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Miertiching, the interpreter; instructions with regard to whose accommodation you have received, and will convey to the captain of the Plover.

"RICHARD COLLINSON.

"To Com. M'Clure, of H.M.S. Investigator. "Should it be the opinion of Com. Moore, that the services of the Investigator's ship's company in exploring parties during the spring, would be attended with material benefit to the object of the expedition, he will, notwithstanding these orders, detain you for that purpose; but care must be taken that your efficiency as a sailing vessel is not crippled by the parties not returning in time for the opening of the sea. "R. C."

IRON LIGHTHOUSE FOR THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT.

WE have been favoured by Mr. John Walker, of Gracechurch Street, with a view of a corrugated iron lighthouse, which he is at present constructing for the American government. It is, we believe, to be fixed on one of the keys off the coast of Florida. He has only contracted for the iron part of it, and the lantern is to be furnished by the Americans, who are to erect it. It is now being put together at the Shepherd and Shepherdess fields, New North-road, Hoxton. The foundation is to consist of sixteen solid wrought iron screw piles, which will be bedded in the solid rock, and are to rise fifteen feet above it. Twelve of these pillars will be disposed to form a square of forty-five feet each way. The remaining four will form a smaller interior square, and will be the foundation for the tower. On these iron girders are to be placed, and above them a thick flooring of oak plank forming a platform, from which the lighthouse will spring. We now come to the part which is to be seen erected at Hoxton. It may be divided into two parts-the house for the keepers of the light, and the lantern tower. The house is thirty-eight feet square and eleven feet in height, and is made of a double casing of corrugated iron three-eights of an inch in thickness, and placed five inches apart. It is divided into nine rooms by partitions of a similar construction; the doors, windows, and corners of the house, places where the partitions join the sides, and top and bottom of the sides, are all cased with angle iron. In a wooden house the angle iron is represented by the timbers, and the corrugated plates by the boarding. It is surmounted by a curved roof, which is of single iron plate, inside of which will be placed a timber roof, for without this the heat would be intolerable. The whole of the house is bolted together in pieces, two feet six inches in width. The tower is raised through the roof and from the centre of the platform. It is also made of a double casing of iron, is cylindrical, and seven feet inside in diameter. It is divided into rings six feet in height bolted together, and each ring is lifted to its place in two pieces. The height from the platform to the commencement of the lantern is seventy-six feet. The tower derives much strength from a spiral cast-iron staircase, which ascends to the lantern floor, and is supported by a solid iron newel. Each step, as it is bolted to the side, and also to the newel, forms a stay in itself. To secure additional stiffness, pieces of gaspipe are to be placed between the castings every eleven inches, and to be bolted through. In addition, from the piles, twelve stays of cast-iron pipe, eleven inches in diameter, will rise and be inclined to meet the tower at the top, just beneath the lantern, and also four stays from the inner piling. This again will all be stiffened with vertical, horizontal, and diagonal bracing, so that when erected it will have the appearance of a pyramid of iron network, surmounted by a lantern, and enclosing a house and monster chimney. The double casings spoken of will not only be a great advantage with regard to strength, but also for the purpose of ventilation. Openings are made at the bottom of the building in the partitions and the tower, so that a free current of air will pass everywhere. The form of corrugated iron, which may be described as a succession of waves in and out, or curves of contrary flexure, gives great strength in itself. What with the bracing, and the way in which both house and tower are tied together, it is supposed that it will completely resist a hurricane. The building will shortly be completed and shipped to its destination.

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LIVERPOOL LIFE BOAT ESTABLISHMENT.

Return of Services rendered during the years from 1840 to 1850, both inclusive.

1840.

1841.

1842.

1843.

1844.

1845.

1846.

1847.

1848,

1849.

1850.

Totals.

Vessels

Assisted. Lives

Saved

Vessels Assisted. Lives Saved. Vessels Assisted.

Lives

Saved.
Vessels

Assisted.

Lives Saved. Vessels Assisted.

Lives

Saved.

Vessels

Assisted,

Lives
Saved.
Vessels

Assisted.

Lives

Saved.

Vessels

Assisted.

Lives

Saved. Vessels Assisted.

Lives

Saved. Vessels Assisted.

Lives

Saved.

Vessels Assisted. Lives Saved. Vessels

Assisted.

Lives

Saved.

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Total number of Vessels assisted during the above period
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269 1128

The total number of Vessels assisted appears less than that given by the figures in the above columns, but this arises from Two, and in some instances Three Boats having assisted the same vessel. This observation does not apply to the number of Lives saved, which will be found to agree with the figures in the columns.

WM. LORD, Marine Surveyor.

Marine Surveyor's Office, January, 1851.

Whitegate, Co. Cork, Ireland, Feb. 16, 1851. SIR.-I send you an astronomical enigma for the instruction and amusement of your many readers. If it is considered worthy a place in the Nautical Magazine, it is quite at your service.

To the Editor N.M.

Your obedient servant, C. G. S.

The merchant brig Ocean of Liverpool, was employed in 1850, in trading to the Coast of Africa for palm oil.

It so happened that while lying awaiting her cargo in the Old Calebar River, the master and mate died of fever; and the medical man being the only person on board acquainted with navigation, accounts, or trading tact, was nominated as master, and took charge accordingly. The vessel having completed her cargo, left the river bound for Liverpool, but from the fatigue and exposure consequent upon the constant attention, which the master was obliged (single handed) to pay to the interests of the owner, and the ship herself, his health was materially undermined; and so ill was he, that when off Cape Palmas he became delirious, and was obliged to keep his bed.

The acting mate not being able to write log or keep the ship's reckoning, soon lost the day of the month; and when the master was sufficiently recovered to ask questions, he was told that the ship was holding on a northerly course, but that no one on board knew the day of the month.

Being aware that without such knowledge it would be impossible to ascertain the ship's geographical position, and never having heard of so extraordinary an occurrence, he hauled the ship in for the land, and in two days sighting the high land of Sierra Leone, touched there for the required information.

It is required to know, how the day of the month, and the hour of the day or night, might have been ascertained by the master without altering his northerly course, or seeing the land?

[We are quite ready to hear from any of our readers in answer to the above.-ED.

INTERESTING TO NAVIGATORS.-Lieut. Maury, of the National Observatory at Washington, in noticing the existance of a sub-marine volanco, as observed by Capt. Ballaird, of ship Rambler, from Calcutta, on the 30th October, in lat. 16° 30 N., long, 54° 30'W., and Capt. Potter, of the barque Millwood, last from Rio, half an hour later on the same day, when in lat. 23° 30′N., long. 58°-as noticed in the Inquirer immediately after the arrival of those vessels at Boston and Salem respectively, makes the following remarks

These vessels were about 520 miles apart. Supposing them to be in the direct line in which the earthquake was travelling, its rate will appear to be about one mile in about five seconds, which is only a little slower than sound (at the rate of one mile in 4-6 seconds) travels through the air.

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It is worthy of note that these two vessels were over and in the direction of an elevation, the existence of which my investigations of ocean currents and temperatures have induced me to suspect in the bottom of the Atlantic. This supposed submarine mountain range extends in the direction of Cape St. Roque from the Capes of the Delaware and Chesapeake. Lieut. Walsh, in his recent cruize in the Taney," was directed to run a line of sounding across it for the purpose of establishing its existence or non-existence, which he however, was prevented from doing in consequence of his schooner proving unseaworthy, and of his having to put back before reaching that part of his cruizing ground. The object of this communication is to request other mariners, who may have experienced the same or any other earthquake at sea, to commuuicate the particulars thereof.

I have also received an interesting letter from Capt. Waters, of ship Vespasian describing a remarkable "tide rip," seen by him October 16th, 1850, lat, 8° 30' N., long. 36°W.

The day was beautifully clear, with the wind southwardly and light. He was sitting in his cabin and heard a loud roaring noise, "not unlike that of a large water-fall." He hastened on deck, and could see nothing; but, mounting up on the house, he saw with his spy-glass, at the "distance of three miles, the surface of the water raised some three or four feet above that nearer," and ap、 proaching at the rate of three or four miles an hour.

"When close to the vessel, it had a fine appearance; the waves were raised at least four feet above the level of that nearer, and falling over some, like the water over a dam, and breaking against the vessel's side with such force as to heave water upon our decks. We were in the strength of it from ten to fifteen minutes, as it passed on to the north-east. I could distinctly mark its course for twenty minutes after it had passed. The surface, after it had passed, resembled that on 'Fishing Rip,' in a rough sea, and as the surrounding water was smooth, it struck me as a beautiful sight. We saw at a distance two others during the day, but not so large as this. I have before seen "tide rips," so called, but none ever to compare to this, either in size or beauty."

In the various abstract logs returned to this office by mariners who use the "wind and current charts," frequent mention is made of 'tide rips,' in this region. But this evidently could not have been a "tide rip," caused by a current, for the rip experienced no current, and had it been a "tide rip,"-as the agitation of the water by currents at sea is called-then it would have lasted longer.

The position of this vessel was northward and eastward of the supposed range of submarine mountains. This "tide rip" came from the southward and westward, the direction in which they were, and passed off to the north-east-that is, perpendicular to the line of their axis.

Might not this extraordinary "tide rip," have been caused by the throes of a submarine volcano? I ask the question for the purpose of calling the attention of mariners more particularly to the "tide rips," so often seen in the equatorial regions.

They will greatly oblige me if they will on such occasions get a cast of the deep-sea lead, try the temperature of the water, and note any roaring noise or tremor that may be observed, and report the same, with all other circumstances and conditions connected with the phenomena.

NEW BOOKS.

EXTRACTS FROM THE THE EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE COMMITTEES OF THE TWO HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT, RELATIVE TO THE SLAVE TRADE.-By a Barrister of the Middle Temple.-Ridgway, 1851, second edition.

We have here a very useful compilation. In the space of one hundred and thirty widely printed pages, it embraces the whole case for the maintenance of the African squadron. From the voluminous Parliamentary Reports, which during the last three years have been published on the subject of the slave trade the most important portions of evidence have here been carefully selected, so that the reader is enabled in a very short time to form a judgment upon the various points in dispute without a laborious reference to the original ponderous authorities. We recommend to every one who is interested in the subject, a journal of the "extracts," which prove beyond a doubt that the widely spread opinions as to the inefficiency of our repressive measures is wholly delusive. They seem to prove moreover, that with energy and perseverance the final extinction of the slave trade may be certainly accomplished, and that too at no distant date.

REMARKS ON THE AFRICAN SQUADRON.-By J. S. Mansfield, of the Middle Temple, Barrister.-Ridgway, 1851.

In this little pamphlet are replied to in detail the various objections which have been raised from time to time by the opponents of our anti-slave trade policy. The arguments employed by Mr. Hutt, and his supporters, during the memorable debate of last session, were to the effect that in the first place, the slave traffic had increased in defiance of all our efforts to suppress it, and secondly, that our interference had tended materially to aggravate the sufferings of its victims. Both of these allegations are conclusively disproved in the pamphlet before us. It is shewn from the returns published by Mr. Hutt's own committee that, in the space of the last ten years the traffic has materially diminished; and it is proved moreover, that the mortality among the exported slaves in what is termed the middle passage, is considerably smaller at the present time than even during the regulated slave trade of Great Britain. The reason of this simply is that, the vigilance of our cruizers induces the slave

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