The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-04-27 00:00:00

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RELIEF FOR SHAREHOLDERS.—There are many per-
sons to whom the amount of their railway calls is a serious

present inconvenience, although there is no want of ulti-
mate resources. To such a new kind of assistance is rapidly
developing itself. In Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Aberdeen,
there have been formed companies, under various appella-
tions, the object of which is, by advances upon securities
of different kinds, to enable holders of railway shares to
meet, at moderate rates of interest, the exigencies of their
position. The institution in Glasgow is called the Com-
mercial Exchange Company, the object of which is to
afford such accommodation as cannot be granted, consis-
tently with their other business, by regular banking esta-
blishments. This company proposes on the one hand to
allow interest at 5 per cent. on deposits for six months
certain, and repayable at three months' notice ; and to
make advances at fit; per cent. per annum for six months
at a time.• There can be no doubt as to the utility of such
assistance ; and competition is already at work to reduce,
with safety and advantage to the public, the rates of inte-
rest ; and we concur in the view taken by a highly intelli-
gent writer on the subject, that such institutions will
prove great public benefits; first, by conferring substan-
tial advantages on a certain class of depositors ; and se-
condly, by enabling the internal improvement of the
country to be carried out with an ease and rapidity which
could not otherwise be attained."

THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.—A trial, completely suc-
cessful, has been made in the Isle of Wight, of the pow-
ers of Mr. Nott's electric telegraph. A perfect and rapid
communication, says a morning paper, was established
between East and West Cowes, by means of a single wire
sunk across the channel. The " telegraphs were attached;
one being placed at the Medina Hotel, and the other at
the opposite side of the channel near the Fountain Hotel.
The signal bells were then rung simultaneously; and the
telegraphs commenced working and communicating ques-

April 27, 1847.

cotton had been increased to eight ounces, and the depth
of the blast-hole had been doubled, it would have torn up
the firmly-bound bed of stone to a proportionately greater
extent; this would not have been the case with a qua-
drupled charge of gunpowder, as the effect of that would
merely have been to project the stone it ruptured to a
greater distance.—Another experiment was the insertion
of four ounces of cotton in a hole bored six feet deep in
hard blue clay : from this, scarcely a particle was thrown
from the surface, and the perceptible effect was a consi-
derable expansion of the soil at the edge of the cutting :
to have blasted the clay with gunpowder, 31bs would have
been requisite. Other experiments followed, wherein the
force of equal quantities of cotton and powder was tested :
the results invariably showed that the cotton loosened and
rendered workable by far the largest masses of rock : the
powder threw up the fragments of stone to an immense-
height, and as one powder-blast exploded after another,
they gave a vivid idea of the mode in which missiles are
projected from the crater of a volcano.—The workmen on
the line (of whom there are nearly a hundred at this cut-
ting) seemed to think that the effects of the gun-cotton
were far superior to those produced by the use of gun-
powder, and much less dangerous ; and in this opinion
one of the engineers present coincided. The testing oc-
cupied nearly three hours, and was viewed by a few gen-
tlemen from Stamford and the neighbourhood, who, dur-
ing the preparation of the experiments, were hospitably
and liberally entertained by Mr. F. Whincup, of Greeston
House.—lt was stated that no less than twenty tons of
gunpowder have been used weekly for blasting purposes
on the different lines of railway now in the course of con-
struction in this country. The gun-cotton is inclosed in
tubes of various sizes according to a known weight, though
it is sometimes used in a loose state, as was the case with
some of the experiments on Tuesday last.—At a recent
trial of the gun-cotton in some beds of millstone grit of a
close quartzose character, on the Manchester and Hud-
dersfield railway, an eminent engineer gave it as his opi-
nion that, when the miners shall gain confidence in its
use and give it fair play, it will exhibit a power at least six
times that of blasting-powder, and will ensure a safety
and rapidity of action which could not be derived from
powder. . _