The Sun.
London, England, 1867-09-27 00:00:00

Naval and Military Intelligence.

A very handsome, capacious, and fast steam
launch, pained the Witchcraft, purchased by the
Admiralty from Mr. Samuel White, of Cowes, Isle
of Wight, for service in the Abyssinian Expedition,
has been put through her speed trial over the mea-
sured mile in Stokes Bay with most satisfactory
results, preparatory to her being despatched to the
Red Sea. With an indicated horse power of her
engines of 31, and 290 revolutions, she realised a
mean speed of nine knots—a rate of speed never
even respectably approached by any one of the
heavily-built bluff bowed launches supplied to the
ships of her Majesty's navy from the Royal
dockyards. The Witchcraft, in addition to her
speed and her extraordinary interior amount of
capacity, is very sensibly fitted, and possesses
a wonderfully comfortable dining and sleeping
saloon abaft the engine Altogether she illus-
trates, for Admiralty instruction, what a steam
launch of one of her Majesty's ships ought to be, in
weight she can carry and the rate she can steam
a certain expenditure of fuel per hour.
An order was yesterday received by Capt. Gordon,
C. 8., Superintendent of the Military Stores at Wool-
wich, directing a large number of cases to be for-
warded in great haste to the ludian Store Depart-
ment at Lambeth, for packing the new contract
saddles, already completed, for Abyssinia. About
600 old cases were shipped in barges in readiness to
be towed up the river.
The Fancy, screw gunboat, 60-horse power, has
just concluded at Portsmouth a short series of trials
which are worth some consideration, especially as
regards the application of the principle tried to ves-
sels of moderate tonnage. The inventors of the
principle on trial—Whettam and Walker's patent—
contend that a screw enclosed in a section of an
open cylinder will give a ship greater speed, with
less vibratory movement of the ship's hull, than can
be obtained with any screw as fitted unenclosed in
the usual manner. The assertion was a bold one,
but the Admiralty gave the promoters an opportu-
nity of proving the soundness or unsoundness of
their invention by placing the Fancy gunboat at
their disposal, the experimental trials to be made
being, of course, under the supervision of the Ad-
miralty officials at Portsmouth, and reported upon
by them, therefore, in an official manner. Under
these conditions the Fancy has made three trials,
the first being with her screw working in the ordi-
nary unenclosed position, as a standard for compari-
son with the subsequent trials made with the screw
working in the open tube or cylinder. On the 21st
of August the Fancy made her standard trial over
the measured mile iu Stokes Bay with these results:
—Mean speed of vessel, 7.957 knots; indicated horse-
power of the engines, 194.29 ; revolutions of engines,
180.19 ; vibration of the vessel, very great (as is
always the case with these craft under full steam
power). A glass tumbler of water was placed on the
deck over the screw, and the motion shook out
18 in.
of the water. The first comparative trial made with
the patented principle was on Sept. 2, and the re-
sults were—Mean speed of vessel, 7.799 knots ;
indicated horse power of engines, 192.81 ; revolu-
tions, 176.167. The open cylinder in which the
screw was enclosed had just sufficient diameter to
allow the ends of the screw blades to work without
coining in contact, and was in length about twice
the breadth of the screw blades when revolving at
the perphery. The vibration of the vessel on this
trial, from the action of the screw alone, was nil, a
glass tumbler full of water again placed directly
over the screw not having a drop of its contents
shaken out upon deck. The third and last trial took
place on Wednesday last, the tube enclosing the
screw being reduced to nearly half its length on the
previous trial, and now only just covering the thick-
ness of the disc formed by the play of the blades of
the screw in its evolutions. The results in this case
were—mean speed of vessel, 8 knots ; indicated
horse power of engiues, 187 ; revolutions of engines,
180 ; vibration, precisely the same effect as in the
last trial. The rate of speed is slightly in favour of
the tube enclosed screw, but the most important
result obtained from the trials has been the utter
annihilation of all vibratory movement of the ship's
hull from the action of the screw in a vessel so sus-
ceptible of such movement as a shallow gunvessel
like the Fancy. The success in this respect is most
marked and indisputalle. This is obtained, as ob-
served, without any loss of speed ; it saves the stern
frame of the ship from the usual course of destruc-
tion following upon the use of the single screw on
wood built ships, and it entirely removes that un-
pleasant and horribly dislocating sensation experi-
enced generally in the after cabins of screw steam-

ships.
his Dutch Majesty's man of war Valk, Capt. T.
Koopman, has sailed from Woolwich Arsenal for
Portsmouth to await the embarkation of the Queen,
on her Majesty's return to Holland. The embarka-
tion, according to existing regulations, is to take
place on the Ist of October.
A large contract has been entered into by the
Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty with Mr.
Thomas Airey, a dairy farmer, near Petersfield, for
the supply of his dessicated milk, for the use of her
Majesty's naval service. During the present week
about 10,000 imperial quart cases have been deli-
vered at the victualling stores at Deptford.
Dazing the past few days Major W. W. Lynch,
attached to the divisionalstaff at Chatham, and other
officers, have been engaged in the inspection of the
vessels chartered. by the Government for the con-
veyance of the mules to be employed in transporting
the stores required by the force composing the Abys-
sinian expedition. The vessels taken up for this
special service are the Empress, Coumoundouris,
Bolivar, Venetia, and Parana, which together will
convey between 700 and 800 mules from the various
ports in the Mediterranean, where the agents of the
Government have been for some time past occupied
in making purchases of those animals. Each vessel
is fitted up for the special purpose for which she is
to be employed, and will also take out detachments
cf non-commissioned officers and men of the Mili-
tary Train and the Army Hospital Corps, together
with a number of surgeons an I veterinary surgeons.
The vessels are to be ready to take their departure
from the Thames for the Mediterranean to-morrow.
The hired transport Forest Queen, Capt. Ander-
son, yesterday went alongside Woolwich Arsenal,
after shipping a part cargo of war stores under Go-
vernment contract in the London Docks, and com-
menced receiving about 300 tons of Portland cement
in casks, and is to fill in her magazine with ammu-
nition for the use of the troops at Halifax. An order
has been received at Woolwich Dockyards from the
Lords of the Admiralty desiring that the names
should be sent up of all widows of men employed
in the services of the yard who died before serv-
ing the full term of ten years necessary to en-
title them to a pension, as their lordships have
been pleased to intimate their intention of
considering the merits of each case. This announce-
ment on the part of their lordships has given great
satisfaction, as it is well known that many who
have died just before the expiration of the term of
service entitling their widows to a pension have by
that fatality left them wholly unprovided for.
The freight ship Caroline, in St. Katherine's
Docks, yesterday received a large amount of guns,
shot, platforms, carriages, and other stores, from
Woolwich Arsenal, in transit for the Mauritius.
Major--Gen. IVarde, C. 8., commanding the dis-
trict of Woolwich, has been engaged each clay dur-
ing the week in carrying out the half-yearly inspec-
tion of the brigades and divisions of troops ia Wool-
wich garrison, and on Thursday, the 3d proximo,
the General and Staff will inspect the garrison of
IVarley. Col. D'Aguilar, C. 8., and Lieut. Brom-
ley, B Brigade, Royal Horse Artillery, have been
appointed by special order from the Horse Guards,
signed by General Grant, G.C.8., Quartermaster-
General, to investigate the efficiency of the new
pack saddle recently brought out under the patent
of Lieut. M‘Mahon. In virtue of their instructions
these officers have commenced a daily route parade
over the roughest and most uneven parts of the
eountry within the vicinity of the garrison, over
the chalkpits at Charlton, down the rugged sides of
the ravine on Plumstead-common, through which
the pack animals, heavily laden, are driven to test
the strength and superiority of the new saddles,
together with the advantages of the expanding
system on which they are constructed, Tie reports