The Sun.
London, England, 1860-08-31 00:00:00

ALDERNEY HARBOUR.

On Monday morning her Majesty's ship Emerald
sailed from Spithead for Alderney with two batteries
of Royal Artillery on board, under the command of
Colonel Dixon, V.C., and arrived at Alderney the
same evening, taking up moorings inside the
breakwater there at 7 p.m. The troops were at
once disembarked, and on the following morning
two batteries of the 15th brigade embarked for con-
veyance to Spithead, under the command of Major
Lennox. The frigate slipped from her mooring
buoy at eight a.m., the stern hawser was hove on,
and the jib hoisted to cant the ship. She began to
pay off, when, to the surprise of all hands, it was
was found she had taken the ground. The pilot
on board declared that no rock was in the way,
and that her screw must have fouled the moorings.
It was, however, soon discovered that the finest
50-gun frigate in her Majesty's service was hard
and fast on a rock, right underneath her funnel.
The engines were turned astern at full speed, the
foremost guns run aft, all boats hoisted out, and
every possible means taken to free the ship, but
without effect. Topgallant masts and yards were
next struck. A hawser was laid out from the star-
board quarter to a buoy astern, and one to the half-
tide rock, and both hove taut, while another was I
made fast from the mainmast head to a buoy on
the beam, to prevent the ship from falling over on
her beam ends. Every precaution that good sea-
manship could suggest was, in fact, taken for the
ship's safety. The tide fell rapidly, and she soon
heeled over 44-- degrees. The tide turned about 11
a.m., and at 3 p.m. the ship was off,
and, with the
engines turning ahead slowly, on account of the
injury some of the parts had received, she was got
outside the breakwater, when sail was made, and
the ship's course laid for Spithead, where she an-
chored this morning and disembarked her troops.
Independent of other iiipenses, upwards of
£2,000 per week is being expended in wages alone
in the construction of this harbour, in which a
frigate of modern construction has scarcely room to
turn, and whieh is apparently full of unknown and
hidden dangers ; and yet this is the wonderful
work which is supposed to shelter a fleet to keep
watch upon Cherbourg. Tho Emerald has but just
returned from a cruise through the West Indies,
where she safely found her way among the coral
reefs of Bermuda, and into other harbours where
there was intricate navigation, and went under
sail at midnight to her anchorage at Colon, and all
without the slightest mishap or fear of one. Yet
here, in an English port, and in charge of an Eng-
lish pilot, she is jammed on a rock the existence of
which in the harbour is unknown, and the ship is
not only injured, but for the time her very exist-
ence was imperilled.

THE MAIN DRAINAGE OF THE METROPOLIS.—
There has been great progress made in the construction of
the main drainage sewer during the last few weeks in the
neighbourhood of Hackney, Bow, and Bothnal-green, and
which is being formed for the purpose of taking off the
sewerage from the upper districts of the metropolis, in-
cluding Hackney, Islington, Stoke Newington, and
other portions of the northern suburbs. The Metropolitan
Board are now about to enter into contracts for the exten-
sion of the main drainage sewer to Barking, which will be
the extreme distance from the metropolis. The contract
will embrace a brick sewer of about five miles in length,
with an embankment, which will, of course, be made out
of the earth excavated for the formation of the'sewer. There
will be also several iron bridges built over the line of the
sewer. The works will commence at the river Lea at Old
Ford, cross the Stratford-road, pass through West Ham,
Stratford, and East Ham, and terminate at Barking-creek.