TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 11511, 18 February 1903, Page 7

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

The records of English Some Famous naval history contain deFigureheads, scriptions of many famous figureheads. Some ship*, tie Victory, for example, had several of tlese at different periods of their service. The two earliest of all our ironclads, the Warrior and the Black Prince, had splen-didly-carved, fullVized figureheads. That of the former is now at Portsmouth, and that of the latter at Devonport dock-yaid. The Rodney, launched as late as 1886, had a figurehead consisting of a three-quarter length figure of the gallant Admiral after whom she was named, carved in heroic proportions, and bronzed over. "It towered up at tlie stem," a writer in the "Daily Graphic" remarks, "set up on the forward end of the forecastle, and was a source of immense pride to the ship's company in the days when the Rodney was the flyer of the Channel Squadron, fourteen years or bo ago." The head is still preserved at Chatham dockyard, and is a first-rate speciBjftn of the carver's art in our own times. Borne who have been to Sydney may have noticed the fine figureheads displayed in a ship-breaker's yard in Balmain. Not a few of these ornaments have in modem days been sawn off and set up as the signs of business warehouses. The "Little Midshipman," immortalised by Dickens in •"Donkey and Son," has served as the isign bf Messrs Norie and Wilson, opticians and nautical instrument makers, since 1763, and there is a story that William IV., himself a sailor in his younger days, reverently doffed his hat to the image on one occapion, as he was going to Trinity House. !A peculiarly ignominious fate has befallen thcKfine old figurehead of the historic battleship Collingwood, which took the form of a portly representative of the Admiral. In recent years an iron pipe has been thrust through tlie ample stomaoh, supporting a gas lamp! Chi sailing vessels the figurehead still lingers, and there it seems so natural and picturesque that one feels as if it were almost an essential. The Don, the Cupica, the Woosung, and the River Boyne, which are at present at Lyttelton, ell have figureheads. That of the Don-r» woman with a crownr-is a particularly fine ptie. On the Cupica there is an attempt st colour, for the woman's long tresses —the large majority of figureheads consist of women—are jet Rack, and the chaplet of leaves is yellow. The Woosung has an - (mage of a Chinaman, with white and yellow cap, black "pigtail, aud yellow, scarf. Among the steamers which come to Lyttelton, the only one we can remember with a figurehead" is the Rotomahana, Which is finely decorated in this manner. — 0 In one of the "Florentine The Paasing Nights,'' Heinw tells a fanof the tastic story of a man who

Figure Head, was possessed of a strange but overpowering passion for beautiful statues. If any such affection may be thought of outside of fiction, it might be imagined to exist, or at all events, in older and less prosaic days, to have existed, in the mind of the eea-tossed mariner towards the figure-head of his ship. Fashioned, perhaps, after some sweetheart awaiting him at home, or signifying some abstract virtue—Faith, or Hope, or Charity—he has seen the stately figure-head fronting, with calm bows, the rough waves of many a "passage perilous," and before him still, as heretofore, when at length he enters tha "port pleasant." The mere landsman is attached to the figure-head-because of its antiquity, and because, in these days of steam and ugliness and utility, its quaintness is almost tlie last survival of "the beauty and mystery 'of the ships" with wliich the eyes of a previous generation were delighted. Within the last few years figure-heads have been ofnciaUy prohibited from off the bows of our modern rnen-of-:war —at any rate in all ships larger than third-class cruiwers. Most of the modem ocean-going steamers, also, are unable to carry these decorations, owing to the straight stem which has replaced the graceful cut-water of the earlier vessels. Tlie figure-head was not wanting in actual utility, for though it increased a vessel's pitching, yet by bearing the first, brunt of a collision it has often saved some hapless barque from being split completely and cleanly asunder, as too often happens under present circumatances. A writer in tha "Gentleman's Magazine" gives an interesting history of the decoration. It seems to have existed since men first went down to the see. in ships, uud some of the ancient vessels, being shaped the same at either end, had a figurehead at bow and stern. In other cases no less than tbre« figure-heads projected from the prow, the two lower ones, which were sheathed with metal to'assist in ramming an enemy, taking the form of heads of animals. In course of time images of Mars, Venus, Cupid, and the other deities were used as figure-heads, the shipmaster selecting that which best suited his character or aspirations. The ship in which St. Paul sailed from Melitu, it is stated, had for sign Castor and Pollux. At first these mages were not necessarily fixturas, but when longer voyages were made, it was found necessary to attach them firmly, and so the figure-head, in its present form, was established. It was a favourite custom of antiquity to paint an eye on the side of the prow, and the usage still obtains on Neapolitan fishing smacks, and also, oddly enough, on the Chinese junks.

In the January number ot Blowing out the "Wide World Magathe Fire. zinc" there appears a vividly written account of how a fire was fought on the Louisiana oil-fields, when one of the wells, igniting, became an inexhaustible lamp, making away with five thousand barrels of coveted property per diem. Small fires are not uncommon on oil-fields, from forgetful smokers casting a match on the saturated ground, or through a spark from passing locomotives. But this was even begun sensationally, a lightning flash striking a great •reservoir constructed to hold the «iL and, unfortunately, placed too near what in oil-fields dialect is called the "gusher" or actual well. From the ■egsßSje*-^"Mawkv*. IHIsP -sVa*», j „

itself was spouting in flames instead' of oil. "It could be seen by day for thirty miles around, and its glow in the dark-, ness w,as visible for fifty. All day long, the great pitchy volume roared and soared and rolled at the caprice of the wind, first rushing along the earth, sending spectators fleeing out of its path, then rising suddenly right up to the zenith, and spreading out like a vast umbrella. At night it was indescribable." There was no use in fire engines. The flamingi oil ran triumphantly over the surface of the water. "A carload of chemicals was brought from New Orleans, but when applied to the fiery cauldron they only suffocated and drove back their administrators." At last, after six days perplexity, a candidate was discovered for the ten thousand dollars offered by the owners of the well to whoever could extinguish the flames. He suggested what appeared thejiopeless expedient of blowing out the fire, and on being permitted to try bis plan, set things in action to produce the most abrupt and gigantio puff conceivable. Every city wiithin reasonable distance was telegraphed to for portable steam boilers. These were ranged on the windward side of the well, while any quantity of four-inch hose pipes were attached to the boilers, and led up to the edge of the flame column. " A cordon of sal ammoniac was laid around to keep the oil and fire from being blown along the ground." Then at a given signal the engineers simultaneously turned on steam. The fire fought hard for life, but overcome by this onslaught of science, began to fall and flicker till the last flame. "It was hours before the great black canopy of smoke passed out of sight to the westward; but the great well was saved/