they have had to
work, while labouring to remove the formidable
obstacle which has cut off the lost men from the pit
mouth. Yesterday the mere sightseers bore but a
small proportion at the pit to the pitmen from ad-
joining collieries, who were assembled in great num-
bers around the large fires which have been kept
blazing night and day around the pit-heaps. Seve
ral meetings were held by them, and, upon the
whole, the proceedings were orderly. The great
point that was enforced by the speakers who ad-
dressed these meetings was the necessity of the
miners leaguing together to represent to the Legis-
lature the perils incident to the shaft pits, and urging
the importance of legislative enactments compelling
coalowners to keep open at least a second means of
egress from the mine in case of an accident in the shaft
similar to the one that has occurred. In this unfor-
tunate pit, as already reported, there is a " staple,"
or inderendent roadway, ascending 29 fathoms from
the low main at the bottom of the mine, into the
yard seam ; there is also a staple leading from the
high seam to the bank ; so that if there had been a
staple in existence ascending some 50 or 60 yards,
and connecting the yard seam with the high seam,
every soul might have been out of the pit in half an
hour after the accident happened in the shaft. It
seems that within about ten days of the accident
occurring in Hartley Pit accidents had occurred to
the winding apparatus at NewDelaval Colliery and
North Seaton Colliery, which had kept many of the
miners below 24 hours in the one pit and 20 hours
in the other, and that there are four or five other
new pits in this district.with only one shaft, and
therefore only one means of egress.
As stated by telegraph yesterday, the coroner
held an inquest yesterday afternoon on the bodies
of the five men thrown out of the cage by the fall-
ing beam and killed in the shaft. The inquest was
a very short affair, it being understood that tire
whole of the circumstances with regard to the con-
dition of the mine, Sze., will be gone into after the
men are found below. Two witnesses only were
examined at the inquest, and the jury under the di-
rection of the Coroner returned a verdict of acci-
dental death. The following is the evidence of John
Taylor, the engineman at bank, so far as it supplies
information with regard to the engine hem :
Mr. Dunn, Government inspector (to Taylor)—
Taylor, you were working at the engine at the time
of the accident P—Yes, sir.
Had it more weight to lift thc.n usual P—No, sir.
Mr. Dunn—What was the ordinary speed ?
Seven strokes a-minute.
Was all the working gear in order ?—Yes, sir.
Had anything gone wrong about the engine or
any part of it ?—Not that I observed. It was going
very steadily.
What was the ordinary steam prr;ssure ?-141b.
to the inch, ordinary pressure.
Coroner—Everything about the engine appeared
to be perfect ?—Everything, as far as I observed.
Had anything given way ?—The beam gave way.
No, no; anything beside the bee; m P—Well, not
that I observed. I stepped across the beam the stroke
before that.
Did you observe anything particular when the
beam gave way ?—Nothing, sir; just the crash.
You heard the crash ?—Yes,
Did you perceive anything then ?—I ran down
to the engine handles.
Well, what then ?—And stop-pea her.
Did you find out that the bear a b ad been broken P
—Yes, sir.
That would be the south end of'' 'the beam ?—Yes.
And that it had fallen into then shaft ?—lnto the
shaft, sir.

Carrying the spears and bratti ao, with it ?—Yes.
Mr. Dunn—Now, there had b eel s something done
to this beam awhile before P—Y es , sir.
Tell the jury what that was, an .d how long since.
—I cannot say ; I think about a. month.
Coroner—What was done to the beam ?—They
had the beam lifted off the gud gee 3ns.
Well, what took place then ?- )ne of the hydrau-
lics broke.
Mr. Dunn—But it was lifted `for the purpose of
putting in new brasses ?—Yes, .r.
Coroner—Were they for the be am to work upon P

Yes, sir.
Was there anything else (I( 113 °lent at the time ?

—No, sir.
Mr. Dunn—Were you assisti a gin this operation?
—I was at the handles.
This beam was lifted bodily of f the seat ?—lt was
off the gudgeons.
It was lifted so far to get the-, -old brasses out and
the new ones in ?—Yes.
Was the hydraulic power s u 8 icient to hold the
beam up while changing the br isses P—lt was ex-
pected it was, but it gave way.,
Were there two hydraulics ? There were three
of them.
Can you tell how far the bean was lifted off her
seat when this took place ?—Abs ut three inches.
Coroner—Mr. Dunn is asking: you if you saw the
beam in that position after it w a s lifted P—No, sir.
Mr. Dunn—Then you only -n nderstand that it
was lifted three inches ?—Yes, s ir, that is what I
heard. I think it was Mr. Sh or, t who said it was
lifted three inches.
Coroner—After that repair w 'al 3 made did the en-
gine go in a satisfactory state Yes, sir.
Mr. Dunn—But he says th ,e hydraulic failed.
What was the consequence or. that ?—The beam
came down and crushed the chc el :s down.
Could it fall any more than tl in ?,e inches ?--I was
not here to witness it.
The Foreman—Before your h ,eat ing the crash did
thly ?
you consider the engine was world ng SIIIOO

Yes, sir.
Corioner—We are now upon (c.. • different thing.