The Sun.
London, England, 1856-08-02 00:00:00

..tr-N- LONDON, lArtinDAy ,EVENING; ATTGAIST gs MO;
__l

graph, wherein lie French and Russians, and the ravines
are still full of bones, and of fragments of clothing and
accoutrements. Cannon shot appear to have been care-
fully removed. There is an excellent view of the French
position and attack from the edge of the plateau. The
enemy must have had every movement of the allies under
their eyes from the time they left Bouljanak till they
halted to form for battle, and the spectacle could not
have been one to give them courage or to inflame
their ardour. The Russians declare they had only 33,000
or 34,000 on the field ; but, admitting that to be so, they
made a bad fight, considering the position they occupied,
and their cavalry exhibited that passive and unenterpris-
ing character which it maintained throughout the war
An officer of the old Pastel regiment told me that he
charged our first attacking body when they were checked
with the bayonet, and that if all the troops inside and on
the flanks of the redoubts had rushed out simultaneously
the day would have been lost to us ; but he was rather
surprised when he heard that our Third and Fourth Divi-
sions were still intact, and that the Guards, whom he sup-
posed to have been routed, were never broken except in
the centre, where the Scots Fusiliers wavered for a mo-
ment in their advance under the heavy fire of the Russians
and the pressure of the disjointed groups of the Light
Division. The French are disposed to think that the
English were too slow in beginning the attack, which it
was agreed should not take place till our allies had
gained the left of the Russian position. It is certain that
Lord Raglan received one, if not two, pressing messages
from Marshal St. Arnaud to hasten his columns; but
one may ask how it was that here, as everywhere else,
the honour of taking the initiative was ceded to our
allies, and the opportunity given to them of saying "the
English were too late." They only numbered 23,000,
whereas we had about 27,000. If it resulted from their
position on our right, why did they take the left when
we halted before Sebastopol ? The assaults on the place
were made on the same principle—the French first, the
English afterwards ; and, whether it be true or false that
we were "too late," there can be no doubt there was
from the beginning a tendency to say so. It is beyond
question, in the opinion of many officers, that the Light
Division were not followed closely enough by the First
in their advance up the hill at the Alma. In other
words, the latter were too slow or " too late. The
French did their part admirably, and their in-
telligence and personal activity were wonderfully
displayed in their progress up the steep ravines and
sides of the high banks of the plateau, but their loss in
killed and wounded was under 700 men, while ours was
just 2,000. The Admiral Bouet Willaurnez, in his recent
so-called "History of the French Navy," distinctly
avers that the English General would not permit the
victory to be followed up by marching next day, and
that the French were retarded by their allies. A diffe-
rent impression prevails in our army, but this is one of
the points which must be cleared up for history by those
who were in the confidence of Lord Raglan. Tho state-
ment, at all events, shows what was the belief of the chef
d'etat major of the French navy in the Black Sea. 01
the necessity and of the motives for the delay, of its re-
sults, of the practicability of getting such aid from the
fleet as would have relieved us entirely from the charge
of sick, wounded, and prisoners, I shall not speak ; but it
is to be remarked that the feebleness and imbecility of our
arrangementsin this portion of our administration became
apparent at the very first pressure by the abandonment
of our ambulances just at the very time they were
most needed, by the disgraceful exhibition of tke Kane
garoo crowded with sick and wounded till she had to
make the signal that she was unmanageable and unsafe,
in the sight of the whole fleet, by the sufferings of her
miserable cargo, left to the charge of one surgeon, who
could not attend to a tithe of his patients, and who could
not even get at them if he could have dressed their
wounds, and by the wretched, foolish, and cruel expe-
dient of leaving another surgeon, Mr. Thompson, and
his servant on the field to take care of 700 wounded
men. Dr. Thompson felt the hopelessness and positive
cruelty of such a proceeding, and remonstrated against
it; bat he wae-told that it had been "ordered," and that
if the " Cossacks" came down his " professional charac
ter" would protect him. Standing on the banks of the
Alma one has many bitter reflections to make, and all
the glories of that name cannot sweeten them. The
battle itself was one of the most brilliant in the world—
the shortest and sharpest, and our army, young in battle
but veteran in service, displayed the best qualities of
British infantry. We have since heard of the incredulity
of the dismay, with which the news was received in St.
Petersburg, and of the subsequent eagerness of the Rue-
sian army to avenge the defeat and to hurry to the Cri-
mea to drive the allies into the sea. They found it
,a
barrier they could not break at Inkerman ; but they
are a people prone to put faith in their own invincibility,
and slow to credit defeat, and they believe in themselves
even yet.
The position of the Alma is so well marked that it can
never be mistaken by any future visitors. The French
attacked the steep and almost perpendicular cliffs,
which are broken here and there by ravines which mount
up wards from the river. They were divided horn us by the
most marked and extensive of these ravines, and eastward
of that boundary the whole of the ground suddenly falls,
and, instead of rising abruptly from the Alma, gains the
high level of the hills by a series of sweeping undulations,
offering many positions for guns, with extensive glacie
to the front. Descending from the plateau, some of our
party crossed the bridge, and went out on the plain to-
wards Bouljanak to she tumuli, which stud the plains,
and which denote the extreme range of the Russian guns.
On turning round towards the south the eye takes in the
whole scene of battle, from the sea on the right to the
low slopes which formed the right of the Russian posi-
tion. Their left was separated from their right by a
deep ravine running at right angles to wards the Alma,
and this ravine is also the boundary between the high
and steep cliffs which overhang the tortuous course of
the Alma on the south bank from the ford to the sea.
and the gentler rising grounds on which the enemy's left
lay, and which were strengthened by the redoubt and by
the mass of the Russian artillery. It will then be seen how
the Russian left depended on the nature of the ground as
its best defence,and what a fatal mistake Menschikoffcom-
mitted when he omitted to take into consideration the
effect of the fire of the ships. That fire soon drove back
their left, and forced it to reeform on the centre, which
it put into confusion, and the French, ascending by the
ravines with the utmost courage and activity, made good
their footing on the right and turned the Russian left
completely with comparatively little loss. The advance
of our allies was covered to a great extent by the thick
foliage on the banks of the Alma, and the cliffs are so
high and rotten that guns could not be used with suc-
cess against them. The river is much farther from the
base of the cliffs than it is from the slopes on the Rus-
sian right, where the British attacked, so that it would
be scarcely commanded by guns on the top of the pla-
teau, whereas we were under fire for several hundred
yards before we reached the Alma at all.

A huge mound, composed of 15 or 16 gigantic graves,
at the distance of 400 or 500 yards from the river on its
north side, denotes the resting•place of those who fell be-
fore the army crossed the stream, or who died after
the fight in the ambulances. The road by which we
advanced to the bridge is just as it was on the 20th of
September, and on the right close to the stream are the
blackened ruins of the village of Bourliouk. It will be
remembered that the enemy partially destroyed the
bridge, but that it was repaired during the action by
Captain Montagu, Royal Engineers, and a party of
Sappers and Miners. The bridge has been substantially
rebuilt by means of a strong wooden way thrown across
the stone arches, and supported by beams and uprights.
The old post-house on the right of the road before you
come to the bridge is about being reconstructed, and a
guard of soldiers were lodged in its ruins. It will be,
to all appearances, a handsome house of fine white free-
stone when it is finished. I surveyed its ruins with
peculiar interest, for I know a person very intimately
who took shelter in this house, part of which was on fire,
to get out of a fire still hotter, till he was driven out by
a shell falling through the roof, and it was at the wall
outside, which is yet torn by shot, that I met the
first two wounded officers I saw that day—two officers
of the :.I(h.h, one hit through the chest or side ; the other
II wounded, I think, in the leg or arm. They were helping
eich other from the river, bleeding and weak, and I was
fortunate enough to be able to bring to their aid a staff
surgeon, belonging, I believe to the Cavalry Division,
who kindly examined their wounds under fire. Close to
this I had previously seen the first man killed—a drum-
mer, who was carrying a litter, and who was struck by a
round shot which bowled slowly along the road and hit
him, with a peculiar quashing sound, on the hip. He
fell broken in two, and never moved ; nor did his com-
rade, who was carrying the other end of the litter, stop
to mourn over his death. After the intrepid rush of the
Light Division up the hill, its wavering, its slow and
broken and unwilling halt, the bold advance of Penne-
father's Brigade, and the billow-like march of the
Guards, I was happy again in being able to warn Colonel
Wathly, as he approached at the head of the 50th,
that he was rcioceing right along the line of fire of
the enemy's guns, and, as there was a very conclu-
sive proof given of the correctness of the statement just
as I spoke, that gallant officer moved off his men, who
were in dense cclumn a little to the left, and got off
the road to the fie, id, whence he rapidly advanced towards
the heights. Al.) - these things and many more carne back
upon roe as I 100 ked around, I con recall that narrow

road filled with dead and dying—poor young But:gnyne
going past on his litter, crying out cheerily, "It's all right
—it's only my foot;" "Billy Fitzjerald" shot through
both legs lying up against the wall, and chatting away as
if he had just sat down after a quadrille ; a white-haired
field officer (of the 55th), whose name I don't know, badly
wounded through the body, who could only moan bitterly
"Oh my poor men ! oh my poor men ! they hadn't a
chance ;" then the river stained here and there with blood
still flowing from the dead and dying who lay on the
shallows and the banks, lined nevertheless by hundreds,
who drank its waters eagerly ; the horrid procession of
the dripping litters going to the rear of the fight ;
the solid mass of Adams' brigade, halted by Lord
Raglan's orders, as it emerged from the smoke of Bour-
Honk ; the Staff itself and the Commander-in-Chief,
gathered on the rising ground close by ; that ghastly
battle-field where so many lay in so small a space pu-
trescent with heat and wounds; the grey blocks of Rus-
sians melting away like :clouds, and drifted off by the
fierce breath of battle ; the shriek and rush of the shells
from the brass howitzers in the battery, the patter of the
frantic rifle, the rattling roll of the musketry, the frantic
sheers of our men as they stood victors on the heights,
drowning the groans and cries which for a moment suc-
ceeded the roar of battle ; the shrill flourish of the
French bugles, and the joyous clamour of their drums
from the other side of the ravine,—all came back upon
the ear again, and the -eye renewed its pleasure as it
gazed from the ridge upon the plain where it had before
seen the Russians flying in disorder, with their rear
still covered by the threatening squadrons of their
cavalry. Then one recalled the spot where one had
seen some friend lying dead, or some one—friend or
foe—whom it were no mercy to strive to keep alive—
Watkin Wynn, stretched on the ground in front of the
trench, with a smile on his face—Colonel Chester, with
a scornful frown, and his sword clenched in the death
grasp—Monck, with the anger of battle fixed on every
feature—these and many another friend in the peaceful
camp of Aladyn or Devno rose up as they lived in the
memory. The scowling Russians who glared so fiercely
on their conquerors and seemed to hate them even as
hey supplied their wants, then seen for the- first time,
left an impression respecting the type of the Muscovite
ebaracter which has scarcely been effaced now that they
have ceased to be " messieurs nos antis rennenti." I re-
°ailed the two days passed as no army ought to pass
two days—on the field of battle, amid the dead—the
horrid labours of those hours of !despondency and grief,
where all should have been triumph and rejoicing, and
the awakened vigour with which the army broke from
its bivouac on the Alma and set out with no certain aim,
no fixed project, on its chance march which fate has made
so successful and so prosperous.
The intrenchment can be distinctly seen for a mile
north of the river, It is placed halfway down the slope of
'the little hillside. There-were no other works, trenches,
redoubts, or fieldwotka of any description, and all the
accounts of such defences filled with riflemen and guns
which have been wade public were erroneous. The
enemy had very few riflemen, and the ground,.except on
the extreme left, was of such a nature that good cover
for guns could be had for the seeking. For many
years to coma the battle-field is likely to remain as
it is now, the only difference being that the vines which
flourished on the 20th of September, 1854, may be cul-
tivated once more. On ascending from the river towards
the intrenchments, you find yourself on the left com-
pletely covered by a rise of the hill in front from the
parapet, so that men could form in this hollow for the
it tack without being exposed to fire ; but tire Russians
aware of this, sent down on their extreme right large
bodies of infantry, who fired at the left brigade of
she Light Infantry as they were trying to get into
')order after crossing the river. On the right, nearer to
the bridge, the ground is more exposed to guns from
the parapet of the trench, and on advancing a few yards
she fair open glacis, gently sloping upwards to their
nuzzles, gives a terrible solution of the reason why for .
A time the Light Division was held in check, and lost in
a few moments upwards of 1,000 men. At the base of
:his glacis, and scattered along the ridge towards the
river, are mounds of earth about 30 feet long by 15 is
oreadth, whioh are covered with large stones and slabs
)f slate. There are 15 or 16 of these mounds, and many
)f them contain the remains of friends and foes. Some
=mall black wooden crosses are placed here and there
among these mounds, which rise to the height of two or
three feet above the level of the plain, and are all covered
with rank vegetation and wild flowers. The parapet of
he work is still about three feet outside, and a foot
Peeper in the trench inside. Near the centre is placed a
nandsome monument of white stone, with the following
,nscription

" During the attack on these heights, 20th September,
1854, her Britannic Majesty's 231 R'yal Welsh Fusiliers
oat their commanding officar, Lieutenant Colonel H.
Jhester, Captains A. W. Wynn, F. Evans, J. Cinolly,
Lieutenants P. Radcliffe, Sir W. Young, Bart., J. An-
truther, and J. Butler, all killed on the field ; also
',ieutenant Applethwaite, mortally wounded, who died
Sept. 22, 1854. This stone is erected to their memory."
On the other side,

" The re;irnent also lost Serjeanl J. H. Jones, Colour-
ierjeants R. Hitchcock, J. F. E 'wards, 1 drummer,
tnd 40 privates, killed on the field."

In the ditch of the fieldwork there are about 20 large
;raves covered with long grass and wild flowers. Tile
trench is about 150 yards long, and it is filled with earth
vhich has tumbled down into it from the parapet ; the
races of the embrasures still remain. There are two
tone crosses erected inside the trench on heaps of dead.
Chia is all that remains to betoken the scene of the ac-
ion on our side, except a few pieces of threadbare rags
mil bits of accoutrements, leather straps, old shakos,
And fragments of cowhide knapsacks. And so I take
save of the Alma, which henceforth sha'l be celebrated
in history to the end of time.

DR. SCORESBY ON IRON SHIPS, THE
AUX I LIA ItY SCREW, AND AUST.RA-
LEAN COMMUNICATION.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE MELBOURNE ARGUS.
Sir,—lt may not be uninteresting or unuseful, per-
hap% notwithstanding what has already appeared in the
iublic papers of the rapid and extraordinary passage
of the Royal Charter, that your readers and the
lolonists generally should learn something respecting
the performance and capabilities of this splendid ship
'rim an observer on board, in no way connected with
commercial adventure, or otherwise, than for an impor-
tent scientific purpose (deeply connected, indeed, with
the aetion of the compass in our ships), with the Liver-
pool Company, of whose enterprise and views the Royal
Charter comes as an exposition and type.
The local papers of Melbourne have well anticipated
much of what I might say, on the experimental evidence
thus far obtained of the correctness of their views
in respect to the auxiliary steam appliance for the
rapid accomplishment of an uninterrupted progress to
pretty nearly our relative antipodes. Three systems of
nautical appliances for progress and speed were obviously
in question with a view to rapid and remunerating in-
tercommunication with these remote colonies. F rat,
Speed in sailing, by the adoption of a clipper class of
ships of large tonnage and great capabilities in masts,
rigging, and sails. Secondly, Stearn ships of full pro-
pelting powers. Thirdly, The combination of a small
or moderate screw steam power with the best appliances
in ship model and sails for speed and sailing, and capa-
bilities of carrying canvas. The first of these plans has
been admirably tested and carried out •by the dif;
ferent lines of splendid sailing-ships trading between
England and Australia ; but their various delays,
by calms and light variable winds, necessarily leave
more to be accomplished. The next plan, of full
steamers, from the abridgment of the room for stowage,
by the requirements for coals, together with the loss
of time and cost for coaling by the way, could
scarcely prove remunerating, nor in the route need-
ful to bo adopted for coaling has it succeeded in
gaining any adequate advantage in the length of the
voyage. The third plan, as adopted, and so far success-
fully tested, in the first passage of the Royal Charter now
stands out conspicuously as the plan—the practicable,
and, I doubt not, fairly remunerating plan—for the con-
veyance of passengers, mails, and valuable, or mode-
rately valuable, freight and property. For not only is
the nominal power of the engine of this ship small, and
its requirements for speed, &c., moderate, but the con-
, gumption of coal is, comparatively, so trifling, that 13 or
14 tons !are generally sufficient for a day's steaming,
whilst the whole 'consumption for the recent passage has
scarcely exceeded 200 tons ? Yet this power of steam is
capable of giving a speed of from 7 to 8 knots, or if the
ship had been lighter, 9 knots, and actually carried us
through the mid-trade winds, belt of calms —where often
weeks are spent in helpless delays—in about 3 days. In
light winds or in making the best of a scant breeze un-
der stay-sails, or advancing head to wind in calms, and,
if required in proceedingin and!out of port, the auxiliary
steam is found to do admirable service. And now the
principle is established no doubt this auxiliary steam ap-
pliance will be made still more effective.

The performance of the R)yal Charter in her progress
to this port affords, ai to certain notable particulars,
some striking facts in maritime history.
In 29 days from Plymouth we had passed through
the tropics and trade winds, with their belts of variables
and calms, and reached the lat. of 35 deg. S. I❑ 40
days we had made a distance (notwithstanding unusual
light and short trade winds) of about 8,000 miles, or
200 miles a day. In 50 days out, we had made good,
in the usnal and best track of progress, a distance of up-
wards of 11,000 miles, or more than hall the circumfer-
ence of the globe ; in 12 consecutive days, in one part of
our voyage, the Royal Charter made 3,522 miles of dis-
tance by log, or 202 miles a day ; or, taking strictly
the extent of longitude accomplished within the
time, the distance i❑ geographical miles comes out
at 3:439, or 280 miles a day. On four or five
oczasions we altered our time half an hour from
noon to noon—in other words, brought the sun I

on the meridian in hour 3. On six dill-rent
days we made by sailing 300 miles and upwards a
day, averaging 13 1 6 kn.th, the greatest run in one
day being 34G tmiel, or, in 24 hours. 353 tni!e,l, being at
the average speed of 14 2-3 knots. Yet in the-e admir
able performances, it should be observed, the full capa-
bilities of the Royal Charter were by no means brought
out, the ship being at least two feet deep, for the due
development of her sailing qualities. Moderately loaded,
as I expect she will be for the return passage, and with
some alteration subsequently, for the more complete
raising up of the screw when not in use, so as not to
prove a retarding drag by dipping into the surface of
the water in heavy seas, my conviction is that the Royal
Charter may sail at least a knot faster, and might as
well accomplish a distance of 380 or 390 miles, under
like circumstances, as she has already made good 358
miles in a 24 hours' run.

The " behaviour" of the Royal Charter as a "sea-
boat" indicates a model is naval architecture, I think,
as nearly as possible, perfect. Not having before,
indeed, sailed in a ship of this peculiar and elegant
build and magnitude, which, as a class, is now employed
in traversing all the great oceans of the globe, and
giving through the enterprise of oar shipowners, and
the improved skill in our naval engineers and ship-
builders in Great Britain and America, a totally new
character to commercial navigation, I should naturally
be more deeply impressed with the magnificent qualities
of the Royal Charter individually as a ship than had I
been familiar with the performance in bad weather, by
personal experience, of many of the splendid models in
naval architecture which I have seen at Liverpool, Glas-
gow, and elsewhere. Still I shall be sate, I doubt not,
in asserting that, whatever may be the superiority of
action and behaviour of our larger clipper ships gene-
rally, in all the properties which characterise the most
perfect sea-boats, the performance and behaviour
of the B ,yal Charter in the severest testing of
these qualities, was magnificent. Her buoyancy, liveli-
ness, ease of motion in the most cross and tremen-
dous seas, and in the possession of that extraordi-
nary quality of all but intelligent efforts and yieldings,
like an endowment of instinct, for the avoidance of the
highest waves and the lofty breaking peaks of crossing
seas, were as astonishing as they were admirable. Such
was her behaviour in scudding, not only before heavy
gales generally, but in the hard trial of scudding before
a cyclone, for some hours of hurricane fury (which we
encountered on the 6th of April, in latitude 47 deg. S.,
longitude 90 deg. to 94 deg E.), when it was intensely
interesting to look abroad and mark-her action under
seas, as measured by myself two or three hours after
the fiercest of the hurricane was over, of the prevailing
height of 30 feet, with numerous higher waves of broad
extensive solid water crests or summits of 40 to 42
feet or more, with knots and broken crests, from
the crossings of westerly and southerly seas, some yards
higher. It would hardly be doing justice to my own
feelings and observation if I were here to neglect to re-
fer to the able and seamen-like manner, combining judi-
cious prudence with effective perseverance and laborious
watchfulness, with which Captain Boyce performed the
navigator's part under the severe testing of a new and
untried ship. In ordinary gales, it may be mentioned,
in the way of illustration, when we were running befers
the wind ender a large spread of canvas, and, as hap-
pened on the let of April, with waves of forty feet
and upwards, the ship was so lively, steady, and
dry, that most of the ladies participated in the
pleasant promenade of the poop-deck, and to
astonished admiration • of the ship's avoidance
of the fearfully threatening waves. On this oc-
casion Mrs. Scoresby accompanied me forward along the
gangways and deck-house to the forecastle (a splendid
platform of the area of at least 190 square yards), and
for some time viewed from there the magnificent sight of
the ships' progress, as often, for some minutes together,
she was so quiet, that neither the lofty waves nor her
considerable speed seemed to affeet her—without dis-
comfort or the encountering of a fling spray—the whole
space we traversed, of above 300 feet in length, being
I then perfectly dry. In other cases, indeed, when blow-
ing very hard and with still more cross and tremendous
seas, knots of seas came occasionally over the deck, in
every part of it, but their avoidance in any ship was im-
, possible.
In conclusion, I may add, as a subject of some interest
in science, and of, I trust, no small practical consequence
in commerce, and in the passages betwixt the antipo-
des of the globe, that all my theoretic views previously
published in respect to the nature of iron ships' mag-
netism and its changes, with the practical plan for safe
and accurate compass guidance, the adoption of which
I have for a long time been urging on the builders and
owners of iron ships, have received distinct and beau-
tiful verifications of the experiments thus far made
on board of the Royal Charter. As to the first
point, the matter of interest in science, it may not be
unfitting to say that, exactly as I had predicted in
"Illustrations of the Magnetism of Iron Ships,"
printed just before leaving England, and notified also
in " Magnetical Investigations," published in 1852,
iv., I have found the changes in the general magnet-
ism,. as tried externally, of the Royal Charter. The
upper woks of ships built in England and other north-
ern cciikritries have, consistently wiih theory, southern
polarity, attracting the north pole of the compass, as
also the upper parts of bulkheads, iron standards,
cranes, or davits, capstans, &c, and the lower
parts of the ships and such bulkheads, standards, &c.,
northern; but here, as I had announced my expectation,
the polarities are reversed. The top plating of the ship,
from stem to stern, has changed to northern polarity,
attracting the south pole of the compass, in which change
the upper parts of iron standards, cranes, capstans, &ce,
about the decks and bulwarks consistently participate.
That the lower parts of the ship's hull in its external at.
tractions has also changed may be confidently inferred from
magnetic principles. And so farexperimeatally as I have
already ascertained, the fact is beautifully indicated by
the diminution of the northerly attractive force, on de-
seen ling outside towards the floating level, until (in
accordance also with theory and prediction), a position
is found, some 16 to 18 feet downward, where the ship
ceases to produce any action whatever on the compass
needle, and be'oer which the contrary or northern pole
of the needle begins obviously to be attracted towards
the ship's side.
As to the second point, so important in its practical
bear nç on commerce and navigation, ,it may be
s'ated that during our passage to Australia, such was
the effectiveness of the arrangement I had suggested,
as very well put into operation in a compass raised
about forty-two feet high on the miz-eemast, that we
never had any perplexity or difficulty, if any of the
compasses were steady, in knowing the csurae we
were actually steering. Nothing more, therefore, is
necessary, I am perfectly convinced, for correct or
safe compass guidance in iron ships than a compass for
reference duly elevated and properly arranged on a
wooden mast. And such compass, as the experience of
our recent passage and a great deal of heavy weather for
the latter fornight has demonstrated, can, by the simple
method which I adopted on the voyage, be satisfactorily
consulted and compared in the hardest gales—that is,
whenever the compasses on deck are tolerably steady for
being steered by. WM. SCORESBY.
Royal Charter, Hobson's Bay, 20th April, 1856.
- -

The learned doctor on subsequently being entertained
at the Philosophical Institute of Bavaria, of which he was
ma !e an honorary member, added on this subject : —He
should thus feel that he was an humble connecting link
with many others between the science of the old coun.
try and that of the antipodes. It was doubly interest
ing to him to mark in the present assembly the same
feelings and sentiments as ware manifested by similar so
cieties at home. He felt in reference to the importance
of an institution of this kind that whilst the enterprise
and commerce of a country might raise it into a high po.
sition in the wealth of cations, yet it was the cultivation
of yet higher things which raised a nation, and made its
greatness in future history. Next to religion there was
in science a consecrating influence which raised a man
b tyond sordid considerations to a better contemplation
and intelligence of the Creator's works in the creation
—which placed him above selfishness, and into an at.
rnosphere at once more pure and intelligent. It bad
always been interesting to him to watch institutions
like this in their efforts for the promotion of science
and literature. He might be permitted to say, in re-
ference to even the humblest pursuits of science, that
although they might lead to new, or previously known
results which might seem to many to be of no profit,
yet no man could tell or predict the importance of
even that which might seem to be only a scientific ca•
riosity. It was a great satisfaction in making scien-
tific researches even of the slightest nature, that they
knew not to what results they might attain. Let them
loek at the effect of the discovery that a wire
placed between those of the two poles of a ba tery became
magnetic—thought at the time to be a mere scientific
curiosity. What was the result? They had their messages
now conveyed by the electric telegraph with a speed in-
ferior only to that of light. Even now they did not know
what progress might be made in the invention, nor could
they say that the old country might not within a
few years be united to Australia by the telegraph.
This was within the range of demonstration as one
of the probabilities of science, and was only a question
of means and expense. When he saw the costly edifices
springing up in this new city he could not but feel that
the means were not wanting, and that it would be
nothing surprising to see a telegraph between Eng.
land and Australia in a few years. It was a project
of no greater difficulty than that which had been
already accomplished hi laying down the telegraph
in the Black Sea. It was contemplated to dist.ibute
the electric currents over the Atlantic between
England and America. He would not pass any
opinion as to the practicability of that project,
but he could say that as regarded Australia it was quite
practicable. If also he might be permitted to speak of
birn.elf as an humble experimenter, he would state that
it was in 1828 that he first discovered the phenomenon
that magnetism was developed in iron by percussion
and mechanical action. He published his experi-
ments in the Philosoph:cal Transactions in 1831 —but
what was thought of the discovery beyond that it
was a scientific curiosity? When, however, it be-
came the fashion and interest of England that ships
should be built of iron, and these ships were
found to be intensely magnetic beyond the ordinary
inductive influences of masses of iron, a question arose—
how was the effect on the compass to be remedied ? He.
contended that this magnetism arose from the hammering
and other mechanical actions impressed on the plates in
the course of their construction, and ho was right. He
applied to these ships the same laws which he found
to prevail in magnetised iron in his experiments of
1820, and be ventured to anticipate what had since
occurred. He alluded to this not in vanity, but as au
encouragement to men of science to proceed in their
investigations, for they could never tel! the import.
ance of the results they might attain. His investiga-
tions, however, had gone further. Wben he had deter-
mined the fact that an iron ship was a magnet with its
power enormously developed by percussive and me-
chanical action, it seemed natural that according to the
inscrutable laws of nature they shoilid b enabled to

regulate its poles as in a bar of magnetised iron. As.
sliming these laws to be identical, ne had ventured to
pradict that
.a vessel coining ii-to them) regions would
flaw, her magnetic condition inverted, for the magnetism
of the southern polar ty was downward. Most of the
scientific men in England were against this view,
but he had tried this experiment in the Royal Charter,
and had found that her magnetism was so affected by
time magnetic attraction of Australia. It might be
deemed that the discovery was one of abstract science ;
but it was one deeply affecting their interests, and the
lives and properties of men who ventured on the wide
ocean. Their commerce was rapldiy going into iron
ships, and wooden ships were becoming more scarce,
arid the question of their magnetic condition as affecting
the compasses on board of them was of deep import-
ance. How were these enormous fabrics, endowed with
an intense degree of magnetism, to be controlled in this
influence ? It was to determine that point that he had
come out here, and he had, he hoped, determined a
mode in which an iron ship might be guided as safely
and as securely as shipping of any other material.
There was no practical difficulty in so arranging com-
passes on iron ships that they could be navigated with
safety and certainty. This was an important fact, and
the inferences on which he had arrived at it were con-
sistent with all his previous theoretic deductions. His
simple contrivance was to have the compass in iron
ships elevated beyond the magnetic influence, of the
iron, and during the whole voyage of the Royal Char-
ter there was no embarrassment whatever with regard
to her compasses arranged on this plan.

boolcsollors—J. liarnnan and E. Parry, Monwen, Flint.
%hire, paper manufaeturors—J. lidau and W. Arthur,
IlLickburn. curribrs—J. Wright and J. Salisbury, Bur-
ton-upon-Trent, ironfoundors—J. B. garkness and P.
Charlton, Bolton-le-Moors, tailors—W. T. S. and T. W.
S. Oakes, and A. S. Partridge, Austin-friars and Madras,
merchants.