The Sun.
London, England, 1866-01-10 00:00:00

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gave to the public the result of their united
labours. True it is that in 1825 it was thought even
by Mr. Wood a visionary hope that a speed of 12,
16, 18, or 20 miles an hour could be accomplished.
Equally true that in 1838 Mr. Wood acknowledged
with some surprise that on the Liverpool railway an
average rate of 15 miles was kept up with the greatest
ease, and on an extraordinary occasion nearly double
that rate, or 30 miles in one hour, had been attained.
It is by such admissions that we perceive the slow
degrees by which a knowledge of practical results is
advanced. Our present object, however, is not to
relate the history of railway progress, but to notice
the first and early efforts of the calm and patient in-
vestigator who paved the way for the illustrious
Stephensons, and prepared the public mind to listen
to and sanction innovations in travelling such as are
without parallel in the history of the world. In fact,
if we except the invention of printing, it may be said
that the discoveries of the application of steam power
and its subsequent application to travelling may
stand forth as two of the grandest achievements of
practical science. Let us then beg the attention of
our readers to the character of Mr. Wood's experi-
ments, and of the first published work in this country
on locomotive travelling. " It would be too much,"
he modestly observed, "for me to assume that I
have supplied all the information of which the sub-
ject is susceptible ; on the contrary, I wish it to be
understood that what is herein contained must be
considered only as an approximation." After giving
a general account of various modes of internal
travelling and of their successive transitions into
existing modes, he described the first introduction
of railroads (the name of " railway" had not then
obtained)—the gradual improvement from wooden
to cast and malleable iron rail. He confined his
experiments on rails to such as were then actually
in use, and described the form and construction of
such carriages as were then employed, and which
we may here observe were almost entirely waggons
for conveying coal. The various rates of inclination
of lines of railway were specially experimented on,
and numerous tables were given of the results both
. as regards self-acting and other inclined planes, and
the work of the few and very imperfect locomotive
engines then known. Experiments were made on
the strength of cast and malleable iron with a view
to ascertain the proper strength of rails, and many
trials were made to ascertain the friction or resist-
ance of carriages when moving on rails. The long
and active and useful life of Nicholas Wood affords
materials upon which an extended memoir might be
based, and without further entering upon details we
may venture to express a conviction that the memory
of this able mining engineer will hold an honoured
place in the annals of this country, and especially
so in the nortth of England, where he was so well
known and so justly respected.—Hexhain Courant.

4

PRICE 4d.,
STAMPED 5d.:

West Coast of Africa.

LIVERPOOL, Tuesday.
The royal mail steamship Athenian, Captain
Griffith, arrived here this afternoon with advices
from the IVest Coast of Africa, Teneriffe, and
Madeira. Her dates are—Benin, Dec. G ; Fernando
Po, 3 ; Catneroous, Nov. 30 ; Old Calabar, Dec. 2 ;
Brass River, 6 ; New Calabar, 5 ; Bonny, 5 ; Lagos,
9 ; Accra, 10; Cape Coast Castle, 12; Cape Palmas,
15 ; Sierra Leone, 20; Bathurst, 24 ; Teneriffe, 30 ;
Madeira, Jan. 2. She brings a large cargo, 4,888
sous., 2,950 oz. gold dust, 3,000 fr., and $6,804, and
21 passengers. The Athenian experienced very
heavy weather in the Channel, and at four o'clock
yesterday morning a tremendous sea struck the ship
and washed one of the seamen, Richard Wenning-
ton, overboard. He was drowned.

H.M.S. Spiteful was at Madeira and was to sail
on the 4th Jan. for the Brazils. The mail steamer
Macgregor Laird arrived at Madeira on the Ist inst.
The screw steamer Albany, from Cape of Good
Hope, arrived, and would sail on the 3d instant for
Southampton.

At Cameroons trade was dull, but the river
healthy. The schooner Tionesta had sailed for
Liverpool. The barque Moselle was off the bar
bound in.

At Old Calabar no business was being done, and
great sickness in the river.

At Fernando Po trade was brisk. The barque
Phrenologist, from the south coast, for Liverpool,
had been sent from Gaboon in charge of a French
crew, the crew of the vessel having refused duty,
owing, it was said, to her being leaky.

At Bonny trade was quite stagnant. The ship
Benledi would sail on the sth for Liverpool.

BRASS AND NEW CALABAR.—HORRIBLE MAS-
NSAeCwßE.c—aOlanbarthemlad9eth oaf
rNaoidnveoiaberththeeßnrasatsivems
eonf
through Calabar creeks, and returned on the 23d
Nov. with 37 prisoners. On the 24th Nov. a great
" play" was held in Calabar town, and all the pri-
soners were killed and eaten. After death the
bodies were cut up and divided amongst the chiefs,
according to the number taken by each man's
canoe. Trade was in consequence stopped.
LAGOS.—The roads of Abeokuta had again been
closed, but this time by the natives. It was said
that three mouths would elapse before they were
open to trade.

The oil mills lately erected by Mr. J. Gill were
complete and in good m orking order. Although
large quantities of machinery had been sent to the
coast for crushing palm kernels, none had hitherto
succeeded.

At Accra a good business had been done during
the month.

TENERIFFE, Dec. 30.—The authorities of this
port placed the Athenian in quarantine. The
Spanish mail steamer Infanta Isabel, for Havana,
put back 10 hours after leaving the Bay, having
broken the key of the propeller. She was repaired,
and sailed• again on Dec. 26. The Spanish squadron
was expected from Cadiz, to reinforce Admiral
Pareja in the Pacific. The squadron consists of
the frigates .Alma,nza, Gerona, and Concepcion ;
ironclads, Yetuan and Navas de Flosa ; transports,
San Quintin and San Francis de Borgus, the latter
with the first, second, and third battalions of
marines on board. The French frigate Venus passed
on Dec. 18 from Brest for Chili. The Spanish war
steamer Isabella la Cattolica, passed Dec. 26 with
despatches.

The late Mr. Nicholas Wood.

Mr. Nicholas:Wood, of Iletton-hall, in the county
of Durham, died on the 19th ult., in the 71st year
of his age. llis name, so familiar to every north
countrymen, will be known mere or less wherever
civilisation extends, as having been foremost in
promoting some of the great improvements which so
signally mark the 19th century, and wherever the
early history of the two Stepliensons and of the
locomotive is known there also is known the name
of Nicholas Wood. His important duties as a col-
liery viewer did not prevent him from pursuing
many interesting subjects of research, and of these
he freely communicated the r esults to the public,
first in the pages of local magazines, and afterwards
in his well-known work on the locomotive engine.
He was the early patron and employer, and after-
wards the valued friend, of George Stephenson, with
whom and his distinguished son he was on terms of
great intimacy as long as they lived. Mr. Wood
took an active part in the establishment of the North
of England Institute of Mining Engineers in Sept.,
1852, and continued in the honorary presidency of
that society to the time of his death. He was con-
nected with many other learned institutions, being a
Fellow of the Royal Society, as also of the Geologi-
cal Society of London, and a member of the Insti-
tution of Civil Engineers. He has, moreover, the
merit of being the first English writer of note on
the important subject of railway travelling. To
have been one of the pioneers in this gigantic
march of human progress is an honour of
which the relatives and friends and fellow-coun-
trymen of Mr. Wood may well be proud, and espe
cially when it is considered how long he lived not
only to witness the extraordinary progress of one of
the greatest improvements the world has ever known,
but to take a most active part in the actual execu-
tion of such works. In 1824 it was a subject of
discussion in Newcastle whether a canal or railway
from that town to Carlisle would best suit the re-
quirements of trade, and the opinions even of well-
informed and scientific men were by no means de-
cided. A brief intimation that railways would be-
come an important means of conveying passengers
had been given in 1811 by Sir Chas. Menteath, of
Closeburn, but even up to 1824, when the Stockton
and Darlington Railway was made, the value of
this suggestion was far from having been practically
realised. It was under those circumstances of divided
opinion that Mr. Wood offered for public perusal
the result of a great number of experiments he had
tried on a working scale, his object being to illus-
trate the acknowledged importance of railroad con-
veyance, and to meet the intense anxiety existing
in the public mind. This anxiety was not specially
directed to railways—it had reference to the rela-
tive value of canals and railroads, and this indicates
the position of the subject when Mr. Wood came
forward to offer information on the matter. In at-
tempting to supply the want there then was of prac-
tical information, Mr. Wood professed to give only
the result of such facts as had come under his own
knowledge, and of experiments made with the express
view of obtaining the requisite information. " The
path," he truly observed in his preface,
"was almost
an unbeaten one, and little except general
obser-
vations had been published." The greatest care was
used by Mr. Wood in his numerous experiments,
and many minute details were embodied in his
work, which was entitled " A Practical Treatise on
Railroads and Interior Communication in General,"
and was first published in April, 1825. It was fol-
lowed in 1831 and 1838 by greatly enlarged and
improved editions. In the preface to the third edi-
tion we find a full explanation of that which consti-
tutes the great merit of Mr. Wood's first efforts.
Railways, he states, were when the first edition ap-
peared "quite in a state of infancy. They had been
almost exclusively confined to private purposes, for
the conveyance of coal, lead, iron, Sze." And he
adds that, though their utility for such work was
never questioned, "it yetremained to be proved how
far they were applicable and useful as an indepen-
dent and distinct mechanical process for the pur-
poses of general traffic ?" To those of our own day
whose recollection does not extend so far as 40 years
ago it is scarcely possible to convey an accurate idea
of the value of such researches as Mr. Wood was
then engaged in, nor of the friendly aid which he
rendered to the great engineer who was employed
in a comparatively humble capacity under, or let
us rather say with him, :at Killingworth. That
George Stephenson took an active part in the