The Sun.
London, England, 1859-09-22 00:00:00

WRECK OP THE JERSEY MAIL STEAM
PACKET EXPRESS.

On Tuesday last the Express left Jersey at a quar-
ter to 7 o'clock a in. for Guernsey and Weymouth,
having on board nearly 200 passengers and three
horses. The latter, with most of the passengers,
were bound for Guernsey, Tuesday being the first
day of the races. The vessel was under the com-
mand of Mr. Mabb, chief mate, the usual captain,
Mr. Harvey, being at the time too unwell to take
his accustomed place in the ship. As before stated,
the Express left at a quarter to seven o'clock,
under the most cheering auspices for a fine run
across, the weather being very fine. When off the
Corbiere the ship was hugging the land so closely
that a few of the passengers made remarks to the
bystanders, but no notice was taken of their obser-
vations. However, Mr. Hamson, a Jerseyman, and
deputy-harbour-master of St. Helier's, observed
that he had often made the trip by steamer, and
had never known any vessel attempt the cut they
were then making. These words had scarcely been
spoken when the Express struck on a rock called
the " Grunes Houillieres." Consternation and
terror seized all parties, but Mabb endeavoured to
calm their fears by stating that " it was nothing,
and all would be right." A second shock was now
felt, and Mabb for the first time seemed to
understand that the ship was in danger.
To extricate the ship from her position he endea-
voured to get her into deep water again, and to
run her on the sandy beach of St. Brelade's Bay.
Fortunately, the Express is built in compart-
ments, and, having struck on her port bow, the
water had not reached her engines, which were
still manageable. Mr. Hamson, assisted by Mr.
Brett, a boatman of St. Helier's, who took the
helm, drove the ship into a snug berth on some
rocks a very short distance from the mainland.
The next thing was to see to the safe landing of
the passengers, which was accomplished by kr.
Hamson, ably assisted by the second mate of the
Express, who throughout exhibited great coolness,
activity, and judgment.
Three lives, however, at least have been lost.
Their loss is attributable to the persons themselves,
who endeavoured to descend into a boat which had
been lowered shortly after the disaster. The rest
of the passengers were landed from their perilous
position by means of the steamer's boats ply-
in ,* between the rock and the shore. The
three horses were also saved by swimming
to the rocks. The mail bags for England were
conveyed to Southampton yesterday by the com-
pany's steamer Despatch. The bag of letters for
Guernsey being in the fore part of the vessel could
not be got at, and it may be considered lost. During
the evening of the day of the disaster, the three
bodies were found and brought on shore. The Ex-
press lies in such a position that she may yet pos-
sibly be got off, unless a southerly wind should
spring up, and then she must become a perfect
wreck. Mr. Green, the manager of the steamship
department of the London and South Western Rail-
way Company, arrived at Guernsey yesterday morn-
ing on his way to Jersey, having left Southampton
immediately on the news of the sad event reaching
the latter place by telegraph.
Mabb was to have been arrested yesterday after-
noon by order of the Queen's Procureur.

An investigation will take placeassoon as, pos-
sible, and the real truth, no doubt, will come out as
to the reason why Mabb should have selected a
passage never before attempted by any steamer, or
indeed any other vcssel.
Three bodies have been found ; those of a woman
and two men—Philippe Coudray, of the Star Hotel,
St. Peter's, Jersey, and that of an English gentle-
man, who had his wife and daughter on board. He
imagined that a boat had been lowered, and let
himself down by a rope, and fell into the water.
The woman whose body has been found is not
known. It is feared that other persons have been
drowned.

Immediately on the arrival of the Despatch at
Jersey on Tuesday morning Capt. Babot, her com-
mander, visited the wreck, to render any assistance
his nautical skill might suggest, and sent his vessel,
the Despatch, to Guernsey, to convey the intelli-
gence, as the electric wire between the islands was
out of order.

LANDSLIP 47' WARDEN POINT,

SIIEPPI'.

A writer in a contemporary says :—From Sit-
tingbourne, on Sunday morning, I walked over to
Warden Point, and inspected the landslip noticed
in your columns last week.

The whole northern seaboard of the Isle of
Sheppy, from near Mile Town, east of Sheerness, to
Warden Point (from whence eastward the land
rapidly falls, and the cliffs terminate towards Shell-
ness Point at the west entrance of the Swale), is
composed of London clay, of undulating form,
moderate height, and intersected by a few main
gullies or chines, carrying off the surface water.
The whole of this cliff is constantly falling, acted
on by atmospheric agencies, the influence of the
tide and waves, with gales from north-east, and
from land drainage, forming a sloping undercliff
below ; the same remark applies to the tertiary
cliffs eastward, past Whitstable, Herne-bay, and
Reculvcrs ; until the chalk rises and crops out in
the promontory forming the Isle of Thanet. This
is well described in the works of Lyell and others.
There are, however, some exceptional circum-
stances about this fall, which the agencies above
referred to can apparently hardly account for, and
the following slight sketch may possibly draw
towards it the attention of others who have made
such subjects their more especial study, and may
not be wholly uninteresting to the general reader.
About three years back a similar fall or slip took
place to the westward, which the present one in
effect appears a continuation or prolongation of to
the eastward. The present fall is immediately
adjoining the church, extending an equal distance
east and west of it, including about two and a half
acres of land, the former fall apparently about three
times that amount ; in all there are some 10 acres
of land affected, and in each case the results are
similar. The recent fall took place on Sunday, the
11th inst., about 9 p.m., and occupied some hours
—i.e., it was a gradual, and not a sudden, move-
ment or subsidence.

The results presented are these—a broad belt of
land moves seaward (not a mere abrasion or under-
mining of the cliff), settles vertically downwards,
or spreads out, and slides seaward, presenting a new
cliff landward at the last parallel fissure ; and the
moving mass obtain a state of rest in the form of
an undercliff. This latter presents the followin,,o.
appearances :—The mass in moving appears to fall
forward towards the sea into regularly defined
parallel belts of, say, ten feet in thickness ; these
laminve, as it were, obtains a state of rest at an angle
inclining forward of about 45 deg., so that the
fallen mass now presents in the valley of the fall
a series of parallel terraces rising and falling in
steps, the faces composed of the fresh section of the
natural clay, the tops dipping towards the sea, the
turf and vegetation undisturbed. The mass in
subsiding or falling forwards is split into layers
presenting angular sectional edges, the same as
those of an inclined pack of cards, of an open book,
or leaning stack of tiles cr slates. The mass is more
broken up, and rises into a huge mound seaward, so
that the fall assumes a concave or valley form be-
neath the cliff, falling from it and then rising again
seaward. Au extraordinary result of this fall is
that it has, by its superincumbent moving weight,
driven the old foreshore and superimposed shingle
up about ten feet above its fortier level, rounded in
form. My attention was specially directed to this
result, which is apparent when standing on the
shore. The fall is, in fact, a complete avalanche of
earth intersected by parallel fissures or crevices,
scooping up and causing the saturated material
forming the foreshore to rise up en masse. The
singularity, as many observed looking on, was that
this great slip should have occurred after so dry a
season. The edge of the altered cliff is now only
18 yards from the chancel of the church, in a line
with the west side of the nave, and portions of the
row of trees and fence adjoining have settled down
bodily, and arc now standing on the undercliff some
50 feet lower than they were when in situ, at a
slight inclination, corresponding with that of the
detached pieces of cliff on which they stand, plainly
denoting how gradual and vertical has been the
'subsidence.
It is difficult to account for this phenomenon ; a
question arises, viz,. to what extent are the bases of
cliffs in the tertiary formations saturated or affected
by percolation through fissures by tidal agency,
and how far may this be the first cause P
There are no appearances of land springs from
the cliff-face, the whole appears to have squeezed
down into a saturated or partly fluid base, or this
apparent effect may be the resultant merely of the
spreading of the dislocated mass.
A similar fall took place at Axmouth, in Devon,
some 10 or 15 years back. Ia that case, however,
it was mainly one parallel belt of land that slid or
,
fell away in a sinniar wo inner, possibly from like
causes.
Without knowing the exact condition of
the cliff before the fall, it appears difficult to explain
the cause ; the slip may in rea;ity be merely the
result of the cliff having become gradually too steep
to remain in repose, the same as a slip occurs in an
artificial cutting which has been excavated to too
steep a slope ; the appearances presented hardly,
however, warrant the, conclusion that this is the
cause alone.

TROUT FISIIING.—A:feW days since John Bird,
fisherman to the laic Captain Woodhouse, of Armathwaite
Castle, Cumberland, caught in the Castle fishery, in the
river Eden, a grey trout, which measured 16 inches in
length, 34 inches in circumference, and weighed 71b, 15Ioz.