The Sun.
London, England, 1860-05-28 00:00:00

10 I 4 10

25 50

" The second battalions which are now serving at
home are not to be divided as above without special
orders, though they should, of course, be formed
into 12 companies.
" The Pipe Major and the five pipers of the High-
land Regiments, which are in addition to their
establishments, belong to the service companies.

" gy command,
JAMES YORKE SCARLETT, Adjutant-Gen,
The officers of the 3d (or Scots Fusileer) Regi
ment of Guards intend to celebrate the 200th anni•
versary of the formation of that gallant and distin-
guished corps by a grand banquet. Those noble-
men and gentlemen who have at any time served
in the regiment will be invited to attend. The
commemorative entertainment will take place in the
large and elegantly decorated room at Willis's
Rooms, King-street, St. James's. His Royal High-
ness the Duke of Cambridge, K.G., as colonel of
the regiment, will preside at the banquet, His
Royal Highness the Prince Consort, formerly colo-
nel-in-chief of the regiment, has been pleased to ex-
press his intention to be present on the occasion. The
dinner is appointed to take place on the 19th pros.

. -
The following is the number of the reinforce-
ments ordered to proceed to India from the depot
battalions at Chatham, Colchester, Canterbury,
Buttevant, and Winchester, to augment the service
companies of the infantry regiments serving in the
Bengal, Bombay, and Madras Presidencies, viz.:-
80 men of the Ist battalion of the Ist Royals; 210
men of the Ist battalion sth Fusileers ; 46 men of
the Ist battalion 6th Regiment; 76 men of the Ist
battalion 18th Royal Irish; 60 men of the Ist bat-
talion 19th Regiment ; 70 men of the Ist battalion
20th Regiment ; 70 men of the Ist battalion 23d
Royal Welsh Fusileers ; (30 men of the Ist battalion
24th Regiment ; 123 men of the 27th Inniskillens ;
75 men of the 34th Regiment; 98 men of the 35th
(Royal Sussex) Regiment ; 186 men of the 43d
Light Infantry ; 30 men of the 51st (the King's Own)
Light Infantry; 50 men of the 52d Light Infantry ;
93 men of the 54th Regiment; 149 men of the 56th

Regiment ; 60 men of the 64th Regiment ; 104
men of the 70th Regiment; 260 men of the 73d
Regiment ; 96 men of the 75th Regiment ; 115 men
of the 77th Regiment ; 200 men of the 80th Regi-
ment ; 35 men of the 81st Regiment ; 27 men of the
82d Regiment ; 100 men of the 87th Royal Irish
Fusiliers ; 167 men of the 88th Connaught Ran-
gers ; 272 men of the 91st Regiment ; 60 men of
the 94th Regiment ; 80 men of the 97th (Earl of
Ulster's) Regiment; and 50 men of the 3d battalion
Rifle Brigade.
A full parade of the officers and men of the bat-
talion of Royal Marine Light Infantry took place
at Chatham on Friday morning on the occasion of
the public presentation of a silver medal, together
with an annuity of £lO for life, which had been
awarded by the Lords of the Admiralty to Serg.-
Major George William Lane, senior non-commis-
sioned officer of the Royal Marines, for long and
meritorious service, Serg.-Major Lane has been 33
years in the Royal Marines, 20 of which he has
been a non-commissioned officer and 9 serg.-major.
He bears a most estimable character.

It is stated that the contemplated arrangements
for new barracks at Colchester include accommoda-
tibn for a regiment of cavalry, two batteries of
artillery, and a regiment of infantry.
Private Burns, of the 56th Regiment, stationed
in Colchester Camp, on Wednesday, received 50
lashes, in accordance with the sentence of agarrison
Court-martial, for having for the third time deserted
from his regiment.
Four officers and 192 men of the 2d battalion
60th Rifles are under orders to proceed to join the
service companies in China as soon as tonnage can
be provided for them. No women or children will
accompany this detachment as it proceeds to the
seat of war ; but they will receive the usual allow-
ance until sent out, consisting of 6d. per day for
each woman and 2d. per day for each child.
The undermentioned draughts will embark about
the Ist July next to join the service companies in
India :—For Calcutta-2d battalion, Rifle' Brigade,
146 men ; 3d ditto, 29 men. For Kurrechen-51st
Foot, 31 men. For Bombay-Ist battalion 4th
Foot, 60 men ; 83d Foot, 70 men.
A general parade of the Portsmouth division of
Royal Marine Light Infantry was formed at the
head-quarters barracks at Forton on Saturday for
the purpose of presenting Sergeant-Major G.
White with a silver medal (which carries with it an
annuity of £10), for meritorious services in the
field. Sergeant-Major White served as sergeant-
major of the 2d battalion of Royal Marines in the
Crimea.

Colonel Crofton, of the 11th Regiment of Foot,
inspected the Ist Devon Militia, under the command
of Lieut.-Col. Davie, M.P., in a field at St. Thomas,
near Exeter, on Thursday. After going through a
variety of evolutions with great precision, the
gallant colonel addressed the regiment, congratulat-
ing the men on the proficiency they had attained,
and observing that it would be his duty and plea-
sure to make a most favourable report of them to
his Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief.
A few days ago the Royal Cornwall and Devon
Miners' Artillery Militia Regiment, under the
command of Lieut.-Col. Sir Colman Rashleigh, was
inspected at Truro by Col Pester, commanding the
Royal Artillery of the Western District, who
warmly praised the men for the military skill which
they displayed. The conduct of the men since
their embodiment has been excellent.
The West Norfolk Militia were disembodied at
Norwich on Saturday.
The Essex Rifles Militia were reviewed on Fri-
day by Col. Wood, commandant of the camp at
Colchester. The regiment was disembodied on Sa-
turday, as was also the West Essex Militia.
The West Suffolk Militia were disembodied on
Saturday at Bury St. Edmunds.

The Ist or Royal East Middlesex Regiment of
Militia was inspected on Monday last, on Hamp-
stead-heath, by Col. Haygarth, who expressed him-
self much pleased with the general appearance of
the men, and the creditable manner in which they
went through the various evolutions under the
command of Col. Alcoa.

THE TRANSATLANIC CABLE PIA
ICELAND AND _LABRADOR.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.
Sir,—Will you allow me through your columns
, to bear testimony to the practical features involved
in the new route for a Transatlantic cable, pre-
mising that I do so upon purely public grounds,
and have neither shire nor interest in either one
concern or the other ? Ever since it was contem-
plated to connect America and Britain with a sub-
merged cable across the Atlantic, I have looked to the
importance of carrying that cable across by shorter
stages than the route first proposed—viz., direct
from Ireland to Newfoundland. Two routes struck
me as practicable—the one " North-about," now
advocated by Colonel Shaffner ; the other, " South-
about," via Cape de Verde Islands, St. Paul's Rock,
and Cape St. Roque, in South America. Of the
two, the North-about route was the preferable ;
for, although a little longer in the whole course
than a direct line would be, it had the great merit
of being divided into four short stages, the longest
of which was only 650 miles ; whereas on the direct
route there is one long stretch of 2,000 miles of
cable between Valentia Harbour and Trinity Bay.
I therefore rejoice to see that the energy of Colonel
Shaffner is directed to the establishment of this
North-about Transatlantic communication, believ-
ing, as I do, without being learned in oceanic tele-
graphy, that, even if the direct line were open and in
working condition to-day, it could never do all the
work which the public of the Americans on the one
side, and that of Europe upon the other, would
call for.

In a nautical and physical point of view I know
of no reasons why a cable should not connect the
Canadas or Labrador with England. lam fully
aware that the ice streams down the coast of Green-
land and Iceland ; but I do not see in what way
that will affect a small cable lying upon the bot-
tom of the sea. Icefields do not prevent the Baltic
being crossed with electric cables; ice does not
cut off communication across the American lakes
or Russian rivers ; nor did it prevent a cable being
carried round the head of the Black Sea, where in
the winter there is no lack of ice. Indeed, why
should it. Floe, or field ice, is the frozen surface of
the sea; so long as it is attached to the shore it is
far less dangerous than surf or breakers would be.
When it moves about it is afloat, and when afloat
there is always water enough beneath it to allow a
cable of half an inch or more diameter, to lie un-
disturbed on the bottom of the sea.

The delicate shells, weeds, crustacea, and other
animate and inanimate productions which cover
the bottom of the Arctic Sea in latitudes far north
of where it is proposed this cable shall be placed,
afford the best proof that the bottom of
the Northern Sea is a far safer and pleasanter place
of sojourn than that surface over which we Arctic
seamen have lately so often sailed and laboured.
People therefore, when reading our adventures and
hair-breadth escapes in wooden vessels upon that
Arctic Sea, should take care not to confound the
top with the bottom of those ice-encumbered regions.
That there may be some difficulties in the route
I do not deny, but I see none that a better knowledge
of oceanic telegraphy will not every year render
more easily surmountable, or none that engineering
and nautical skill will not meet and master. The
heavy ice-drift along the coast of Labrador indicates,
in my opinion, a generally deep water coast. Ice-
bergs would otherwise ground far out to sea, which
is not the case ; but beyond that fact we know
nothing of the soundings, or of that seacoast of
the Canadas. I consider the main difficulty of
the North-about route to lie between the point at
which about 150 fathoms water will be found
on that Labrador shore, and so in to the coast.
But if anywhere upon the bottom of that sub-
merged shorn of Labrador a line of deep sea sound-
ings can be found, with a shallower bank to the
north of it, so as to form a sort of trough running
in an east and west direction, there can be little
doubt, as Colonel Shaffner says, that the cable will
lie there as safe as it would do across the Straits of
Dover. North or south of such a trench the icebergs
would naturally ground, and form what Arctic na-

vigators term " reefs." Such reefs are common
throughout the western coasts of Davis' Straits and
Baffin's Bay ; they mark the shoals, and guided by

them, our whaling vessels find generally deeper
water free of icebergs, these deeper channels usually
running into inlets or bays similar to those so com-
mon in Labrador.

A floating iceberg can never hurt a s-nbmerged
cable, and even one grating or pressing along the
bottom may, nine cases out of ten, fail to pick up a
piece of rope imbedded in the mud or sand, indeed,
the probabilities are the cable would be only thrust
still deeper into the bottom. Icebergs have not got
claws or creepers, and I believe the cables across
the narrow seas between England and Europe
run 50 times more risk from the thousand of an-
chors- creepers, and trawling nets passing over
them than any cable would do under the Atlantic
between Hamilton Inlet and Greenland. Arctic
storms are terrible ; the clash and destruction of
icebergs may be awful in a winter's day off the
shores of Labrador ; but I do not see that they will
harm a cable lying at the bottom of the sea any
more than an aurora-borealis or any other Arctic
bogie would do.

People who only consider subjects to discover
difficulties object that it may be impossible in the
winter time to lift or repair a cable between Ice-
land and Greenland, or Greenland and Labrador.
This objection, I maintain, holds good in all Trans-
atlantic cables ; for I have not yet heard of the sea-
man or engineer who will undertake to lift the
2,000 miles of cable between Iceland and New-
foundland at any season, much less during the
winter time.

Lastly, let me say, that Shaffner's project in-
volves no Arctic expedition, no voyage of discovery
to the Pole or the Arctic Zone. That zone lies
hundreds of miles beyond his northernmost point,
and all he asks of England is to tell him accu-
rately the depths of the ocean upon a route over
which hundreds of English vessels annually sail, in
order that he may place a cable there which shall
connect us with our important colonies of the
Canadas, and our important customers and good
cousins of the United States. Any vessels of her
Majesty's navy with deep sea sounding gear on
board, might be employed in the service, and I
have no doubt the Canadian Government, if they
saw us in earnest about the matter, would do their
share in surveying the neighbourhood of Hamil-
ton's Inlet. The letter which appeared in your
impression of the 24th inst. leads me to fear that
the influence of the Atlantic Telegraph Company
(direct) is being brought to bear against the North-
about Transatlantic route. It will be a matter of
regret to the public in general should this be so;
for there assuredly is ample room for both these
projects to be carried out, and I doubt not but that
capital will be available for both, if they each
endeavour faithfully to carry out their professed
object—telegraphic communication between Ame-
rica and Europe. SHERARD OSBORN, Capt.
London, May 26.