The Sun.
London, England, 1859-06-20 00:00:00

SHIPS FROM AUSTRALIA

SUNDAY.
The Monarch, Capt. J. H. Thorn, from Melbourne,
March 1, rounded Cape Horn April 11, and is now
in the Channel. She has 30 cabin and 100 steerage
passengers, and 44,000 ounces of golddust. The
Monarch experienced three very severe cyclones
between Bass's Straits and the Horn, each of which
lasted from 30 to 40 hours. On the Line she was
becalmed from seven to 10 days.

THE LARGE FLOATING DERRICK IN
THE THAMES.

On Saturday last the first public trial of the
hoisting capabilities of the large floating Derrick,
moored in the Thames off Blackwall, was made in
the presence of Mr. Bishop, the patentee, Mr.
Taverner, several of the directors, Mr. Walter
Vaughan, the gentleman who first introduced the
invention to the notice of the shipping interest in
this country, and a party of gentlemen invited to
witness the experiment. Every one who is in the
habit of going by water from London to Wool-
wich must have remarked this singular-looking
craft lying between Blackwall and Charlton, and
which to the uninitiated eye seems to be nothing
but a confused mass of chains and machinery sus-
pended from an immense iron boom, and the use of
which very few people could have conjectured
without instruction upon the matter. But how
great must have been the astonishment of the river
passengers at seeing, on Saturday, two large ves-
sels, the Foreingen, an old Norway timber ship,
370 tons, and a steamer, the Water Sprite, about
80, hanging suspended one over the other in mid-
air attached to the boom of the. Derrick, the
Foreingen being raised between 30 and 40 feet out
of the water, and the Water Sprite hanging seven
or eight feet below the other vessel. We gave
some description of the huge fabric by which this
extraordinary feat has been accomplished on the
occasion of the launch last September, but it was
necessarily incomplete, because until the machinery
was erected a very imperfect idea could be
obtained of the means by which it was pro-
posed to accomplish its most important object—
namely, the raising of sunken vessels. Imagine a
vast rhomboidal-shaped flat-bottomed iron vessel, •
275 feet long and 90 broad, and which,- although
the plane superfices of the deck is nearly 18,000
feet, does not draw more than four feet of water.
It is on this enormous stage that the Derrick, which
is neither more nor less than a kind of gallows, and
which took its name after a celebrated Tyburn
hangman, is erected. On one side of the hull arc
10 powerful cranes, each worked by a steam engine
of 30-horse power, and the chains from which, after
passing over certain iron pulleys, hang suspended
in a row from the great boom which we have men-
tioned. The united power of the engines working
the cranes is 300-horse, a power sufficient to raise
sheer out of water and suspend to the boom of the
Derrick a vessel of 1,000 tons, and consequently to
raise a ship of almost any amount of tonnage to the
surface of the water. In order to prevent the
fabric, vast as it is, from capsizing during the rais-
ing of a vessel, it is provided with powerful steam
pumps, which fill a series of water-tight compart-
ments, constructed for that purpose, at the enormous
rate of 80 tons a minute, and thus a counterbalanc-
ing power is obtained in precise proportion to the
weight of the vessel raised. Having given this
explanation, we will now proceed to describe the
operations of Saturday. It had originally been in-
tended to sink the Foreingen and raise her again
from the bottom of the Thames, but after tha

arrangement was made the steamer Water Sprite
was placed at the service of the company ; and it
was though? that it would add to the novelty
of the proceedings awl afford an additional

-- test of the strength and working of the machinery
if the opportunity was taken advantage of to sling
the two vessels up together. When we arrived at
the Derrick we found the Foreingen lying along-
side it, and attached to the steamer by chains,
which had been passed around and underneath the
bottom of both vessels, and fastened to the Derrick
chains in such a manner as to form a complete
cradle. The operation of hoisting and pumping
commenced about four o'clock, and in a quarter of
an hour the vast mass of wood and iron composing
the hull of the Foreinge n had been raised four feet

clear of the surface of the water. The most extra-
ordinary circumstance about the operation was the
exceeding accuracy with which every portion of
the independent machinery worked together so as
to collect all the power to one focus, and to dis-
tribute the strain over every portion of the Der-
rick. The Foreingen having been raised about 14
or 15 feet, the Water Sprite, which is an iron

steamer, was brought underneath, and the ma-
chinery having been again set in motion in three
minutes the second vessel was raised above the sur-
face of the water. Both vessels were then hoisted

up, one above the other, into mid air, and hung
suspended during the rest of the day—a wonderful
example of the ingenuity of man and the power

of machinery to overcome the resistance of natural
gravitation in raising enormous weights. The ex-
periment, so far as it went, was perfectly successful,
and it now only remains to explain how the inven-
tion is to be rendered practical for the purpose
of raising a sunken vessel. It is obvious -tllat
if the chains attached to the Derrick were n
' round the bottom of the vessel all uncertaintyeee
as to the power of the machinery to raise her would
be at an end. The real difficulty is how to raise,
or what is technically termed to weigh, the sunken
vessel so as to pass the chains under her bbottom.That was a portion of the experiment which, in
consequence of the change in the arrangements of
Saturday, was not carried out, but it must strike
every one that as far as the salvage of vessels. is
concerned it is really the most important point,
because all the raising. would
be of no use if th power in the world
e.ehains could not be passed under
the vessel. the
p
e manner in which it is proposed toortant
accomplish the i operation ocweighing the
osunnkeaecnhvessisdeel iosfin itto pass round it a chain and to sink
mass of iron anw e ironhi
about a ton and a
diver, which is a pear-
shapedg
half. Through the ends of these iron divers the
two ends of the chain on each side of the vessel are
passed, and by lifting them and bringing them all
together the iron divers. are brought close to the
vessel proposed to be raised, and a cradle is formed
by which one end
.of the sunken vessel may be
lifted, and the chains passed under. We regret
that this portion of the experiment was not car-
ried out, because it appears to us the most impor-
tant. It is clear that in cases where vessels are
wrecked and sunk on a soft sandy, bottom, the
difficulty of getting a chain under the bottom would
be insuperable: but in all cases in which a vessel
strikes on a
.rock, or where there is a hard bottom,
little or no difficulty would be experienced in raising
her by means of this Derrick. As there are several
sunken vessels now lying round our coast we
hope soon to hear of some of them being raised
by the Derrick Company, who, if they are enabled
to carry out their object with the perfect success
which they anticipate, will not only be entitled to
all the pecuniary reward they may obtain, but will
confer an advantage upon the commercial commu-
nity which cannot be over-estimated. When it is
remembered that on our coasts alone there is an
average of more than 1,000 wrecks a year, the
value of the cargoes of which it is almost impossible
to estimate, every person must acknowledge the
great commercial importance of an invention which
will enable mankind to snatch from the ocean the
prey which it has devoured.

PLYMOUTH, SATURDAY.
The ship Duncan Dunbar, Captain Neatby, from
Sydney March 3, was off the Land's-end last Wed-
nesday. Her cargo includes 2,400 bales of wool,
300 bags of gum, and 50 casks of tallow. She has
50 cabin and 30 steerage passengers; among the
former is Mr. Justice Therry and family. All on
board are well. The unusual length of the Duncan
Dunbar's voyage has been caused by stormy wea-
ther experienced near Cape Horn, and much ice. In
lat. 56 South the islands of ice were so numerous
and the snow so thick that Captain Neatby deemed
it prudent to stand back again to 54 South, which,
of course, greatly protracted the passage. This
fact may account for the cause of the delay of other
ships expected from Australia. The Duncan Dun-
bar spoke May 7, lat. 7.50 S., long. 30.10 W., a
Chilian ship, showing third pendant, 5,102, and the
American ship T. H. Broadham. May 13, lat. 1.36
N., long. 33.20 W., the brig Britannia, from Rio
for Falmouth, and the Guayhama, from Melbourne
for Liverpool. May 31, lat. 39.20 N., long. 47 W.,
the Shysank, from New York for Hong Kong.
June 1, lat. 40.40 N., long. 44 W., the York, from
Barbadoes for London. June 8, lat. 45 N., long.
15.40 the brig Pedlar, steering south-west. June
11, lat. 47 N., long. 9.40 W., the Dutch barque
Henchima and English barque Ondara, June 12,
lat. 41.20 N., long. 8.30 W., the John Banks, for
Sydney. June 13, lat. 42.20 N., long. 9 W., the
Lady Bunce, from Bombay. June 14, lat. 49 N.,
long. 7.30 W., the Millicant, from Hamburg for
St. John's.