The Sun.
London, England, 1848-01-27 00:00:00

NAVAL INTELLIGENCE.

PORTSMOUTH, WEDNEsDAY.--The Powerful, 84,
advance ship, is ordered to be commissioned as the
sea service guariship at this port. Captain the Hon.
R. S. Dundas, C B. (1824), who was Captain of the
Melville, 72, on the coast of China, including the
capture of the forts of the Bocca Tigris and the
operations against Canton in 1841, is appointed to
conitni,.sion her. She is ordered a complement of
350 men.

The Government are gradually getting a large
naval force into commission. Orders have arrived
this day for her Majesty's ship Powerful, 84, to be
brought forward for sea service, and Captain the Hon.
Richard Saunders Dundas, C. 8., is to command her.
She is to have a crew, at present, of only 380 officers
and men. She will, in the first instance, be fitted for
the conveyance of troops, like the Bellerophon, and go
to sea without her lower-deck guns, and after being
out eight or nine months, return to the port to be
completed as a ship of the line in officers, men, and
guns. Her Majesty's ships Vanguard, Superb,
and Canopus, have been in commission nearly three
years, but are not expected to be relieved for some
months.

Her Majesty's ship Illustrious, 72, is to be the
depot ship of the Ordinary at Portsmouth, and Cap-
tain Yates and the officers and part of the crew of the
Blenheim are to be transferred to her. The Illus-
trious is to have a complement of 386 officers and
men, and will be armed and equipped as a line-of-
batlte ship, and, consequently, kept ready for service.
Her Majesty's steam block-ship Blenheim is to
carry the pendant of the captain who is to have the
charge of all the steamers at Portsmouth not in com-
mission. She is to have a complement of 240 officers
and men. It is expected that Captain H. T. Austin,
C. 8., will be transferred from the Fisgard at Wool-
wich, and be appointed to the Blenheim, and have the
superintendence and arrangement of that class of
men-of-mar, under the orders of Rear-Admiral Pres-
cott, C.B. Great exertions are making to get ready
the new steam-basin and the workshops attached to it
early this spring, that the greater portion of those
steamers coming from Woolwich, &c., may be placed
there.

Mr. Spencer St. John is appointed secretary to
Governor Brooke, and ordered a passage in the
Mmander.

We have received information from an authentic
source of the body of a man having been picked up on
the coast of Africa lashed to a chest, believed to be
that of one of the unfortunate Avenger's crew. A.
gun-carriage has also been washed ashore and iden-
tified as one belonging to that ship. The body of the
man on the chest was not identified.

Captain Alexander Milne, junior naval Lord of the
Admiralty, arrived here this evening. Four other
members of the board are expected by the first express
train on the South-Western Railway to-morrow
morning, on an official visit.
Mr. W. P. Browne, Paymaster and Purser, of
1808, late of the Canopus, 84, died at midnight on
Monday, in the Royal Hospital at Hasler.
The Fairy royal yacht,. Captain Lord Adolphus
Fitaclarence, G.C.H., in dock, requires new boilers, to
obtain which she is to be sent to Woolwich, we are
informed. She is also having an alteration made in
her stern-post, &c.
We have seen to-day an excellent specimen of coal
brought home by the Cormorant from Van Louver's
Island. It is considered by competent judges to be
of good and serviceable quality, and equal to any that
can be obtained in the British mines. It abounds,
we are told, in immense quantities on the surface of
the above island. Coal has been supposed to abound
in the above neighbourhood; but we are not aware
of the fact ever having been proved before. A speci-
men has been sent to the Admiralty. The Cormorant
called at Vancouver's Island on her passage home,
and paid only four shillings per ton for tee article,
which was brought alongside the steamer in
canoes, eight hundred in number; at the same time
Government were paying sixteen pounds per ton
at Valparaiso for the same article. So extraordinary
a fact is sufficient to induce (we should think)
the taking up of merchant tonnage by the Govern-
ment for the shipment of this coal, and its conveyance
to Panama, or some other depot where our cruisers
need,it, when it is believed it would cost the Crown
no more than ls. per ton. The mills are much in-
creased all down the coast, rendering this mineral
indispensable. The straits (Puget's), between Van-
couver's Island and the main are only three miles in
width, and the shipment and transport is easy. The
population alongshore, however, is a mixture of
Indians of all classes, and great caution is rendered
necessary in treating with them, or the white man
will be worsted in the bargain in more ways than
one. Three vessels and their crews have already, dis-
appeared unaccountably in these waters. The Hud-
son s Bay Company's steam-vessel, in navigating the
Columbia, is generally obliged to have her boarding
nettings up.
Lieutenant Hosken, late of the Great Western and
Great Britain steam-ships, is appointed by Lord
Auckland Captain of the port of Labuan, and will
go out in the Meander, 44, in the suite of Mr.
Brooke, the Raja of Sarawak, to enter upon his ap-
pointment.
The • Confiance Devonport steam-tug, Mr. Jago
Master Commanding, left last night, on her return
with supernumeraries.
Wind, E.N.E., fresh gales ; weather hazy, intensely
cold, with an inclination to sleet or snow.—Five
o'clock r. M.

PLYMOUTH, JAN. 25.—The barque Victory, Captain
Allan, which left Table Bay on the 27th of Novem-
ber, reports that the inhabitants of Cape Town were
then preparing to illuminate on the apprutich of the
new governor, Sir Harry Smith.
The schooner Saldanha Bay Packet was upset in
Three Anchor Bay, and the schooner Ghika was
driven ashore in Buffalo Bay, about the middle of
November; both crews drowned.
One of her Majesty's steam-frigates, from Simon's
Bay, arrived at the Cape two days before the Victory
left, and, having coaled, came out with the barque,
shaping a course to the eastward.
A brig-of-war, anchored at St. Helena, was joined
on the 10th of December by her prize, a brigantine,
with a full cargo of slaves, taken on the let of
December.
The damage to the barque Passenger, reported in
The Sun of Wednesday, was done by a French mer-
chant ship.

A WRITE DRELL—The somewhat marvellous an-
nouncement that a white deer had been seen at Ardish-
lake some time ago reached the ears of the sporting
Qcntleal<!r, Applecros,, who shortly afterwards started
in pursuit of the pr,Aigy. It was captured, after u
laborious search, and proved to be an albino—it hind
almost purely white.—lnverness Courier.

EXPERIMENTS AT PLYMOUTH

CITADEL.

On Monday, the 24th instant, several experiments
were made for the purpose of testing the strength of
some of the seaward embrasures of Plymouth citadel.
There were present, Major-General Sir John
Murray, the Commander of the Forces in the western
district, attended by his aide-de-camp, Captain Nelson,
Colonel Oldfield and Captain Nelson, nova Engi-
neers ; Lieutenant-Colonel Rowland, Major AskVvitill
Major Garston, Captain Swinton, Captain arayddiri)
Adjutant and Lieutenant A. Peters ; Lieutetitht
Boothby and Lieutenant Host, Royal Artillery
Mr. Norwood, foreman, and Mr. Sherrie, clerk of the
works.

Several of the officers, and nearly all the none
commissioned officers of the citadel, with abottt ten,
or twelve civilians were present.
The guns were worked by Sergeant-Major Wlllll'4l
King, and the artillery-men barracked in the citadel;
aided by a few from Devonport and a detachment of
the 14th regiment were on the ramparts, but their
services were not required.
The first experiment was made shortly after mini
o'clock, at the second embrasure, at the west etiti
the Cumberland 6-gun battery, on the citadel ran=
parts, facing the eastern entrance to the Sound.
Here a 32-pound gun was loaded and fired at dif-
ferent angles and depressions, six times, with a ser-
vice charge of 101 b. of powder. After this experi.
meet it was found that the embrasure, which 10
constructed of rubble masonry, had been considerabl)
shattered, and heavy fragments of stone thrown illy
the concussion 100 feet off the ramparts, fell on the
platform of the upper Ligonier battery, which is
about fifty feet below the gun. _

The second experiment was made at a new asphalts
embrasure, constructed at the north end of the old
saluting battery, which has two embrasures facing
north, two facing south, and an open rampart for
eight guns. The calibre of the gun and the charge
were the same as before, and it was also fired six
times. No effect was observable on the new work of
this embrasure, but at two or three feet in, where
the new work joined the old, the masonry, by the
concussion, was deranged in a small degree. The
durability of this embrasure appearod to excite the
admiration of the Commander-in-Chief, of Colonel
Oldfield, Lieutenant-Colonel Rowland, and other
officers present. _ _ _

The third experiment took place under the flag
staff, at the end of the old saluting battery, where
there is an ancient embrasure constructed of rubble
limestone, with base, quoins, and facing of wrought
limestone, the masonry of which was slightly shaken
by the firing. This gun was once loaded with a shot,
and directed towards Staddon Heights, but the shot
pitched in Batten Bay. On this occasion the gun
recoiled fifteen feet altogether, or nine feet eight
inches in the clear.

Had that part of the Sound which comes within
the range of the first and third experimental guns
been clear of ships and boats, it was intended to fire
shot from them, and forty rounds of 321 b. shot are
placed on the ramparts ready for the first opportunity.
The range of the second experimental gun is chiefly
on the land, over the southern slopes, towards the
Hoe, and therefore not afe for shot practice.
It is necessary to observe that shot have never
before been fired from these embrasures. The
morning and evening gun, for some time past, has
been a 6 pounder, and the quantity of powder used
21b. Thi, gun has been moulded at the new asphalt.
embrasure and fired right and left in every possible
position that would test its firmness. These experi-
ments have well blackened the face of the work, but

not injured its stability.
The asphalte brick work of the north embrasure of
the old saluting battery has been performed by the
Seyssel Asphalte Company, and is the first of the
kind ever built. It took twelve men four weeks to
construct it, and was finished about three months
since. The men worked under cover of tarpaulins,

and had a furnace constantly lighted near them.
Twelve tons scale weight of asphalte bricks and of
liquid asphalte were consumed in its construction.
Between the new work and the old this useful mate-
rial was poured in boiling hot. The lower and upper
parts of the embrasure are made of bricks about nine
inches thick ; those in the middle are three inches
thick by nine inches long, but the bricks of both
sizes seem now to be all completely welded together
as if cast in a mould, and the experiment in every
respect appears to be completely successful.

RAILWAY SHARE MARKETS.
LIVERPOOL, JAx. 26.

STOCK EXCHANGE.—The sales are—Birkenhead,
Lanca-
shire, and Cheshire (late C. and B.), 163 —Ditto, 221.
Shares, 74 dis.—Chester and Holyhead, 184 di&—East
Lancashire, New, 3% dis.—Great Southern and Western,
13% dis.—Huddersfield Railway and Canal, I:Y4 dis.—Lan.
caster and Preston, Three-quarter Shares, 9 p.—London and
North-Western, New Quarters, 6 p.—Manchester, Sheffield,
and Lincolnshire, Quarters, No. 2, 18—Ditto, Preference,
p.—Midland, 1154—Ditto, 401. Shares, 444—North Staf-
fordshire, % p.—Preston and Wyre, 344—Shrewsbury,
Oswestry, and Cheshire, 5% dis.—Shrewsbury and Chester,
New, % di..—South-Eastern and Dover, No. 4,1% dia.—
York and North Midland, Preference, 71p.—York, Newcastle,
and Berwick (original), 32—Cork and Bandon, 24% dis.