The Sun.
London, England, 1859-08-23 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, AUGUST 23, 1859.

THE NA VY.

The Duke of Somerset and the Lords of the Ad-
miralty are expected to leave town this morning on
an official visit of inspection to Chatham and Sheer-
ness.

The senior Naval Lord of the Admiralty, Vice
Admiral the Hon. Sir Richard Saunders Dundas,

K.C.8., will take command of the Mediterranean
fleet on the retirement of Vice Admiral Arthur
Fanshawe, C. 8., who will be installed into the office
vacated by Sir Richard S. Dundas.
The Dee paddle steamer arrived at Portsmouth
yesterday from the westward.
The Asia, guardship of steam reserve at Ports-
mouth, was yesterday inspected by Captain G. T.
Gordon. and her crew paid composition money.
The Himalaya screw troopship, Commander J
Seccombe, at Portsmouth, has received orders to
embark 50 tons of provisions, from the Royal Cla-
rence Yard, for conveyance to Halifax, for the use
of the fleet of the station. She will also take out
a number of first and second class boys to be placed
at the disposal of the Admiral commanding on the
station. From Halifax the Himalaya will proceed
to Quebec, where she will embark a regiment of
infantry for conveyance to Bermuda, whence she
returns with troops to England. Her date of sail-
ing is not yet fixed.
The royal paddle yacht Victoria and Albert,
Capt. the Hon. Joseph Denman, steamed out of
Portsmouth harbour, for her moorings, off Cowes,
yesterday.
Capt. Schestakoff, commanding the Russian fri-
gate General Admiral, was introduced to the mili-
tary and naval authorities at Portsmouth by Mr.
Vice-Consul G. Baker.

, The Russian double-banked clipper frigate, built
in America, General Admiral, Captain Schistakoff,
arrived on Sunday evening at the Motherbank, Isle
of Wight, joining the Svetland and Baihan, at that
anchorage. The General Admiral is a war frigate
of enormous tonnage and power. She mounts 62
eight-inch guns, is equal to 13 average knots an
hour, and represents 6000 tons. The General Ad-
miral is built on the same principle as the Ameri-
can steam frigate Niagara, and does not bear much
resemblance to a man-of-war, having somewhat of
the appearance of .a very large clipper. She is
said to be longer than the Duke of Wellington, 131,
although constrncted to carry only 62 guns. Soon
after eight o'clock yesterday morning she saluted
the garrison and flagship, which compliment was
immediately returned from the shore battery and
her Majesty's ship Victory. The Russian officers
accepted the invitation of the port admiral, Wil-
liam Bowles, C. 8., to dine at the official residence,
in the dockyard, last evening.
A series of experimental trials have been car-
ried on during the past fortnight at Portsmouth,
with a view of ascertaining the amount of re-
sistance offered by iron and steel plates of various
manufactures whey opposed to heavy ordnance
at a short range. The trials aro understood to
have reference to the future coating of the steam
ram now in progress of construction. The practice
has been carried on from the stork gunboat, tender
to her Majesty's ship Excellent, gunnery ship in
Portsmouth harbour, both from a 32-pounder and a
95 cwt. gun, the latter throwing a solid 681 b. shot,
with 161 b. charge of powder ; the distance of range
200 yards. At this distance the results of the ex-
periments have demonstrated in the clearest pos-1
sible manner that no iron or steel plate that has yet
been manufactured can withstand the solid shot
from the 95 cwt. gun at a short range. The first
shot would not penetrate through the iron plate,
but it wouid fracture it, and on three or four strik-
ing the plate in the same place, or in the imme-
diate neighbourhood, it would be smashed to pieces.
As the results of the trial affected the steel plates it
proved that a steel-clothed ship could be far more
easily destroyed than a wooden-sided one, and that
on the smashing in of the steel plates the destruc-
tion of life on the armed ship's decks, supposing the
broken plate to be driven through the ship's side,
would be something dreadful to contemplate, from
the spread of the splintered material. At from 600
to 800 yards iron-clothed ships would be a compa-
rative safety from the effects of an enemy's broad-
side, but it must be borne in mind that the effects
of concentrated firing have yet to be ascertained on
the sides of an iron or steel-clothed ship, and ac-
eount also must be taken of the damage the wood-
work forming the inner sides of such a ship would
receive from the driving in of the broken plates,
and which, as far as the present experiments have
illustrated, would appear to prove than an iron or
steel-crab ship, on receiving a concentrated broad-
side from a frigate, armed in a similar manner to the
Mersey, and struck near her waterline, must sink
then and there, with her armour on her back.
Mr. G. Murdoch, inspector of machinery afloat
at Portsmouth Dockyard, has just returned to his
duties from Glasgow, Greenock, and Dumbarton,
where he has been engaged entering third-class
acting assistant engineers for the Royal Navy. Mr.
Murdoch has succeeded in entering nearly 100
young men, all of whom are highly recommended
to the Admiralty by their late employees as first-
class workmen, and the whole of them having
served their apprenticeships in one of the large
marine establishments of those ports. A great
scarcity of the above class of engineers has existed
for some time in the Royal Navy.
The following appointments were made yester-
day at the Admiralty :—Lieut. W. J. H. Grubbe,
Lieut. R. B. Cay, Lieut. A. C. Adams, and Lieut.
S. Metcalfe, to the Arrogant ; Lieut. G. M. Smith,
Lieut. C. T. Williamson, and Lieut. A. T. Denham,
to the Dauntless ; Lieut. George Rivington to the
Clio; and Mr. William Bell, Acting Mate, to the
Clio.

THE ARMY.

Her Majesty, with his Royal Highess the Prince
Consort, his Royal Highness Prince Alfred, and
the Princesses Alice and Helena, arrived on board
the Fairy screw yacht, Commander his Serene
Highness Prince Leiningen, in Portsmouth harbour
yesterday morning at 11 30, from Osborne, en route
for Aldershot. Her Majesty was received on land-
ing from the Fairy, at the Royal Clarence-yard, by
the military and naval authorities, and a guard of
honour composed of men from the Tipperary
Militia Artillery. Her Majesty, on passing through
Spithead, awl in entering the harbour, received the
customary honours paid to Royalty by a Royal
salute from the ships of war, dressed out in colours
with manned yards, and Royal salutes from the
forts of the garrison. The three Russian frigates
anchored at the Motherbank did not, however, from
,some unexplained cause, join in the demonstration.
Her Majesty, shortly after landing, proceeded by
special train for Aldershot.
The following circular relative to the issuing of
the Enfield rifles to the troops has been issued from
the Horse Guards by order of the Duke of Cam-
bridge :
"It having been found impossible to account for the
damage which in many instances arms issued in good con-
dition from the War-office sustained in consequence of the
delay which has taken place between their reception by
regiments and the assembly of the board of survey held to
examine them, the General Commanding-in-Chief, at the
request of the Secretary of State for War, desires that on
all occasions arms and other stores supplied by the War-
office may be examined immediately after they are received,
the packages being opened and counted in the presence of
the board, and any damage they may have suffered is to be
at once reported to the military store or barrack officer who
issued the same, in order that he may determine whether
the damage was caused by the carelessness of the carriers.
—By command,
" G. A. WETHERALL, Adjutant-General."

Since the Sappers and Miners of the Royal
and East India Engineers have been employed
in diving near Rochester-bridge with the appara-
tus invented by Mr. Heinke, their operations
have been attended with considerable success,
several tons of the large masses of stone which
were scattered into the river on the blowing up of
the old bridge by the Royal Engineers having been
brought to the surface. Yesterday several of the
Engineer officers descended in the dress, and re-
mained some time under the water assisting in the
operations which are-being carried on in the bed of
the river. The authorities have engaged Mr.
Heinke, the inventor, to superintend the diving.
The following change of quarters will take place
in the Brigade of Guards on the Ist proximo:—
Grenadier Guards.-2d battalion, from the Tower
to Aldershott; 3d battalion, from Aldershott to St.
George's Magazine and Kensington-barracks.
Coldstream Guards.--2d battalion, from Portman-
street and St. John's-wood-barracks to the Tower
of London. The following changes will take place
on the Ist of October :—Grenadier Guards.-2d
battalion, from Aldershott to Windsor; 3d batta-
lion, from London to Dublin. The Ist battalion
will remain at Wellington-barracks. Coldstream
Guards.-Ist battalion, from Wellington-barracks
to Portman-street and St. John's-wood-barracks.
Scots Fusileer Guards.-Ist battalion, from Wind-
sor to St. George's Magazine and Kensington-bar-
racks, and the 2d battalion from 1)III)iin to Wel-
lington-barracks.

A large number of the men of the Royal Engi-
neers were yesterday employed in pontooning ope-
rations at St. Mary's-ereek2 Chatham, under the

direction of Major Lovell and Lieutenant Clayton,
R.E.

The Royal Artillery stationed in Woolwich gar-
rison were yesterday paraded at an early hour,and,
accompanied by Major-Gen. Sir Richard Dacres,
K.C.8., Commandant, and the garrison staff, they
proceeded to Dartford-heath. Under the facilities
and home comforts realized by Capt. Grant's new
system of cooking on the road, the exercise of march-
ing out in lieu of parade and field drills is now
readily adopted, and it is stated 'is_ ordered to be

issued- as one of the garrison regulations, to take
L place one day in each week, the weather permitting,
in order to inure themen to the fatigue ofa campaign,
and to familiarize them with the new method of
preparing their rations on the road: The ambu-:
latory cooking waggons having been previously
prepared -ander the superintendence of Capt. Grant,
the fires were kindled, and the process of cooking
commenced with the march. They arrived at Dart"
ford at a quarter past twelve preceded by the regi-,
mental band, and immediately proceeded to pitch
their tents in preparation for dinner and rest. The
travelling kitchens were drawn up in an appro-
priate spot, and the process df "serving up," with-
out the necessity of delay, immediately commenced
in the same manner as in. a permanent kitchen. Lady
Dacres and other ladies were present, and partook
of some of the soup, drawn from the general cauld:
ron, which was pronounced excellent, and acknow-
ledged to possess a flavour impossible to be excelled
by the most practised chef in town. Gen. Dacres
expressed his opinion of the apparatas in the most
eulogistic terms, and the whole body of officers as
well as a number of visitors present who were
enabled to exercise their judgment pronounced
without hesitation that the merits of the invention
were incontestably proved. The cooking waggons
have been exclusively employed for some days past
at the back of -the barracks at Woolwich for the
meals of the Ist brigade, the operations of which
have been diligently supervised by Gen. Dacres,
who has watched thg progress of the invention with
great interest, and has reported accordingly to his
Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief.
.The
quantity of wood yesterday consumed was proved
to be one-tenth of the ordinary amount allowed by
Government—namely, 1501 b. in lieu of 1,5001 b., the
ordinary consumption. Capt. Grant, who is a re•
tired officer of the Royal Artillery, actuated by a
philanthropic desire of benefiting the soldier, has
passed many years of anxious study in perfecting
his various cooking apparatus, the merits of which
have been at length tardily acknowledged. Several
of the pontoon cooking kettles were also in use yes-
terday on the heath, and were reported by the
superintending officers to be a boon hitherto un-
known in the field. The dinners supplied by the
above-named kettles were ready to serve out,
in an hour and a half after the fires were lighted,
and water was boiled in six minutes and a half. An
improvement has been effected in this method since
the last trial on Dartford-heath, by adopting a
longer trench, and thereby affording a more avail-
able current of air to keep up the fires. The
trenches were yesterday 16 feet long, for the 16
inch kettles, 15 inches wide. and 16 inches deep.
The three feet kettles contain 27 gallons, and with
10 kettles dinners have been cooked for 1,000 men.
Some of the kettles are served by temporary turf
chimneys, in which case the trenches were 18 feet
long. The General and his officers, as well as many
ladies and other visitors, and the entire body of
troops dined at one o'clock, and, after indulging in
various games and amusements, returned to quer- :
ters at Woolwich.

On Saturday five officers and 95 non-commis-
sioned officers and privates, and 1.09 horses of the
15th Hussars, arrived at the North Wall, Dublin,
in the Windsor steamer, en route from Aldershott
Camp to the Royal Barracks.
The Horse Artillery stationed at Cahir for some
time under Lieut.-Col. Strange, C. 8., have left for
Newbridge, and are replaced by a field battery
from Ballincollig.
The field battery of Royal Artillery under the
command of Capt. M'Coy, in Clonmel, with Second
Capt. Closeley, Lieuts. Farrell and Johnsen, and
Assist-Slug. Graham, leave on the 22d for Kinsale,
for 21 days' training in shot and shell practice.
During their stay at Kinsale the men are to be
tented, and the horses picketed in the open air.
The recruiting for the Tipperary Artillery is
going on briskly in Fethard, Cahir, Cashel, and
other parts of the county. About 100 stalwart
young fellows have " taken on" with the recruiting
staff of Capt. _Mulcahy, at Fethard, since May last.
The regiment is now nearly 800 strong. The men
are all in excellent health.

The infantry regiments in Portsmouth garrison,
comprising the Ist battalion Rifle Brigade, the East
Kent Militia, 2d Royal Cheshire, and Royal Lime-
rick Co inty, were brigaded on Southsea Common
yesterday morning by Major-Gen. Sir J. Y. Scar-
lett, K.C.8,, commanding South-West District and
Staff.

Highness was Prince Alfred, in the uniform of a
midshipman of the Royal Navy.
As soon as her Majesty came upon the field the
evolutions, which were of the briefest kind, coin.
raenced. The brigades were moved down to the
slope of the hill overlooking the Farnham road, and
constantly, as fast as they could be got into line,
commenced a tremendous file fire, which was sup-
ported from all commanding points by an almost
equally rapid cannonade. The smoke and uproar
for a few minutes were terrific, and then almost as
instantly slackened down, when the brigades re-
tired in columns, the batteries were advanced,
powerful covering bodies of riflemen were thrown
out, and under the protection of these strong work-
ing parties advanced to intrench the weakest points
of the position. For this purpose the tape lines
!narking the course of tie intrenchments had been
already laid out skilfully, winding over the head-
lands, if we may so teim them, and taking advan-
tage of every inequality of the ground. The works
to cover the left centre and right were intrusted
respectively to Captains Duff, Smith, and Siborne,
of the Engineers. For the breastwork on the left
were required 480 men, for the centre 900, and for
the right 620. As each of these working parties
was relieved three times, it required the labour of
2,000 men to complete the works on the lett, 3,600
on the centre, and 2,500 on the right.
The men set to work with a hearty good will and
an adroitness which showed that the arms of Ceres
were quite as familiar to the majority of them as
those of Mars, and a tolerably fair trench was soon
cut, and a breastwork began to rise. This part of
the programme, however, seemed as a rule to be de-
void of general interest, and her Majesty after
watching the progress of the work for a short time,
drove off the ground. The men remained with their
regular reliefs to throw up the intrenchment. This
day the programme will be continued by a defence
of the whole line, and the men will, it is expected,
be on the ground by 7 o'clock. Her Majesty leaves
camp this (Tuesday) afternoon for Osborne. The
review will terminate a little before 1 o'clock with
the usual marching past of all the forces.