The Sun.
London, England, 1865-10-19 00:00:00

Naval and Military Intelligence.

A draught of 100 gunners and drivers of the Royal Artil-
lery has let Warley Barracks, for Dublin and Devonport,
under the command of Capt. Thompson. Prince Edward
of Saxe Weimar has paid a visit to Warley Barracks.
Major-Gen. Lord C. Paget, C. 8., Inspector-General of
Cavalry, made his half-yearly inspection of tho 17th
Lancers at Colchester on Monday and Tuesday. On Tues-
day the inspection was closed with a field-day in the New
Barrack-field, which lasted more than two hours.
A general order has been received from the Horse Guards,
empowering the Colonel commanding the troops at Col-
chester to grant leave of absence to half the officers in the
garrison from the 14th inst., and furloughs to non-com-
missioned officers or men at the rate of ten per troop or
company. Lieut. Pringle has been ordered to relieve Lieut.
Skey at the depot on the completion of the latter officer's
period of service; and Capt. Hand, of the 82d Regiment,
will proceed at once to the service companies of his corps.
Materials and apparatus for lectures on chemistry, elec-
tricity, &c., have been received at the camp at Colchester.
A troop of the 13th Hussars has left Norwich for
Coventry.
The half-yearly inspections of the Cavalry, Royal Artil-
lery, Royal Engineers, and battalions of infantry in the
Chatham district were brought to a termination yesterday
by Major-Gen. Sir Robert Walpole, K.C.8., Commandant
of the Forces, by the inspection of the Royal Engineers,
including the whole of the service and depot companies,
now at headquarters. The Major-General, accompanied
by the members of his staff,devoted the early portion of the
day to the inspection of the barrack building, non-commis-
sioned officers' and men's quarters, the schools, libraries,
offices, messrooms, &c., at Brompton-barracks. The whole
were found in generally satisfactory condition. Proceeding
to the headquartnr offices, the books, accounts, and other
official documents relating to the corps were examined. At 1
o'clock, after the men had completed their dinner, a parade
of the whole of the companies was formed in Brompton
barrack-square, in front of the men's quarters, where the
Royal Engineers wore drawn up in open columns of corn
panics, under the command of Lieut.-Col. T. B. Collinson,
in temporary charge during the absence of Col. J. L. A.
Simmons, C.B. After inspecting the kits, arms, and ac-
coutrements of each company, Major-Gen. Walpole asked
if there wore any complaints to be made by any of the
men, as, if so, he was ready to hear them. No reply, how-
ever, was given to the question. The unfavourable charac-
ter of the weather, the rain falling, more or less, through-
out the day, prevented the customary movements incidental
to an inspection being gone through on the review ground,
Chatham lines, and at about 2 o'clock the officers and men
were dismissed to their quarters.

Orders have been received at Chatham garrison directing
Lieut. Clarke, 2d Brigade Royal Artillery, Ensign Bailey,
and Ensign Quirk, 2d Battalion, 13th (Prince Albert's)
Light Infantry, to embark on board the Isabella Blyth for
the Mauritius to join the head-quarters of their respective
corps.
The Helicon, Commander M. Singer, and the Salamis,
Commander F. G. Suttie, returned from their Channel
competitive trial cruise on Sunday afternoon to Spithead.
Both vessels are of 835 tons, propelled by paddle engines
of 250 nominal horse power (the engines of both being
made by one firm from the same set of patterns), and are
alike in every respect, excepting that the Helicon has the
long plough coulter-shaped bow, introduced into her Ma-
jesty's navy by Mr. E. J. Reed, Chief Constructor to the
Navy; and the Salamis possesses the Admiralty hatchet-
shaped form that was in vogue at Whitehall prior to Mr.
Reed's accession to office. Mr. Reed arrived from Lon-
don at Portsmouth on Thursday evening last, and em-
barked on board the Helicon to witness the` trial,
the Helicon being also the senior officer's ship. The
programme laid down for the trial was for the two
vessels to steam ten knots on the first day at sea, and 12
knots on the second day, measurement being taken ae far as
might be possible under the circumstances, of the amount
of fuel burnt. The third and concluding trial was to be
simply a run back to Spithead, each vessel to do its best.
The trials at 10 and 12 knot speeds were duly made, but no
safe inferences can be drawn from the results until the indi-
cator diagrams now at the Admiralty have been marked out
and the indicated power of each ships engine compared with
consumption of fuel, &c. With regard to the ship's beha-
viour when steaming at 10 and 12 knots, there was never at
any time a sufficiently heavy sea to bring out decisively the
respective qualities of each vessel in meeting the waves at
full speed. The Salamis flung sheets of spray over the bows
in her usual liberal manner, but shipped no " green seas."
The Helicon, with her longer bow, rode the waves gene-
rally with greater ease than the Salamis, so long as she
kept her head well up, and passed the seas away under her
with the same easy motion exhibited by her on her first
run under steam outside the Isle of Wight, to which refer-
ence was made in The Sun at the date of its occurrence.
When, however, the Helicon dipped her bows deeper in the
waves than usual then she proved much inferior to the
Salamis in disposing of the opposing seas, for, unable to
get rid of the weight of water hanging on her inclined
bows, she flung it bodily inboard in green seas. As has
been observed, however, there were no really heavy head
seas met with to fully test either of the vessels in this res-
pect, and therefore no positively fair comparison between
the two can perhaps be drawn. The 10 and 12 knot speed
runs having been concluded, the two vessels were put under
easy steam until .a position, 335 miles west of St. Catharine's)
Isle of Wight, was reached on Saturday at noon. Then the
preparatory flag was hoisted on board the Helicon to start
on the race back, the winning-post being the Warner Ligh-
tship at the eastern entrance to Spithead, and the distance
350 miles. All was soon ready, but the start was delayed
for about half an hour, during which time the Salamis's
pressure of steam fell, her boilers filled with water, and her
fires necessarily grow dull. All this could not be avoided,
but it nevertheless gave the Helicon a decided advantage, as
it enabled her commanding officer to start her at his own
time-1 p.m., under a full head of steam, with clear fires,
and her head set straight on her course ; while the Salamis
had to get her head round from the westward, and start
with steam down to 191 b., and with dead fires. At the end
of two hours from the time of starting the Helicon had
obtained 'a lead of from two and a half to tin ee miles, but
the Salamis's fires and steam were now all right, and her
engines were doing their best. By 4 p.m. the distance
between the vessels was but trifling, and by 1 a.m. on the
following morning (Sunday) they wore fairly abreast of
each other, the green light of the Helicon being distin-
guishable from the fore-deck of the Salamis. At daylight
on Sunday the coal received at Portsmouth in the bunkers
of the Salamis was nearly all gone, and a very inferior
kind of coal, which had been 12 months in the bunkers,
having been taken on board at Copenhagen and Hull,
when the Salamis was in attendance upon the Prince and
Princess of Wales on the occasion of their visit to Den-
mark, had now to be burnt in the furnaces. The effect in
this change of fuel was won apparent in the gradual