The Sun.
London, England, 1849-10-11 00:00:00

THE sCr N.

LONDON,

or raised.- like a sluice. The principle of smoke
consumptilon consists in the slow and regular admis-
sion of the coal. Instead of being heaved with a
shovel, so as to produce continual gusts of smoke,
it is admitted, as it were, by hair breadths. The
ignition ,'s therefore little at a time, and what
smoke is- s'eised having to go over the bright fire
beyond, it is necessarily consumed. Nothing gets
up the Chimney but a slight fume, scarcely per-
ceptible to. the eye. The apparatus, we are told,
has the further advantage of economising fuel and
attendance, while it sustains the steam equally with
the common practice of firing. The great beauty of
the whole thing, however, is, that the smoke is con-
sumed. We have seldom seen any process of art
more simple, and yet more ingenious and beautiful.
It is the first instance, we believe, of Juckes's patent
being applied in Scotland, and the working of the
apparatus is well worth seeing. With a judicious
application of such apparatuses, we do not see
why towns should any longer be tortured with
murky clouds of smoke, obscuring the atmosphere,
and damaging publiC health. There, before our eyes,
is a convincing proof that there need be no smoke
from furnaces. It is, perhaps, not going too far to
say, that henceforth, without detriment to amenity,
a steam-engine may be wrought in the most elegant
of our squares—anywhere under the eyesight of our
most fastidious aristocracy.— The Scotsman, Oct. 3.

-
THE NAVY.
THE CAPTAINS' GOOD•SERVICE PENSION.
It has now been officially announced, that the va-
cant captains' good-service pension has been bestowed
upon Commodore Sir Thomas Herbert, K.C.8., now
returning home from the command-in-chief of the
south-eatt coast of America station. Sir Thomas is
one of the few eligible officers who has seen any ser-
vsce as a " captain." He has served 22 years afloat
since lin first entered the navy, and his claims for the
distinction conferred upon him will be seen in the
following' extract fromi," O'Byrne's Naval Bio-
graphy :"
" This officer entered the nary, July 23d, 1803, as
first-class volunteer, on board the Excellent, 74, Cap-
tain Frank Sotheron, and, on proceeding to the Medi-
terranean, was there invested with the rating of midship-
man, January let, 1804. After assisting at the defence
of Gaeta and the capture. of Capri, he removed to the
Blonde, 38, Captain Volant Vasbon Ballard, whom he
accompanied to the West Indies, on which station we
find him witnessing the reduction, in December, 1807,
of the D4nish West India Islands, and contributing to
the capture of fire privateers, carrying in the whole 58
guns and 515 men. On August 1, 1809, as a reward for
the conduct he had in particular exhibited as prize.
master of L'Alert, of 20 guns and 149 men, Mr. Her-
bert, on the recommendation of his captain, was nomi-
nated by Sir Alexander Cochrane to a lieutenancy in
his flag-ship, the; Neptune, 98. Being officially pro-
moted on the 10th of the following October, he was next,
betweenthlarch, 1810, and June, 1814, employed as a
lieutenant in the Pompee, 74, Captain J. Athol Wood,
on the West India, home, and :v;editerranean stations.
He then became first of the Euryalus, 36, Captain Chas.
Napier, in which frigate he served until the close of the
Americari,war, and obtained the official mention of Sir
James Alexander Gordon, fur the ability and the
. _

conspicuous exertions he displayed throughout the opera-
tions on the river Potomac, including the capture of Fort
Washington, and of the city of Alexandria. On Oct.
19th, 1814, Mr. Herbert, who by that period had been
upwards of twenty times engaged with the enemy, in
cutting out affairs, and otherwise, and had been
thrice wounded, was advaccA to the rank of coin.

mender. He did not, however, take up his commis-
sion until February, 1815 ; from which period he
appears to have remained on half pay until Sept. 6,
182!. He then obtained an appointment to the Icarus,
10, fitting for the Jamaica station ; where he removed,
May 6, 1822, to the Carnation, 18, and was posted,
25th November following, to a death vacancy in the
Tamar, 26 ; continuing to serve in the hitter ves-
sel until pai off in August, 1823. Captain Herbert
succeeded, during that period, in destroying three
piratical vessels
.on the coasts of Cubs and Yu-
catan. On the 10th of November,lB37, not having been
afloat for a period of 15 , ears, he was next appointed
to the Calliope, 26, and ordered to the Brazils. Until
the arrival there from the Pacific of Commodore
Thomas Ball Sulivan, Captain Herbert. we find, con-
ducted in person the duties of senior officer. He was
subsequently directed to assume the command of the
naval force in the Rio do la Plate, for the
protection of the British interests at Buenos
Ayres and Monte Video, during ,the blockade
of the former place by a French squadron ; and
while in discharge of the duties which were then
imposed upon him, he had the satisfaction of being
twice officially assured of the entire approbation of
the Admiralty at his proceeding?. In January, 1840,
Captain Herbert went round Cape Horn, and joined
Rear-Admiral Charles Bayne Hodgson Ross at Valpa-
raiso, whet.ce, in the ensuing June, he sailed for Chins
via St. Bernardin's Passage, encountering, en route
while among the Philippine Islands, a typhoon, which
the Calliope was only enabled to survive through the
extreme exertions of her officers and crew. Ar-
riving in the Canton River en October 10, Captain
Herbert immediately assumed, and, until the advent
of Rear-Admiral Honourable George Eliot en Nov. 20,
retained the command of the blockading force. The
important nature of his services, as one of the chief
actors in the scenes of hostility that followed, demands
our particular attention:—On Jan. 7, 1841, having been
placed by the rear admiral in charge of the advanced
squadron off the Bocce Tigris, ho conduced the attack
made on the enemy's forts at Chuenpee, where were
annihilated eleven powerful junks, the flower of the
Chinese navy ; and on February 23, being at the
time on board the Nemesis, he of the destruction
of a 20 gun battery, at the back of the island of
Anunghoy. Three days after the latter event we
find him in the Calliope, heading the operations against
the celebrated Bogue Forts, and on the 27th (with the
Calliope, Herald, 26; Alligator, 26; Modeete, 18; Sul-
phur, 8; and Nemesis and Madagascar steamers under
his orders), attacking the enemy's camp, fort, and ship
Cambridge, bearing the Chinese Admiral's flag at their
position below Whampoa Reach, where 98 guns were,
on the whole, destroyed. After capturing, on March
113, the last fort protective of the approaches to Canton,
Captain Herbert's squadron advanced. towards the
city, and on the 18sh attacked all the batteries and
flotilla in its immediate vicinity, the former of which, in
the course of two hours and a half, were in succession
destroyed, and the latter either burnt or dispersed; thus
enabling the British to plant the union-jack on the walls
(e!' the factory, and placing totally in their power the
hug'9 capital of Quang- tong. On the renewal, in the
following May, of the hostilities against Canton,
the Chinese, on the night of the 21st of that month,
made a vigorous attack with fire-rafts and
armed boats, and from several masked and
newly-raised batteries, on the British shipping there
located, and still commanded by Captain Herbert.
They were, however, totally defeated, and on the
next day their batteries were dismantled and their
floating armament ruined. On the 26th the water
defenees between the factories and Howqua's Fort,
mounting 64 guns, were levelled, and forcible posses-
sion taken of their naval arsenal and war-junks. In
the month of June Captain Herbert, who, until then,
had directed, as we have stated, the movements of the
advanced squadron on the Canton river, succeeded, owing
to the death of Sir Humphrey Fleming Senhouse, to the
command of the whole force employed on that areas].
On the arrival, a few weeks afterwards, of Rtar-Admiral
Sir William Parker, as commander-in:chief, he was re-
moved to the Blenheim, 72, in which ship, in the course
of the following August and October, he assisted with
great distinction at the capture of Amoy, the retaking
of Chusan, and the reduction of Chinghae. On the latter
occasion, after the necessary breachings had been ac-
complished, he landed in command of the light colUmn of
attack, consisting of a body of upwards of 700 seamen,
mariees, and troops, and stormed and carried the
citadel, situated on the left bank of the Tioghae river;
while the General Sir Hugh Gough, with the land
forces, made himself equally master of the extensive
and formidable works on the right bank. Captain Her-
bert, who was next present at the surrender of Ningpo,
and subsequently accompanied several reconnoitering
parties up the Tinghae, returned to Hong-Kong
from off Ningpo and Chusan in February,
1842, and resumed command of the squadron in the
Canton river. In the month of July he left Hong-
Kong in a steamer for the Yang-tse-Kiang, for the
purpose of visiting Nanking, where he remained until
her Majesiy's Plenipotentiary, in October, took leave
of the Imperial Commissioner. Sir Thomas Herbert,
whose brilliancy of service had been rewarded, Oct.
14, 1841, with the dignity of a K.C.8., returned to
England by the Cape of Good Hope—thus accom-
plishing a circumnavigation of the globe—and paid
the Blenheim off in March, 1843. Since Jan. 11, 1847,
he has been employed on the south-east coast
of America, with a broad pendant, in the Raleigh, 50.
Sir Thomas Herbert was born in February, 1793, is son
of the late Richard T. Herbert, Esq., of Cahernan,
County Kerry, where the Herbert family has been seated
since the reign of Charles 11, Among the early ances-
tors of Sir Thomas we discover the name of Sir Richard
Herbert, of Coldbrook, who, with his brother William,
Earl of Pembroke, was beheaded at Berabury, the day
after the battle of Danes Moor,' July 26, 1469."

THE HYBRID MAIZE IN VAL PARIL—The maize
introduced into this auuntry from the Pyrenees, and
sown as an experiment in St. James's-park by Mr.
Keene, was harvested yesterday.:it has fully succeeded.
The grain is perfectly farmed, full, sad ripe; the cobbs, we
can fairly say, having seen specimens of both, are much
finer than those grown on the continent, a result peculialy
gratifying, in a public point of view of the very highest
importance, because it sets at rest the doubts which, in
the first instance, were eatertained in some quarters,
that the soil and climate of this,cnuctry were nut capa-
ble of the proc:uet. The particular situation was in no
way especially favourable to the groan;; on the con-
trary, almcst, as it were, in the heart of the metropolis,
and immediately - surrounded by trees and shrubs,
the ground was not at all enriched by manure at
the time of tilling. The amount of crop appears to
be at the rate of about fifty bushels per acre, and
in the opinicn of several experienced agricul-
turists present at the harvest this quantity is pro-
ducible on the average, from ordinary soil, in
ordinary situations, and with the ordinary quantity and
quality of manure. Some Indian corn and Barbadoes
corn had been sown alongside Mr. Keent's mail', at
the same time, and under exactly the same circum-
stances and conditions, but neither has ripened, or, in-
deed, seems likely to come to maturity. They still re-
main standing. The result of this harvest is, in our
opinion, of very general and very great interest, when
it is a matter of fact that the bread from this corn