TOWN AND COUNTRY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 1926, 20 February 1867, Page 2

TOWN AND COUNTRY.

Regimental Ban&—The regimental band willplay/this evening, in Latimer'squarej at 6 30 under the direction of Mr Martin.

ferTURE.—Mr HamiUbii'a second lecture 'thia evening in the Town Hail. The' Murder on Ektß' Ron,—We understand that no furttier clue has. been obtained to the discovery of the perpetrator; of this murder.. The body: of the. murdered inan is expected to reach town on Thursday next. West Coast Traffic.—Areturn by the Sergeant in charge of . the: Rangiriri Police station shews that, during: the week ended Feb! 13,79 cattle, arid:92o,sheep passed tliat place on their road to Hokitika..' Sequestration in Insolvencx,—Tri Chambers yesterday, his.honqrMr, Justice Gresson appointed MrF. H ; Melville:Walkeri. sequestrator, in thei roomof Mr 11. F...Heager.wlio hud sent in his resignation oh the.previous %• Magisteiuai. r-At the Resident Magistrate's Court, Christchurch,.yesterday, Daiiiel Patterson, charged with, having r'bee.n,.'drunk arid incapable, was dismissed, witlia caution. Some civil,cases of no public, interest were disposed of.

Bob* Found,—The body found recently on a spit in the Rakaia has not yet been identified. It was brought to Christchurch yesterday, and deposited at the Hospital. It is merely a skeleton; and the only means of identification seem to be a, pair -of patent leather gaiters and a clasp knife. ■ V:

FREEiioLD, The'/'CanterburyFreeholdLandSociety lielian adjourned meeting- last night, at the-Forester's ■ Hall. The business was confined, to the consideration of propositions.to alter :tlie rules of. the society, and various alterations" were made therein. . -.,,.■ ; : -.-.. A .. ■■:.

LTTTELTON YOLONTEER . ArTILIERY.— General orders Have b<ien issued, under which the members of No. 1 Battery will parade at 7 p.riKpuFeb/.2Q/2.t, and 22,.f0r instruction in musketry under GAptain Junn. On' Saturday next both'.'Batteries, will parade: atthe Driil-shed at 3 :p inland; proceed to the. range for ..target practice. A special gericralimeet■ipß will lake place of the members of No. 1 Battery on Monday next, to elect a first Lieutehrtnt: '.,"-". : High School I/EorrjßE.—These lectures were resumed last.riifjht, nt;the'Town iHall, by. l)v, Haast, who delivered; (lie first of a series on Geology. His Honor .tbe; Superintendent occupied the cliair,,aiid::ihtrodui'ed the lectured Tlie.pjatforin was .hong, with an abundance of excellent, diagrams illustrative of the science, «ri;i;tlVe;lectiirer-Wiia furnished with a black: boardon which he dcsc'i ibe<! occasionaldel i netttiqria.; of.. st riking objects.apjK'rtaining to.his leiiture. : , Haying given, it definition of, Geology,/ liejoceupied a considerable portion of: thiit-firsfelecturein miking remarks of,a : general/nature on subjects not strictly belorlging:to;t!io science of geology but some knowledge of .whiclr, was, in the lecturer's opinion, necessary to an understanding of it. Geology, said the iec-

turer, means the doctrine of the etrtb., and embraces its history and constitution, and therefore a knowledge of chemistry, natural history, and other physical sciences is necessary to the understanding of it. He then entered into an explanation of the theory of Laplace as to the formation of the universe. ;This theory, he said, supposed that all the celestial bodies were originally in a gaseous ■state; that they progressed from this condition, through others of greater density into that of hardnes', by means of pressure and cooling; and that the earth's form of an oblate spheroid has resulted from its revolution on its axis while in a semi-fluid or pasty state. By means of the pendulum the mean gravity of the earth is found to be five times as great as that of water j from which it is concluded that the earth is not a hollow sphere, and that it greatly increases in density towards its centre. The lecturer then entered into a comparison of the different specific gravities of various rocks, and said that had the volcanic rocks remained as they had cooled round the earth's nucleus, and the sedimentary rocks continued undisturbed as they had been deposited, the surface of the earth would have been smooth and even. But the primitive rocks contracted on cooling, and were consequently split into fissures which were filled up by deposits of other matter; and the whole crust of rocks inclos ing the incandescent mass of the globe had been subject to convulsions of which the earthquakes of our own day may give us some idea. By these means the uniformity of the earth's surface had been destroyed, and the beautiful variety of mountain and valley had been produced. The lecturer then indicated tbe principal layers of igneous rocks and their succession, and glanced at the deposition of the superimposed sedimentary rocks, and concluded by a promise to go more fully into this part of the subject in his next lecture. When the lecture was over, a number of the boys went on to the platform to examine the specimens of rocks, and the lecturer explained to them the character of eaeh. The lecture was a very elaborate composition, Theatbe Royal.—The theatre was very well attended last evening, pn the occasion of the joint benefit of Miss Cassy Matthews and Miss Jenie Nye. The first piece played was "The Ticket-of-Leave Man," which is familiar to Christchurch play-goers. We do not remember to have seen it much better acted in Christchurch before. Miss Gougenlieim played the part of May Edwards with a simplicity, truth, and feeling which we hare rarely seen surpassed. Miss Cassy Matthews was, of course, quite at home in the part of the Widow Willoughby, whose torment is "that boy Sara," capitally personated by Miss Jenie Nye. MrFawcett's Bob Briarly was a careful, well studied piece of acting, but not so decidedly successful as we had anticipated. Mr Richardson was thoroughly good as Hawkshaw—cool, keen, and determined—he looked the beau ideal of a first-class detective. Mr Clifford managed to get through the part of Dalton with an occasional approach to what are one's ideas of the accomplished but brutal ruffian, Mr Pollock's Moss was the most life-like piece of acting we recollect to have seen that gentleman do. The afterpiece was the burlesque of " The Lndy of Lyons," which was so decidedly well acted as to make us regret that Miss Gougenheim has not before placed a few of the many excellent burlesques on the stage.

Platinum in New Zealand.—The Argus of Feb. 2 says:—Wehave received the following interesting communication from Mr Severn, assayer of the Union Bank here:— A few days back, a digger, on bis way to New South Wales, left for my examination a sample of metallic sand from the New Zealand coast (Southland). He stated 'that there was any quantity of the same material where it came from.' The sample, on examination, proves to be a very truly valuable platinum ore of a highly magnetic character, and containing some sixty or seventy per cent, of platinum. Throughout the sample were to be seen minute pieces of rough gold. Spe ciflc gravity of ore, 14*2. It may be interesting to state, that while experimenting with the microscope I found that many of the individual flakes possessed polarity. I carried the experiment further, by floating some fine pieces on a drop of water placed on a glass slide, around which was placed a fine insulated copper wire. On transmitting a galvanic current through this impromptu coil the major axis of many of these little flakes at once took up a position at right angles to the current, and as rapidly reversed themselves on the poles of the battery being changed. Mould there really be plenty of this ore, as stated, it will prove of much commercial ralue, and add greatly to the already varied mineral products of New Zealand. Botal Geographical Society. This society commenced the session of 1866-67 on Monday night, 12th November, and a brilliant opening it was. Sir R. Murchison, the worthy and popular president, read a short inaugural address. He commenced by alluding to the attempts at new discoveries now going on in Central Asia and South America, which he believed would be entirely successful. But with respect to what was going on in South Africa he was not equally sanguine. Until the grand problem of discovering the basin or basins which feed the Nile was solved, he feared the geography of that continent and of the source of that great river would remain, he would not say in obscurity, but obviously imperfect. He had lately had a communication from their celebrated friend, Dr Livingstone, who was in good health and spirits, and still continued his new attempts at discoveries, in which he was confident of success. (Cheers.) He had to inform them that at the last meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, it was resolved unanimously to urge on the Government the absolute necessity for the honour of this country of sending another expedition into the Polar Seas. (Cheers.) He was glad to hear that announcement received so warmly, the more especially as he was well aware they had still among them many gallant Antarctic sailors who would be proud to go on such an expedition. It was a source also of great satisfaction to him to state that an obelisk would soon be erected to commemorate the gallant services of Captain Speke. By Her Majesty's permission, it would be placed in one of the avenues of the broad walk in Kensington Gardens, and resembled in every respect that erected some years ngo in honour of the gallant Frenchman who lo3t his life in endeavouring to discover Sir John Franklin and his companions. With respect to Sir John, he had to inform them that a statue erected to his memory would be uncovered on Thursday by Sir John Pakington, the First Lord of the Admiralty, at his (Sir li. Murchisun's) request. (Cheers,) Sir H. Rawlinson then read a paper transmitted from India by Mr Johnstone, on Thibet and Turkistau; and after a short discussion, in which Lord Strangford and Mr Crauford took part, a vote of thanks was passed to Mr Johnstone and Sir IT, Eawlinson, and the proceedings terminate!

Mn Henwood's Plan fob Converting Wooden Ships.—Mr. Henwood pioposes in the first place, to remove all the upper portions of the hull, say of a three-decked ship, shOWn in plan 1 by dotted lines, save a small part of the forecastle and poop. The next step is to secure armour plates lj inch thick to the present skin or outer planking of the ship. Over this an 13-inch teak backing is to be worked. This backing will extend below the armour plates with an increased thicki;e«, giving additional strength and buoyancy to the hull. The teak backing is then tu be covered with armour plates six to eight inches thick above and at the water-line, diminishing in thickness thence downwards. The plates are to be covoral with 3-inch planking and coppered below the water-line. The armour will extend from stem to stem, and protect the rudder-head. This represents all that requires to be done to the bottom of the ship, and it will he obvious Unit it entails no pulling to pieces and reconstruction, always most expensive work. Plates and backing arc bolted on, indeed, to the hull, but practically it remains as intact as though it were receiving a copper sheathing only. Two decks having been removed, a third remains, and this would be covered from end to end with IJ-inch plates, over which a second deck of 4-inch planking would be worked. The por-

tions of the original hull forming the poop and forecastle may be cased with 2-inch plates, if desirable. As, however, the destruction of both poop and forecastle in action would be of little importance, and as it is certain that a 2-inch plate would not delay.but would rather ha'ten their destruction by forming a good point d'appui on which to explode shells, itdoesnotappeunidvisablethat this part of Mr Henwood's design should be carried out. The armamentof the ship would consist of four turrets, each carrying two 22-ton guns, the 8 guns throwing a broadside of 4.800 lbs. In addition pivot guns would be mounted on the poop and forecastle. Line-of-battle ships of two decks would carry two or three turrets, each mounting a pair of the heaviest guns, besides pivot guns at bow and stern, In order that the ship may be worked under sail without interfering with the fire from the turrets, Mr Henwood proposes to | construct a spar deck of iron, sheathed with four inches of planking, running from poop to forecastle over the tops of the turrets, something like the hurricane stage—we cannot call it a deck—used in monitors. The hammock berthing is also to be of iron, forming a longitudinal box girder 5 ft. deep and 2 ft. wide, at cich side of the spar deck. Rifled shield plates would be bolted to the inner walls of tließe girders to protect the officers and crew on the spar deck. The deck would be supported at the bow and stern, but amid ■ ships, bydiaognal box trussing. The two longitudinal beams acting in conjunction with thia trussing restore the vertical stiffness lost by cutting down the ship's sides, on a principle carefully worked out with the shallow steamboats used on American rivers, The hatchways, &c, would all be protected by iron box casings extending to the spar deck for the purpose of ventilation and communication. Mr Henwood also proposes to fit falling bulwarks of plate iron between the main and spar decks, by which the enclosed space would be kept dry and additional accommodation would be provided for the crew when cruising. plates would be lowered down intioard, and lie flat on the main deck when the ship was going into action. Stanchions and ridge ropes, easily removed, would be run round the main deck. .— Engineer.