The Sun.
London, England, 1857-12-19 00:00:00

STATE OF T.RALII.

MANCHESTER, DEC. 18.

Good useful qualities of American cotton have given
way in price this week Id. to id. per lb., with a new
crop promising well in quality and quantity, and a fair
extent of imports. This has added to the depression of
prices here, and to the gloom which has settled over the
goods market. There is a gleam of hope in this rapid
decline of the raw material, however, that prices having
nearly reached the lowest prebable-point of depreciation,
there will be more steadiness and cloth market that will
encourage business so soon as the money market is sufTh
ciently easy. For the present there is no symptom of
such a desirable change. Heavy dome tics, lengcloth,,
and T-cloths have been in some little demand this week,
but the prices offered have been lower, and the sales
effected are reported at rates nearly as low as we have
had for some years past. Printing cloths and 36 and
40 inch shirtings are very difficult of sale, ever) at a de-
cline of prices. For yarns the demand still falls much
short of the very limited production, and planers have
to submit to considerable reductions, especially in the
kinds and qualities usually taken for Germany, with so
much irregularity in prices as to render quotations almost
impracticable. Spinners and manufacturers appear very
and
much disheartened, and the losses of the large weal-
thier millowners, who, following a rule adopted partly
from pride and in some instances out of consideration for
their workpeople, in times of depression like the present,
of never closing their mills, have been exceedingly
severe. Instances are mentioned of accumulation of
stocks, and consequent losses_ by depreciation, which
seem to be almost fabulous.
have been few and, of amountsmalThe failures in this district
those elsewhere, though when compared with
been heavy and very elsewhere, though losses_eehanvge
general, but a confident
begins to be entertained that the shook having been
sustained so well we shall come of the crisis better
tha n was expected, • - - -

taraitst, in
tri.
* Our friend and correspondent, Mr. W. B. Andas
rI
a late letter to the Spectator, says One „co
butes to Mr. Scott Russell the authority of toe saying that
the launch failed because the friction of oiled iron on oiled
iron is an unknown quantity, the friction of wood on 700 d
with tallow interposed being a known
. one. Now, inas-
much as we know that an iron axle involves less friction
than a wooden one, it follows that if disproportionate fric-
tion be the cause, it must arise from the great dispropor-
tion of bearing surfacein the applied iron as eovapand
with the wood causing the !guessing out of the lubricat-
ing matter, and the actual impact of the iron surfaces, or
from some other cause, or both combined. What the
' philosophy of the matter?" It should be remembered,
however, that the iron rails and plates of the lamich are
constantly rusting in the air and water, and cannot be got
at beneath the ship. They must not, therefore, be Com'
pared with a smooth lubricated axle. The friction in the
one case must be enormously greater than in the other.
Still, the reduction of the bearing surface by using rails
alfaated at considerable distances apart is, of course, a
great WI.