The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-05-24 00:00:00

COPPER ORE AND TIN,

(From the Mining Journal.)
From the official returns made to parliament, we find that
the quantity of foreign copper ore imported in the year end-
ing the sth of January, 1842, amounted to 973,701 cwts.,
which, at 21 cwts. to the ton, would give 46,366 tons, which
are thus enumerated :—Cuba, 653,186 cwts.; Chili, 217,720
cwts. ; Colombia, 34,362 cwts. ; Peru, 32,104 cwts. ; and
from various other parts, 36,029 cwts. The quantity of un-
wrought copper imported is stated at 10,186 cwts. ; 7,650
cwts. being from Chili and Peru, and 2,526 cwts. from Swe-
den. Of this quantity 6,448 cwts. were imported into
Liverpool ; and it is further worthy of remark, that no less
than 184,908 cwts. of copper ore, or one-fifth of the entire
quantity imported, also came into that port. The quantity
of copper smelted in the United Kingdom from foreign ore
was, in the twelve months, 10,087 tons 3 cwts. 1 qr. 21 lbs.,
of which about one-seventh was smelted in Liverpool. We
now arrive at the exports, which, of foreign copper un-
wrought, are stated at 570 tons—being a slight excess on the
imports of foreign copper, exclusive of the ore, the produce
of which, as already stated, was upwards of 10,000 tons of
cake copper smelted in bond. The exports of British copper
amounted to 5,926 tons, of which 432 tons were unwrought,
5,032 tons sheets and nails, the residue being otherwise
wrought. Of this quantity 394 tons of unwrought, and
2,032 tons sheets and nails, were shipped to Asia, in addition
to about 150 tons of other descriptions of wrought copper.
The United States took 906 tons of sheets and nails ; Ger-
many, 368
tons ; Brazil, nearly 300 tons ; the remaining
exports being less important in quantity.
The quantity of foreign ore imported in the twelve months,
for the purpose of being smelted in bond, or for home con-
sumption—which latter is now to be dreaded—is represented
as being 971,935 cwts., or 48,596 tons. These precise figures
we were not able to furnish, while any approximation must,
as in other instances, be found slightly at variance with the
official returns, arising from the circumstance of the returns
being made up from different sources. It will thus be seen,
that the quantity of copper smelted in this country from
foreign ore, during the past twelve months, exceeds our es-
timate, as our returns have been confined to sales at public
ticketing, and, therefore, not including the ores smelted at
Liverpool or elsewhere by private contract. This will be
found to increase the evil, we apprehend, and, at the same
time, proves that we have not exceeded our bounds in the
representations made of the copper smelted in this country
from foreign ore, which, we repeat, is returned at 10,087
tons, and previously assumed by us at 8,488 tons—a matter
of considerable moment, as amounting to nearly 20 per cent.
excess.

We now approach the question of tin, from which we find
that the quantity imported was 1,422 tons in the past twelve
months, nearly two-thirds of which was shipped from Singa-
pore, 310 tons from Java, and 175 tons from the East India
for
Company's territorities, exclusive of Singapore. The exports
the like period were 1,167 tons of British, and 1,267 tons
of foreign tin—in all 9,131 tons.
"RMITY OF CLOCK

TIME THROUGHOUT

GREAT BRITAIN

(Front F, Oiler's lecture at the Birmingham Philosophical
Now that railw Institution.)
kingdom, doin aY travelling has become so universal in the
time became agtnsa'strnuch to annihilate space, the question of
long been a opinioter of considerable importance, and he had
vent the errors arlthat some plan must he adopted to pre-
doni setting its Clock ctonvenienee of every town in the king-
every other place out 07 Imeridian of its own, different to
extent of the evil to which he
m ve
he lted ongitu
itdwould perhapse. To show thbe
e
that , sufficient for him to state, t
there was a difference of 25
minutes 28 sec. between the ti of Dover and Falmouth ;
that is to say, when it %vas norohne a
.3, 'waal rrlo u t h , it was 25 min.
28 sec. past noon at Dover. •
5, a minute diffe-
naoefaLrlondon, and about
rence in time between the east and wesst
a quarter of a minute between the east nd west of Birming-
ham. The railway directors had endeavoured to remedy this
defect by keeping London time at all their stations
was this great inconvenience atte.nd' • 1°11s; but there
ing it, that all
the persons
Great
this
who resided west of London were in. great d:sn7
too late for the trains. On all the time-tables bo.
Western Railway an endeavour. was made. to
difficulty by printingttwhoe
acgon7ection for longituder.emletdnY,
that it would be a very--cur-
red to him a year or
option of
lent plan if government would recommend the adoption
throughoutexcel-
_ivlr. the kingdom ; and he was glad
to uniform time Dent had turned his attention tO
to find that his friend
the same subject, and he ci nit° agreed with him that they
ought to adopt one meridian as an universal standard, and
call it " British time.
Happening to mention this subject
'
to his friend Mr. Rowland Hill, as anlatdteerpaorfunsoenmte, impor-
tance in connection with the post-office
formed him that he bad receivedaletter_ from Captain Basil
Hall, in 1810, on this very point ; an. d a.t, s ithe embodiedviatlh
letter to them. The
l
that he (Mr. Osler) could say respecting 1.
the permission of the audience, read the
lecturer then read the letter of Captain Basil Hall. The idea
of the adoption of a general standard for time throughout.lu
Great Britain originated with the late Dr. Wollaston, w
on, . l
suggested that all the post-office clocks throughout the diffe-
rent counties should be kept at London time, a measure which
he considered might be very easily accomplished, and which
would greatly simplify all those arrangements of the post-
office in which time was included as an element. He pro-
posed to regulate all the post-office clocks in the kingdom
by means of the time brought from London daily by the mail
coach chronometers; and he had no doubt that, ere long, all
the town clocks, and eventually, all the clocks and watches
of private persons, would fall into the same course of regula-
tion ; so that only one expression of time would prevail over
the country, and every clock and watch indicate by its hands
the same hour and minute at the same moment of absolute
time.

The price of timber fell ten per cent, in the Limerick mar-
ket last week.