The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-04-25 00:00:00

SUGAR FROM NEW ORLEANS.—The New Orleans
Price Current announces that 1,000 hogsheads of sugar
had been shipped at that port for Liverpool—the first
shipment of sugar ever made.
GLASGOW AND LISBON.—A joint-stock company has
been formed for the purpose of opening up direct commu-
nication between Glasgow, Lisbon, and Oporto. Two
fine screw steamers are now building expressly for this
s tation.—Edinburgh Courant.

A SHIP DESTROYED BY ICEBERGS.—On Monday last
week, intelligence was received of the total destruction of
the ship Mary, in the Atlantic Ocean, whilst on her pas-
sage from Liverpool to Boston. On the 15th of February
she was suddenly beset by icebergs, and before the cap-
tain could extricate the vessel she was struck on the port
bow, and her timbers stove in. Through this aperture
the water rushed, and the crew had barely time to get
out the boats when the vessel went down. From the
suddenness of the catastrophe, they were unable to save
food or water, and for five days and four nights they were
tossed in open boats without sustenance, two dying from
exhaustion. On the 20th of February they were descried
by a fishing vessel, and they were landed at St. John's,
Newfoundland, where they received every attention that
their deplorable situation required.
THE SCREW-STEAMER BALTIC, which was launched
from the building-yard of Mr. Alexander Denny, about
ten days ago, has already received the greater portion of
her machinery, and is rapidly being finished for sea. The
entire operations are expected to be completed by the 30th
of this month, when she will take her departure for Hull,
between which port and Copenhagen she is intended to
ply, in consort with the Humber, also a new ship, just
about ready for launching. The Baltic's dimensions are
as follows :—Length between perpendiculars, 180 feet •
breadth of beam, 26 feet; depth, 15 feet; burden,•6oo
tons. Her engines, which are supplied by Messrs.
Tulloch and Denny, are on the direct acting principle,
and of 110-horse power.—Dutnbarton Herald.

GAS. —An opinion is widely prevalent that gas is un-
fitted for the illumination of private dwellings, owing to
the heat and noxious gasses it evolves : nothing can be
more erroneous. The heat, it is true, is in proportion to
the light given off; and if, as has been found to be the
case, a four-inch pipe will supply burners sufficient to out-
vie the blaze of -2,000 mould candles, (each candle con-
suming 175 grains of tallow per - minute,) the quantity of
caloric and of carbonic acid given off' will be found to be
in each case pretty nearly identical. Argand, or shadow-
less gas-burner, if encircled by a pale blue glass, yields a
perfectly homogeneous white light, as pure almost as that
of day, enabling artists to pursue their labours as satis-
factorily during the night as during the blaze of a southern
summer's clay. The expense of artificial light is in the
following order—coal-gas being by far the cheapest, then
vegetable oil, sperm oil, tallow, stearine, wax. There are
various qualities of gas, the finest and brightest, but by
far the most costly, being that from olive-oil, which yields
nearly 80 per cent. of carbon. I%7ext comes the gas from
resin, a pound of which will yield 20 cubic feet ; whereas
one' on of the best coal will giVe 9,000 feet of gas (worth,
in London, 4s. per 1,000 cubit feet,) besides pitch, tar, and
coke. The inhabitants of London consume two thousand
eight hundred million cubic feet ; and nightly, in winter,
about fourteen million of feet are burnt.—New Quarierty
Revfew.

ViLIJABLE STONE QVAtEY.-A discovery of three very
valuable and extensive beds of oolite, of the purest descrip-
tion, has just been made in the immediate vicinity of
Dundry, near Bristol. They extend over •a 'S ttrface of
nearly ten acres, and consist of blocks fully 30 feet thick.
The quality of the stove is so superior that the architects
who have examined it pronounce it far before the Port-
land, and invaluable•l`©r Gothic architecture end sculpture
from its hardness and closeness of grain, it'being entirely
without veins and net fraying. It is singular enough that
these valuable beds should have remained se long hidden,
as from the quarries in the almost immediate neighbour-
hood the stone vas taken with which Redcliff Church
was built, and workmen's wages but Id. per day. The
architects employed in the restoration of "ye pride and
glorye of ye westerne lande," St. Mary Redcliff, have, from
the unsatisfactory quality of the freestone in the neigh-
bourhood, been obliged to send, at 'a great expense, to
Caen, in Normandy, for stone, in order that the edifice
may not be subject to premature' decay. This necessity
will now be •rntirely avoided, as these beds are found to
be fully equal to the Caen in working and other qualities.
We understand that the crop of the quarry is within two
feet of the skrface.—Sherborne Mercury.