The Sun.
London, England, 1859-09-20 00:00:00

THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION.

ABERDEEN, FRIDAY.
At the meeting of the Geological Section yester-1
day its president,. Sir C. LYELL, stated the result
of some observations he had made in France on the
proofs of the antiquity of the human race. Sir
Charles spoke al follows :—No subject has lately
excited more curiosity and general interest among
geologists and the public than the question
of the antiquity of the human race ; whether
or no we have sufficient evidence to prove the
former co-existence of man with certain ex-
tinct mammalla, in caves, or in the super-
ficial,
deposits commonly called drift or " dilurzum.'
For the last quarter of a century the occasional oc-
currence in various parts of Europe of the bones of
man, or the works of his hands, in cave-breccias
and stalactites associated with the remains of the
extinct hyena, bear, elephant, or rhinoceros, have
given rise to a suspicion that the date of man mast
be carried further back than we had heretofore
imagined. On the other hand, extreme reluctance
was naturally felt on the part of scientific rea-
soners to admit the validity of such evidence, see-
ing that so many caves have been inhabited by a suc-
cession of tenants, and have been selected by man
as a place not only of domicile, but of sepulture,
while some caves have also served as the channels
through which the waters of flooded rivers have
flowed, so that the remains of living beings which
have peopled the district at more than one era may
have subsequently been mingled in such caverns
and confounded together in one and the same de-
posit. The facts, however, recently brought to light
during the systematic investigation, as reported on
by Falconer, of the Brixham Cave, must, I think,
have prepared you to admit that scepticism in regard
to the cave—evidence in favour of the antiquity of
man had previously been pushed to an extreme.
To escape from what I now consider was a legi-
timate deduction from the facts already accumu-
lated, we were obliged to resort to hypotheses
requiring great changes in the relative levels and
drainage of valleys, and, in short, the whole physical
geography of the respective regions where the caves
are situated—changes that would alone imply a
remote antiquity for the human fossil remains, and
make it probable that man was old enough to
have co-existed, at least, with the Siberian mam-
moth. But, in the course of the last 15 years,
another class of proofs has been advanced
in France, in confirmation of man's antiquity,
into two of which I have personally examined in the
course of the present summer, and to which I shall
now briefly advert. First, so long ago as the year
1844, M. Aymard, an eminent palaeontologist and
antiquary, published an account of the discovery in
the volcanic district of Central France, of portions of
two human skeletons (the skulls, teeth, and bones),
embedded in a volcanic breccia, found in the moun-
tain of Denise,in the environs of Le Puy en Velay,
a breccia anterior in date to one, at least, of the latest
eruptions of that volcanic mountain. On the
opposite side of the same hill the remains
of a large number of mammalia, most of
them of extinct species, have been detected in
tufacious strata, believed, and I think correctly, to
be of the same age. The authenticity of the human
fossils was from the first disputed by several geo-
logists, but admitted by the majority of those who
visited Le Puy and saw with their own eyes the
original specimen now in the museum of that
town. Among others M. Pictet, so well known to
you by his excellent work on palaeontology, de-
clared after his visit to the spot his adhesion to
the opinions previously expressed by Aymard.
My friend, Mr. Scrope, In the second edition
of his Volcanos of Central France, lately pub-
lished, also adopted the same conclusion, al-
though, after accompanying me this year to La Puy
he has seen reason to modify his views. The result
of our joint examination, a result which I believe
essentially coincides with that arrived at by M.
Hebert and M. Lartet, names well known to
science, who have also this year gone into this in-
quiry on the spot, may thus be stated. We are by
no means prepared to maintain that the specimen
in the museum at Le Puy (which unfortunately was
never seen in situ by any scientific observer),
is a fabrication. On the contrary, we incline to
believe that the human fossils in this and some other
specimens from the same hill, were really imbeded by
natural causes in their present matrice. But the rock
in which they are entombed consists of two parts,
one of which is a compact, and for the most part
thinly laminated stone, into which none of the
human bones penetrate; the other containing the
bones, is a lighter and much more porous stone,
with laminations, to which we could find nothing
similar in the Mountain of Denise, although both
M. Hebert and myself made several excavations on
the alleged site of the fossils. M. Hebert there-
fore suggested to me that this most porous stone,
which resembles in colour and mineral composi-
tion, though not in structure, parts of the genuine
old breccia of Denise, may be made of the
older rock broken up and afterwards rede-
posited, or as the French say, " remane," and,
therefore, of much newer date : a hypothesis
which well deserves consideration, but I feel that
we are at present so ignorant of the precise circum-
stances and position under which these celebrated
human fossils were found, that I ought not to waste
time in speculating on their probable mode of inter •
ment, but simply declare that in my opinion they
afford no demonstration of man having witnessed
the last volcanic eruptions of central France.
The skulls, according to the judgment of the most
competent osteologists who have yet seen them, do
not seem to depart in a marked manner from the
modern European or Caucasian type, and the hu-
man bones are in a fresher state than those of the
elephas meridionalis and other quadrupeds found in
any breccia of Denise which can be referred to the
period even of the latest volcanic eruptions. But
while I have thus failed to obtain satisfactory evi-
dence in favour of the remote origin assigned to the
human fossils of Le Puy, I am fully prepared to
corroborate the conclusions which have been re-
cently laid before the Royal Society by Mr. Prest-
wich, in regard to the age of the flint implements
associated in undisturbed gravel, in the north of
France, with the bones of elephants, at Abbeville
and Amiens. These were first noticed at Abbeville,
and their true geological position assigned to them
by M. Boucher de Perthes, in 1846, in his " An-
tiquites Celtiques," while those of Amiens were
afterwards described in 1855, by the late Dr. Rigol-
lot. For a clear statement of the facts I may refer
you to the abstract of Mr: Prestwich's memoir, in
the proceedings of the Royal Society for 1850, and
have only to add that I have myself obtained abun-
dance of flint implements (some of which are laid
upon the table) during a short visit to Amiens and
Abbeville. Two of the worked flints of Amiens were
discovered in the gravelpits of St. Acheul—one at a
depth of 10, the other at 17 feet below the surface,
at the time ofmy visit ; and M. G. Pouchet, of Rouen,
author of a work on the " Races of Man," who has
since visited the spot, has extracted with his own
hands one of these implements, as Messrs. Prest-
wich and Flower had done before him. The strati-
fied gravel resting immediately on the chalk in
which these rudely-fashioned instruments are buried
belongs to the post-pliocene period, all the fresh
water and land shells which accompany them being
of existing species. The great number of the fossil
instruments which have been likened to hatchets,
spearheads, and wedges, is truly wonderful. More
than a thousand of them have already been met
with in the last 10 years, in the valley of the Som-
me, in an area 15 miles in length. I infer that a
tribe of savages, to whom the use of iron was un-
known, made a long sojourn in this region • and I
am reminded of a largo Indian mound, which I saw
in St. Simond's Island, in Georgia—a mound 10
acres in area, and having an average height of five
feet, chiefly composed of cast-away oyster shells,
throughout which arrow-heads, stone axes, and
Indian pottery are dispersed. If the neighbouring
river, the Alatamaha, or the sea which is at hand,
should invade, sweep away, and stratify the con-
tents of this mound, it might produce a very ana-
logous accumulation of human implements, unmixed,
Perhaps, with human bones. Although the accom-
Purging shells are of living species I believe the an-
tiquity of the -Abbeville and Amiens flint instru-
mentsof
mstetorybee great
.indeed if compared to the times
of fluvisailer tradition. I consider the gravel to be
the structuroerigin' but I could detect nothing in
action,
its several parts indicating
cataclysmal
se% nothing that might not be
due to such s;
as we have witnessed
in Scotland during the lastha century. It must
have required a long period
gravel
thterthe wearing down
of the chalk which supplied
at brokenv. flints
formation of so muchfor the
_reaseinous. heights—
sometimes 100 feet above the
fineP sediment,
level of the
both terrestrical andemeateq
Somme—for the deposition of
nrueta,tmiil4Ca,cslasundod
ing entire shells,
also for the denudation which the
stratified drift has undergone, portions having been
,swept away, so that what remains of it oftenterrni_
sates abruptly in old river cliffs, besides beinm
covered by a newer unstratified drift. 1 To explain
these changes I should infer eonsiderab.e oscillations
in the level of the land in that part of France—slow
movements of upheaval and subsidence, deranging,
but tot wholly displacing, the coarse of the ancient
rivers. Lastly, the disappearance of the elephant,
rhinoceros, and other genera of quadruped, now
foreign in Europe implies, in like manner, a vast
lapse of ages, separating the era in which the fossil
.implements were framed and that of tha invasion
.of Gaul by the Romans. Among the problems of
high theoretical interest which the recent progress
of geology and natural history has brought into
notice, no one is more prominent, and, at the same
-time more obscure, than that relating to the origin
a species. On this difficult and t mys erious subject
-a work will very shortly appear
by Mr. 0144(m

Darwin, the result of 20 years of observation and
experiment in zoology, botany, and geology, by
which he has been led to the conclusion that those
powers of nature which give rise to races and perma-
nent varieties in animals and plants, are the same
as those which, in much longer periods, produce
species, and, in a still longer series of ages, give rise
to differences of generic rank. He appears to me to
have succeeded, by his investigations and reason-
ings, to have thrown a flood of light on many classes
of phenomena connected with the affinities, geogra-
phical distribution, and geological succession of or-
genic beings, for which no other hypothesis has
been able, or has even attempted, .to account.
Among the communications sent into this section,
I have received from Dr. Dawson, of Montreal, one
confirming the discovery which he and I formerly
announced, of a land shell, or pupa, in the coal for-
mation of Nova Scotia. When we contemplate the
vast series of formations intervening between the
tertiary and carboniferous strata, all destitute of
air-breathing mollusca, at least of the terrestrial
class, such a discovery affords an important illus-
tration of the extreme defectiveness of our geologi-
cal records. It has always appeared to me that the
advocates of progressive development have too
much overlooked the imperfections of these records,
and that, consequently, a large part of the generali-
sations in which they have indulged in regard to
the first appearance of the different classes of ani-
mals, especially of air-breathers, will have to be
modified or abandoned. Nevertheless, that the doc-
trine of progressive development may contain in it
the germs of a true theory, I am far from denying.
The consideration of this question will come before
you when the age of the white sandstone of Elgin is
discussed—a rock hitherto referred to the old red,
or Devonian formation, but now ascertained to con-
tain several reptilian forms, of so high an organisa-
tion as to raise a doubt in the minds of many geo-
logists whether so old a place in the series can cor-
rectly be assigned to it.
At the meeting this morning of Section E
Geography and Ethnology—Mr. L. OLIPHANT (late
Secretary to Lord Elgin) read a long and very able
paper on Japan, which concluded as follows :—lt
would be well to remember that, while we have
achieved a great result in thus opening to the world
this prosperous and happy community, we have also
incurred serious obligations towards them, and are
bound not to take advantage of their ignorance and
inexperience in their dealings with western nations.
We can only hope to commend our civilisation to
them by maintaining a high moral standard, both
in our commercial and political intercourse. They
are sufficiently enlightened to appreciate a policy-
influenced by higher considerations than those in-
volved in the accumulation of wealth. Unless we
follow such a policy, it is not too much to predict
that we shall lose alike their confidence and re-
spect, and involve ourselves in complications disas-
trous to our commerce and discreditable to our
national character. Of all the nations of the east,
the Japanese are the most susceptible to civilising
influences, and I quote the words of an eminent Chi-
nese and Japanese scholar in saying that, in one re-
spect. they are far in advance of their ancient neigh-
bours the Chinese, in that their attention is directed to
obtain a knowledge of other nations. Their efforts in
this way will form their greatest security. Their
soldiers once formed the bodyguard of the King of
Siam, their consuls once examined Spanish ships
in Acapulco, their sailors once took a Dutch gover-
nor out 'of Formosa, and carried him prisoner to
their rulers, their Princes once sent an embassy to
the Pope, their Emperor once defied the vengeance
of Portugal, by executing her ambassadors. The
knowledge of these historical events remains among
, them. We may reasonably hope for a great pre-
ponderance of good results from an extension of an
intercourse which has recommenced so peacefully.
Let us indulge the expectation that the land of the
rising sun may not only soon be fitted fir taking
her place among nations, but also among Christian
nations, and with all the institutions, and liberty,
and purity of the best of the nations.
In Section F—Economic Science and Statistics
—Mr. J. T. MACKENZIE read a paper on the trade
and commerce of India. The paper gave a view of
the exports and imports of bullion and merchandise
for 25 years, ending in 1858. The value of exports
from British India amounted, in the five years from
1833-8, to £10,300,000 annually, while, from the
five Years from 1853-8, the amount annually was
£22,-810,755. Imports of merchandise, exclusive of
treasure, averaged £4,717,278 yearly, in the first
period of the same series, and L 13,457,015 yearly for
the last. The total bullion imported into India for
the 25 years was £110,329,428. The number of ves-
sels entered into India from foreign ports in 1858 was
4,3o9—increase £1,686,558. The largest item of
merchandise imported into India consisted of cotton
twist, yarn, and piece goods, and amounted in 1858
to £4,696,400, of which £4,608,655 were supplied
by the United Kingdom. The writer next alluded
to the importance of the extension of this great
market to every class at home ; and the obviosts
means by which this great object is to be attained
are, on the one hand, by increasing the producing
po .ser of India, and by enabling her to dispose of a
large quantity of her own productions, and, on the
other, by our manufacturers studying, more than
they do at present, the habits of the people in the
manufacture of articles best suited to their real
wants, tastes, and fancies. The total value of mer-
chandise exported from British India in 1858 was
£27,453,692, of which £9,106,635 was for opium,
none of which is entered for British consumption.
Deducting this, the exports still exceed £18,000,000,
of which more than £10,500,000 came to the United
Kingdom. The largest item of Indian exports,
after opium, is raw cotton, which in 1858 amounted
to £4,301,769, of which £3,296,698 came to the
United Kingdom, and this is about £1,500,000 be-
low the value of the manufactured cotton we
sent out to her. He pointed to the importance that
would attach to organised efforts made to promote
the consumption of Indian produce, and thereby to
stimulate her productive power. He next said the
whole system of banking in India required to be
changed. The means of transport and irrigation
were also noticed as greatly needed, and greatly
important. It should be clearly understood, how•
ever, that for the real extension of the great com-
mercial intercourse with India it is no part of the
duty of Government to aid, either directly or in-
directly, by pecuniary grants, gifts of land, or gua-
-antees of interest, any industrial or commercial
undertaking of the country.
In the course of the discussion which followed,
Mr. Tite, M.P.,paid a high compliment to the Right
Hon. J. Wilson, and expressed a hope that in the
position he was about to occupy in India he would
solve some of the problems that had then engaged
their attention. Mr. Leith, Sir J. Bowring, and
Col. Edwardes also addressed the section at con-
siderable length.
This evening Sir RODERICK MURCHISON deli-
vered a discourse "On the Geological Structure
and Order of the Older Rocks in the Northern
Counties of Scotland." The address, which was of
great length, was listened to most attentively, and
at its close,
Sir CHAS. LYELL moved a vote of thanks to Sir
Roderick for the clear and admirable illustration
he had given them of the Geology of Scotland.
Without giving an opinion as to the Elgin sand-
stones. he (Sir C.) might state that if the evidence
so clearly laid before them bearing thereon had
been before him when he published his work, he cer •
tainly should not have called the rock Devonian.
Professor PHILLIPS seconded, remarking on the
high estimation in whicn Sir R. Murchison was
held over half the globe, as the master of the
Silurian.
Sir D. BREWSTER then, amid loud applause,
thanked Sir R. Murchison, and continuing, said a
more lasting testimonial than a mere vote of thanks
was now to be presented, viz., the Brisbane Medal
of the Edinburgh Royal Society (of which Sir David
is a Vice-President) A deputation of members of
the Council were now in waiting for this purpose,
whom he begged to introduce. The deputation
consisted of Dr. Christison, Professors Allman and
Balfour, and Mr. R. Chambers. The medal, amid re:
newed plaudits, having been presented through
Sir David Brewster,
Mr. ROBERT CHAMBERS spoke as follows :—Sir
Roderick Murchison,—The Royal Society of Edin-
burgh, viewing your late researches in the High-
lands of Sutherlandshire with an interest and ad-
miration shared by the whole scientific world, has
thought proper to vote to you the first example of
a gold medal, founded by its respected president,
Sir T. S. Brisbane, for remarkable scientific ser-
vices. In the paper read by you to the Geological
Society in December last, the society sees an ad-
mirable instance of laborious investigation in con-
nection with a Scottish field. You have, sir, suc-
ceeded in putting into a new and correct place in
the geological series, a band of formations which,
from the days of M'Culloch downwards, has at-
tracted a large share of attention, both on ac-
count of its constituent materials and the mag-
nificent scenery which it forms ; and you have
thus conferred a great favour upon your netive
country. It seems suitable that the Royal So-
ciety, of Edinburgh, which heard the first specu-
lations of Hutton and of Plavfair, should take
upon itself to stamp, with the national approbation,
sertwVtieaye•oesura:rsinoniid:3i:tatrriicilgiuished as yours. The society,
performeme
note s andin Sutherlandshire cannotoverlook
ntnhl ;7. fartfui .
lt7gwaitiipnn remarkable series of geological laves-
which have placed during the last 35 years, and
chiefs of living Brtiiuhsg high among the great
geologists. In succession,
Auvergne, the Alps, the Carpa-
the mountains of
urfiLss:rucr:rglednitihuets:ftoorryroef-
has been as Carpa-
thians, the Urals, have
owned:
search. You have recalled to
the first ages of life upon its
s ec
o nwsipdie-
plains of Russia your diligence

cuously shown as in that Siluria which is all your
own. Two superb and voluminous works and 100
separate memoirs but faintly express the amount of
your geological writings. Nor, on the present oc-
casion, should your services, as the head of the Geo-
logical Survey, and as the frequent President of the
Geographical Society, be forgotten. Neither should
we fail to remember that remarkable triumph of
science of which you are the instrument—the vati-
cination of an auriferous region in Australia, from
the observations you had made in the Ural Moun-
tains. Viewing these many merits and your pre-
sent active course, the Royal Society of Edinburgh
cannot but feel proud in having ' the privilege of
conferring upon you the first Brisbane prize ; and
it is their earnest wish and prayer that you may
long be spared to enjoy the many deserved honours
which a ratefel country and an admiring band of
fellow-labourers and a beneficent Sovereign have
conferred upon you.
Sir R. MURCHISON replied in very feeling lan
guage, stating that no honour ever conferred upon
him had touched him more than this testimonial at
the hands of his own countrymen. Ho was gratified
beyond measure at receiving this honour from a so-
ciety which, of almost all others in Europe, is chary
in conferring its honours, and has a more limited
number of honorary members than any other scien-
tific society. And all the more would it be esteemed
that it was put into his hand by one of the most
eminent of living philosophers. (Loud applause.)

THE LATE EXPLOUON ON BOARD

THE GREAT EASTERN.

Yesterday morning the adjourned inquiry into

;he cause of this fatal accident was resumed at the

Town-hall, Weymouth. As on previous occasions,

the company were represented by Mr. Leverson
the shareholders by Mr. Lawson, and Mr. Scott

Russell by Mr. Newman.
Mr. Jackson, M.P., Mr. Magnus, and Mr. Cut
bill, directors of the Great Ship Company, wit;

Captain Harrison, and the principal officers of the
Great Eastern, were again in attendance.
Before opening the proceedings the Foreman of
the Jury said that the inquiry was drifting from an
inquest into a lawsuit, and therefore he hoped that
the Coroner would place no evid,3nce before the

Court which did not entirely and exclusively con.

cern the cause of the accident. It was entirely

beside the question as to what was the contrac,
between the directors of the Great Ship Company
and Mr. Scott Russell.
The Coroner said that he did not consider the
only question before the jury was what was the
cause of the accident. It as also their duty to
discover, if possible, who was the cause of it, and
therefore all evidence which tended to show who
was in charge of the engines was certainly to the
point.
The first witness examined was Mr. -William
Jackson, M.P., deputy chairman, and one of the
managing directors of the Great Eastern, who de-
posed that in conjunction with Mr. Campbell he
arranged as to the time the vessel should leave the
river. He always understood that the contractors
who constructed tha engines would be in charge of
them during the trial trip. Mr. Scott Russell inti-
mated that it would be desirable to place on board
certain engineers to manage the paddle engines,
and witness's impression certainly was that that
gentleman was in charge of them, from Mr. Russell
being on the bridge and directing the movements
of the paddle engines below. It was never consi-
dered that Mr. bcott Russell took charge of the
engines as a favour, but as a matter of duty, and
as being responsible for their proper working. On
one or two occasions Mr. Russell had told witness
the ship was finished and the contract completed,
to which he always replied that it was not. On the
Monday before the ship sailed Mr. Russell applied
to the board for more money, on the ground of extra
work and completion of contract. The money was
refused, as the company considered that too much
had been paid to Mr. Russell, and that his contract
was not complete. Both ship and paddle engines,
he considered, were at that moment in charge of Mr.
Russell. The paddle engines were still incomplete,
and under the contract for finishing the vessel he
thought that much remained to be done. The board
was waiting for a formal notice from Mr. Russell
that the contract was completed in order to have the
whole ship surveyed. It required a certificate from
the managing director that the ship was completed
and given up before Mr. Russell's contract and re-
sponsibility were at an end. That certificate had
never been given and never applied for. Mr. Rus-
sell applied for the last payment under the con-
tract, which, however, was refused.
A long discussion ensued as to the admission of
this evidence as to contract; which, on one hand,
it was contended must be tried by a higher court ;
while for the other side it was stated, that it served
to show who was in charge of the ship, or, at least
of the engines.
Captain Robertson said enough had been shown
as to the cause of the accident ; it only remained to
discover who was to blame.
Mr. John Arnott, chief engineer of the paddle
engines under Mr. M'Lennan, deposed that he was
formerly in Mr. Scott Russell's employ, and was
selected by him to go in charge of the paddle en-
gines on board the Great Eastern. He was in
charge of the engines when the explosion took
place, and Mr. Patrick was under his orders. He
was not in the boiler room that day. Though in
charge of the engines, he did not consider that it
was his duty to look after the boilers. Other en-
gineers did that. Mr. Patrick never reported to
him that at 12 in the day he shut off the feed from
the filar: el casing and turned it direct into the boilers.
If it had been reported to him, he would at once,
knowing that there were cocks in the syphon tubes,
have ascertained that they sere open, and the steam
escaping. He was never aware that the feed was
shut off from the casing at all. He never received
any instructions as to the working of the engines
either from Mr. Dickson or Mr. M'Lennan. Mr.
Dickson assisted him in starting. If anything had
gone wrong in the engine-room, he would have re-
ported it to Mr. M'Lennan, whom he considered
his chief. He could not answer whether or not
Mr. M'Lennan gave him instructions to obey the
engineers in charge or not. Mr. M'Lennan called
them together, and set the watches, though he
did not recollect whether or not he said they
were to obey the engineer in charge. He could not
answer whom he would have considered Mr.
M'Lennan meant if he had given such instructions
about the engineer in charge. He never gave Pat-
rick any instructions to open the cock of the second
funnel after the explosion. Both the cocks were
open when the vessel left Deptford. He went
round himself, and saw them open himself. A man
named Duncan M'Farlane was with him. (The
evident reluctance with which this witness gave his
evidence created some sensation in court.)
All witnesses about to prove facts connected with
the machinery were then ordered to leave the hall.
Examination resumed—On the Tuesday before
they left witness made that examination with
M'Farlane, shortly after breakfast. The cocks were
then open, and witness did not touch them, though
he had a spanner with him. That was alter the
pipe had been lengthened by five feet. Any one
could open the door which led to the cook, though
no one could turn the cock without using a spanner.
He was quite positive they were open.
By Mr. Lawson—He had been in the employ-
ment of Mr. Russell for several years, except when
away in charge of new ships. He ceased to be in
Mr. Russell's employ the Tuesday before the ves-
sel started, and went into the service of the com-
pany. Mr. Brunel said he was to go as chief en-
gineer under Mr. M'Lennan. His ordinary
employment was in Mr. Russell's yard. He was
only to be employed by the company for three months.
When new machinery was put in a ship witness
generally went in charge of the engines on the trial
trip, as in the trial trip of the Great Eastern.
Witness started one engine and Mr. Dickson the
other. Nothing whatever was said between wit-
ness and Mr. Dickson as to the working of the
engines. M'Farlane, who went round with him to
examine the cocks, had also been for some time in
Mr. Russell's employment. There were plenty of
spanners on board the ship that would have turned
the cocks. He never saw cocks like those fitted to
stand pipes before, but he knew the danger of hav-
ing them closed. [Some discussion here ensued
among the jury as to the peculiar action of the
cocks, and eventually they requested the Coroner to
send off to the ship for them, which was accordingly
done, and the cross-examination of the witness was
proceeded with.] After seeing the cocks were right
on Tuesday he never looked to them again, nor
sent any one to look to them. No one could have
got to them without breaking the door of the casing
open, supposing the door to be locked. It was not
locked, however, and any one might have gone
there. No one gave him any directions with regard
to managing the engines. He put on the expan-
sion gear, and did as he thought right, without in-
structions. They were working at Nib., and driving
the engines as fast as they could be driven. Mr.
Dickson was not much al»ut except at starting.
Mr. Dickson assisted at starting the engines on
Wednesday, but lie coul:l not recollect if lie as-
sisted on Thursday. He did assist again on Friday.
Never gave the witness Patrick any instructions to
shut off the "feed" from the casing, nor did Patrick
ever make any report to him at all, except to say
that all was going on well. He never at any time
was informed that the feed was shut off from the
casing. He considered himself in charge of the
paddle engines entirely, but lie did not consider
himself at all bound to look after the boilers.
By Mr. Leverson.—Mr. Brunel informed him