The Sun.
London, England, 1861-07-05 00:00:00

THE NAG Y.

A letter, dated Valetta, June 29, says :—" Her
Majesty's screw storeship Supply, Master Com-
mander Balliston, quitted port on the 22d inst.,
having on board old stores, &c,, for England, and
is expected back in the Mediterranean shortly.
The frigate Terrible, Capt. Glasse, C. 8., returned
on the 25th from the Dardanelles, after transferring ,
the Persian Ambassador and suite to the despatch-
boat Banshee, for conveyance to Trebizonde, en
route to Teheran. The Terrible, on her way up,
called in at the Piraeus, to allow the Ambassador to
visit Athens. The Terrible is discharging her spare
gear and guns, for the purpose of taking in stores
and provisions for the fleet under the command of
Rear-Admiral Mandy, on the coast of Syria. The fol-
lowing are her Majesty's ships in port :—Liffey, 51
(bearing the flag of Vice-Admiral W. F. Martin, the
Commander-in-Chief) ; Hibernia, receiving-ship
(flag of Rear-Admiral H. J. Codrington, C. 8.) ;
Neptune, 91; London, 90; Terrible, 21; Greyhound,
17 ; Assurance, 4 ; Weser, 4 ; and the Hearty tug.
The arrival of the screw steamer Rangoon from
Plymouth and Gibraltar, with the electric cable on
board which is to be laid from Alexandria towards
Bengazi, has already been announced. Another
section is expected out from England by the steamer
Malacca, which left Malta a few weeks back, to be
used to complete the line, should the cable conveyed
by the Rangoon prove insufficient. On Friday a
telegram was received from Ajaccio by Messrs.
Glasse, Elliott, and Co.'s agents here, announcing
the satisfactory laying down of an electric cable
between that place and Toulon. The staff of elec-
tricians &e., arrived from Ajaccio on Saturday in the
French corvette Prony, and have proceeded in the
Rangoon to Alexandria, to take part in laying the
sable on board this vessel. Her Majesty's ships
Medina, Scourge, and Mohawk are, I believe, now
at Alexandria, to assist, if necessary, in this opera-
tion. The Prony left on Monday, on return to
Toulon. Sir John Bowring and Lady Bowring
arrived at this island on Wednesday last from Leg-
horn, by the French steamer. I regret to say that
Sir John Bowring is in a very precarious state of
health. M. Ferdinand de Lesseps passed through
Malta by the last English Marseilles packet from
Alexandria, on his return to France."
Letters received from the South American coast
state that her Majesty's ships Curacoa and Oberon
arrived at Buenos Ayres on the 25th of May from
Montevideo, and were there when the mail left.
The Brazilian gunboat Yequitenhouha, with the
Brazilian Commodore on board, arrived at Buenos
Ayres from Montevideo on the 19th, and the
French gunboat Fulminante, with the French
Admiral on board, on the 24th. A strong north-
west gale was experienced at Buenos Ayres on the
22d, lasting 24 hours. The weather at that place
was very unsettled and cold, and the thermometer
was as low as 40 degrees. On the 29th of May the
Brazilian gunboat Yporanga arrived at Montevideo

from Rio de Janeiro, and on the 31st the Russian
gunboat Morges, also from Rio, bound for China.
The French gunboat Fulminante arrived at Monte-
video on the 31st from Buenos Ayres with a sup-
plementary mail for England. The following ships
of war were lying at Montevideo on the 31st of
May :—The Brazilian gunboats Uruguay and Ypo-
ranga ; the French frigate Pandora, 50 guns, flag-
ship; the French gunboats Fulminante and D'En-
trecasteau ; the American frigate Congress, 50 guns,
flagship; the American despatch-boat Pulaski; the
Spanish brig Gravina, 18 guns; the Spanish pin-
boat Concordia, and the Russian gunboat Morges.
A four-gun paddlewheel steamer will be laid down
on the first slip at Chatham dockyard, now occupied
by the Rattlesnake, 22, screw corvette, which will
be launched on Tuesday next. A 91-gun line-of-
battle screw steamer, as well as two 51-gun screw
frigates, is also ordered to be laid down at that
dockyard as soon as the slips now engaged become
vacant. The workmen employed on the Roya
Oak, building under No. 7 shed, which was origi-
nally laid down for a 91-gun steamship, have com-
menced the necessary alterations of the timbers and
framing of that vessel to adapt her for an armour-
plated 51-gun frigate. In order to give her in-
creased strength to bear the additional weight of
the iron armour-plates with which her sides will be
protected about 20 feet have been added, which
will make her little short of 300 feet. The Menai,
one of the class of 22-gun screw frigates, recently
laid down, is about three-fourths in frame, and as
soon as she has been completely framed the work-
men will be taken off her in order to allow her
timbers to season. The Arethusa, which has been
several months in the hands of the dockyard work-
men at Chatham, undergoing the alterations to adapt
her for a screw steamer, is expected to be completed
and ready to be put out of dock by the end of the
ensuing month.
Orders have been received at Portsmouth to take
the Griper, target hulk, fitted with Jones's angu-
lated target, round to Shoeburyness, where the tar-
get will be tested with the Armstrong 120-pounder
shunt gun. New plates are now in course of manu-
facture to replace those on the target which were
experimented upon last August. The extraordinary
success of the plates fixed on this target in resist-
ing the solid 68-pounder cast-iron shot on the occa-
sion above referred to has never yet been arproached
by plates placed in any other position throughout
the whole series of trials. Considering the vast
improvements which have been made within the past
few months in the quality of armour plates as com-
pared with those produced at the time the angulated
target was last experimented upon, it will be perhaps
not too much to expect that it may prove as imper-
vious to the projectile from the Armstrong as it
proved to the Stork's 68-pounder last August. On
that occasion the plates were of iron and steel, and
of different qualities and thickness of metal. The
steel plates turned out to be, of course, more brittle
than the iron ores, especially one which wrs manu-
factured in the Mersey. This plate was pounded
by shot after shot, and although, as a matter of
course, the metal was cracked and broken, and
nearly knocked out of shape, it was never pierced,
and any person might have sat with perfect safety
behind it during the whole of the practice.
The engines supplied to the Black Prince by
Messrs. Penn are found to work very well. At a
trial of the large engines a speed of 120 revolutions
per minute was attained with a pressure of 71b., the
vacuum being 261 inches to 27 inches. As the pro-
peller was not attached only four of the 10 boilers
were lighted. The nominal power of the engines is
1,250 horses, but their indicated power will be little
short of 6,000 horses. The vessel as regards her ma-
chinery, is almost ready for sea, but her other fit-
tings will not be completed till August is pretty
well advanced.
Mr. Stephen H. Moore has been appointed Secre-
tary to Sir F.Nicolson, Commodore Superintendent
at Woolwich.
The following appointments were made yesterday
at the Admiralty :—Thomas M'Kinnell, master's
assistant, to the Fisgard, for surveying duties; S.
A. Holt has been nominated to a naval cadetship.