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Lyttelton Times, Volume LXI, Issue 7227, 29 April 1884, Page 3

England loses every year by shipwrecks between 3000 and 4000 lives, and about .£10,000,000. When the territory of the United States is as densely settled as that of Prance the population will number (580,000,000. A young officer in the Fourth French Engineers, unstrung at the idea of having to face a court-martial for some trivial fault, tied a belt filled with dynamite round his waist, applied a match, aud was literally blown to pieces. During last year 4934 prisoners were tried by the French military tribunals out of an army of 550,132 men, and there were 822 acquittals. The number of men charged with desertion or insubordination was 1862. The Archceological Society of Athens has decided to rnako researches at the bottom of the sea in the Bay of Salamis, where the famous naval battle between the Greeks and Persians was fought. The water is not very deep in the bay. Since the Greeks lost about 50 and the Persians nearly 200 galleys, which have since been lying undisturbed at the bottom of the sea, it is thought that it may be possible to bring up some complete specimens, or at least portions of them, which may afford more accurate knowledge of the naval architecture of the old Hellenes and the Persians than can be gathered from their writings.