The Sun.
London, England, 1861-07-29 00:00:00

THE ARMY.

The 10th 'Hussars, at present stationed at Nor-
wich, Ipswich, and Northampton, have been in-
spected by Major-Gen. Lawrenson. The inspection
of the troops of the regiment lying at Norwich was
noticed in. The Sun of Thursday. Major-Gen. Law-
rence afterwards continued his inspection at

Ipswich. The regiment—or at any rate a portion
of it—is expected to leave fur York in Sept.
The transport Lady Ann, 745 tons, Capt. James
Webb, belonging to Messrs. D. Dunbar and Sons,
from Calcutta, March 23, arrived all well off Ply-

mouth on Saturday. She embarked in India, 7
officers, 2 officers' wives, 232 men, 19 women, and
23 children belonging to the Royal Artillery and
6th Carabineers. She put in at the Cape on the
Ist and St. Helena on the 19th of June.

The head-quarters of the 24th Regiment, under

the command of Major Lutman, disembarked from
the Sirocco troopship, at Portsmouth dockyard, on
Saturday, on their return from India, and marched
into quarters in the garrison at the Clarence Bar-
racks. They are a fine body of men.
The sth (Northumberland Fusil( ers) Regiment
was inspected at Portsmouth on Saturday by Major-
Gen. Lord W. Paulet, C.B. This regiment has but
very recently returned from India.
A number of men havevolunteered into regiments
short of their full complement from the depot bat-
talions at the camp at Colchester, and small draughts
have left to join the Ist battalion 16th Foot and
21st Regiment at Shorncliffe, the Ist battalion 12th
Regiment at Walmer, the 6th Regiment at Canter-
bury, and the 53d and 84th at Aldershott. The
force at Colchester, which has also been reduced of
late by draughts for India, now amounts to between
1,500 and 2,000.
The fortification of Portsdown-hill has been fairly

commenced by Messrs. Baker, of Lambeth.
Various alterations and repairs are about to be
executed at the Martello towers at Shotley, Walton
Ferry, Landguard Fort, and Walton-on-the-Cliff,
on the Suffolk coast. At Shotley one of the towers
has already undergone reparation, and a party of
artillery from Woolwich have been mounting
8-inch and 68-pounder guns upon it.
Lieut.-Col. T. B. Collinson, second in command
at the headquarters of the Royal Engineers, Chat-
ham, having been placed on the staff of the establish•
ment, and appointed instructor in practical archi-
tecture, will be succeeded by Lieut.-Col. J. F. M.
Browne, C. 8., who is now on the passage home
from the Mauritius. The appointment of Lieut.-
Col. Collinson, as instructor in architecture, will
supply a want which has long been experienced at
the Royal Engineer establishment.
Lieut. G. D. Pritchard has been ordered to pro-
ceed from Chatham to Harwich to do duty with the
Royal Engineers at that station.
The opening of the new and elegant suite of mess-
rooms recently erected at Brompton Barracks,
Chatham, for the officers attached to the Royal En
gineer establishment, will take place to-day with a
grand banquet, at which it is understood his Royal
Highness the Duke of Cambridge, who is Colonel-
in-Chief of the Royal Engineers, together with
Gen. Sir J. F. Burgoyne, G.C.8., R.E., Inspector-
General of Fortifications, and several other distin-
guished officers, will be present. On Saturday the
preliminary arrangements were made fora review
of the entire force of the garrison, to be held to-day,
by his Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief.
Lieut. Henry E. C. Robinson was appointed on
Friday to her Majesty's ship Virago.
Captain M. S. Nolloth has been appointed to the
Princess Charlotte, and naval officer in charge of
naval establishments at Hong Kong.

TEE CU .1117.T.-I?E2II4RKABLE FACTS.

At the last sitting of the Academy of Sciences,
M. Elie de Beaumont read a letter from Dr. Mon-
tucci, in which the latter described a remarkable
phenomenon which he witnessed in September,
1858, when Donati's great comet was in all its
splendour, viz., the gradual fading and subsequent
total disappearance of the comet, followed by its
sudden reappearance about a minute after. Dr.
Montucci describes this phenomenon as follow :
" I was at Versailles in company with another per-
son, who is ready to confirm the fact. While we
were both contemplating the beautiful apparition
in the heavens, we perceived its light to fade
very rapidly, until the whole comet was reduced to
a luminous point at the nucleus. At length even
this point disappeared completely, leaving not
a vestige of the comet in the clear azure of
the sky. About a minute afterwards the nucleus
reappeared as a briliiant point, and immediately,
with much greater rapidity than that of the
extinction, the magnificent tail shot out again
in all its splendour. This phenomenon, which had
lasted about five minutes in all, occurred five or six
times that same evening, and we observed it on
some of the following nights, though on others we
watched for it in vain. There was most certainly
no interposition whatever either of a cloud er any
other vaporous film ; the nucleus seemed to absorb
the light of the tail, from the extremity to the
centre ; its own extinction was like that of a candle
by a blast of wind, and the reappearance of the tail
resembled the forcible ejection of water from a pipe
in the form of a jet." We may mention that a
phenomenon of the same kind was observed by a
gentleman and his family in this year's comet on
the 4th inst., when the tail was seen very gradually
to fade. and at length disappear completely, as if
blown away by a current of air, the nucleus alone
remaining visible; after a short interval the tail
reappeared in its former brilliancy. M. Leverrier
expresses great doubts as to Mr. Hind's supposition
of the earth's having passed through or near the
cometary matter, and states that there are not suf-
i ficient data to solve the question. A communica-
tion was also read from Father Secchi of Rome
about the comet. He repeats his former assertion
—viz , that the tail was 118 degrees in length, and
explains the discrepancy existing between his state-
ment and that of the Paris astronomers, who esti-
mated it at 45 degrees, by mentioning the impor-
tant fact that the comet had a double tail, one
within the other. The exterior tail, measuring 8
degrees in breadth, was very luminous, and only
extended to 45 degrees ; but the inner one, con-
sisting of a narrow and much weaker streak of
light, extended much farther, and ended in the
milky way, near the stars Epsilan and Zeta Aquila.
Father Seechi believes that this second tail was not
visible at Paris. He adds that the polarisation of
the light of the tail was very strong, but that the
light of the nucleus did not present any traces of
polarisation until the 3d of July, and even then not
very strong.