The Sun.
London, England, 1857-05-18 00:00:00

Naval and Military Intelligence.

Her Majesty's ship Exmouth, 91, and the Colos-
sus, 81, Captains H. Eyres, and H. Broadhead,
arrived at Spith'ad on Saturday from the Tagus,
last from Plymouth, to remain until after the visit
of the. Grand Duke Constantine of Russia. •

The Malacca, 17, Captain Farquhar has also
been ordered to remain at Spithead and complete
with provisions. Other ships will muster at Spit
head as we have before stated, but not with the view
of making any "naval demonstration." The Admi-
ralty yacht Osborne, Master-Corn. Bower, will go
to Cherbourg to bring or pilot over the Grand Duke,
and her Majesty's State yacht Victoria and Albert is
also ordered to be ready for service by the 20th inst.
The Eurydice, 26, sailing corvette, Capt. Tarle-
ion arrived at Spithead on Saturday from the West
Indian station to be paid off.
The Fire Queen steam yacht, Master-Commander
Paul, embarked her Majesty's Privy Council from
the Royal Clarence-yard, Gosport, on Saturday,
and took them to Osborne. Captain G. H. Sey-
mour, C. 8., received their lordships on arrival, the
Port Admiral being on leave.
The Urgent, iron steam troop-ship, Commander
I hillips, atrired at Spithead on Friday night from
Plymouth, with the 54th Regiment, which disem-
barked at Portsmouth Dockyard on Saturday.
The Volcano steam-vessel, Master-Commander
Hockings (floating Smithy for the China squadron)
is having her old boilers taken out and the Sala-
mander's put in, which will not detain her longer
than a week.

The Melville, 72, hospital ship, Commander
Trollope, has had ber copper stripped off, and is
undergoing a thorough recaulking, which will de-
tain her several days longer in dock.

The Abbe Pauvert, a French clergyman and Che-
valier of the Legion of Honour, has, it is said, at
length solved the problem of converting English
iron into steel. M. Mesnli, acting on behalf of the
abbe, has made experiments in the dockyard, Wool-
wich, during the last week, by authority of the Go-
vernment and in the presence of the principal offi-
cers of the Engineer department and other official
personages. He has succeeded in proving to their
satisfaction that he can produce steel of very supe-
rior quality from the most ordinary cast and pud-
dled iron, and pieces of iron in any state, at an ex-
traordinary reduction itfprice. M. Pauvert has
secured his invention by a patent from the British
Government. The articles of newly invented steel
tested at the dockyard were clipping tools, chisels,
taps, dies, and other instruments in general use in
factories. The conversion of the metal does not re-
quire the slightest change in the arrangements of
the melting furnace, the system being composed of
chymical operations alone. A favourable report
was, on Friday, forwarded to the Admiralty, in
consequence of which it is expected that -the steel
will be employed in many of the ordinary purposes
for which iron is now used, such as piston-rods,
springs, &c.
The Niagara steam-vessel, belonging to the Ame-
rican Government, which arrived in the Thames
on Wednesday last for the purpose of receiving a
cable for the Transatlantic Submarine Telegraph,
has left for Holyhead. It appears that the captain
of the Niagara, in consequence of some mistake,
considered that he was to ship the cable manufac-
tured at East Greenwich, but on visiting Woolwich
Dockyard found that no orders had been received
for mooring the vessel named. He then proceeded
to the Admiralty-office, where he received infor-
mation that the orders were for the Niagara to ship
the cable manufactured at Holyhead, and that the
Agamemnon is to receive the cable manufactured
at East Greenwich.

E.XPF;_RIMENTS ON NEW DECKED COP-
PER PONTOONS AT CHATHAM.

On Monday last, the 11th instant, Major Has-
sard, with a party of the Royal Engineers, em-
barked the 32-pounder, left on the beach at Upnor,
on a raft of three piers of casks, and deposited it
on the gun-wbarf ; but on Tuesday, when he went
to get up the second 32-pounder, sunk at Roches-
ter-bridge,- a valuable copper buoy, imprudently
left to mark the spot, was missing, having been
stolen in the night ; and the diver, who was sent
down to sling the gun, recommended that the opera-
tion should be postponed till Wednesday morning,
when, in a second attempt, after making numerous
signals from the bottom, respecting • the air-pump,
he suddenly ceased to do so, and, after waiting
some time, was pulled up and found dead, probably
from apoplexy, as there was no water in his he'met
or dress. A coroner's inquest was held on the body
soon after, when, on examining Major Hassard and
other witnesse3, the jury returned a verdict that the
deceased was accidentally drowned.
On reading an account of these proceedings Sir
Charles Pasley went down to Chatham by an early
train, accompanied by Mr. Siebe, of 5, Denmark-
street, Soho, who had 'supplied all his diving ap-
paratus for the operations against the wrecks of
the Royal George and Edgar, for six successive
seasons, when no accident ever occurred, except
when two of the military divers, Jones and Girvan,
having quarrelled about a floor-timber of the for-
mer wreck, engaged in single combat at the bottom
of Spithead, when Jones kicked out the eye of his
adversary's helmet, which immediately filled with
water, and ho would have been drowned, if ho had
not been pulled up without loss of time. On their
calling upon Col. Sand ham he informed them that the
helmet was not one of Siebe's pattern, but supplied
by another manufacturer, and was in perfect order
when the accident occurred. Colour-Sergeant Bar-
nicoat, of the Royal Engineers, who lost his life on
this melancholy occasion, was a very good diver,
who had acquired his experience as a private in the
operations against the Royal George and Edgar,
and was private Girvan's assistant, and pulled him
up in time to save his life, .at the period before
alluded to. A subscription was immediately set
on foot among the Queen's and Company's En-
gineers and others, at Brompton Barracks,
Chatham, to establish his widow in business as a
dressmaker, assisted by her daughter, she being re-
spected in the corps as much as her husband was
distinguished for his services, last in the Crimea,
whilst their only son, a boy, is now being educated
at the Royal Hibernian Asylum, which has supplied
some of the best non-commissioned officers for the
survey companies of the corps.
On ascertaining that the diving apparatus in
which he lost h's life was not made by Mr. Siebe,
las they apprehended, Sir Charles Pasley took him
down to the Engineers' depot, near St. Mary's
shorted Creek, and shorted him his two canoes that had
been fractured by the gun in its fall, but were now
under repair by Sergeant Donald, carpenter, and
Corporal Hawkins, coppersmith, of the Royal En-
gineers, to whom Sir Chartes communicated his
final instroctions, adopting some improvements in
the mode of fixing the deck eye-bolts, suggeSted to
him by Mr. Siebe, and approved by those skilful
military artificers.
It is Sir Charles Pasley's intention to perform
the same operation, which failed on the 11th, on
Monday, the 25th inst., when his raft of two canoes,
after taking on board at the gun-wharf, Chatham,
a 32-pounder on its travelling-carriage, as before,
will row from thence to Rochester, where it will be
exposed to the fury of the ebb of another spring-
tide, by moorings previously laid at the high-water
slack, with the heads of its upper demi-canoes be-
tween the starlings of old Rochester-bridge, not
vertically beneath the rapids which overwhelmei it
on that occasion, but about 20 feet lower down.
Circulars will be sent to the same officers and gen-
tlemen as before, and a correct account of the pro-
ceedings will be published next day in the same
journals, the editors of which have kindly given the
first unsuccesfal trials• of this new-tiecked copper
pontoon a, place in their columns.