THE ARMAMENT OF A MODERN CRUISER.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6305, 27 September 1898, Page 2

THE ARMAMENT OF A MODERN CRUISER.

Perhaps no better example can be given of the capacity of a modern cruiser for making! herself objectionable than in the description of the armament of the new cruiser Amphitrite, just launched at Barrow-on-Furness. She is twin-screw, and has • a speed of twenty-one knots with ordinary draught. The coal bunkers have a capacity of 2000 tons, and the armament of the vessel is formidable. She has forty-one guns in all, and in one minute these will discharge 6898 shots, 'varying in weight from 1001 b downwards, and totalling ab.put 7£ tons,, with an expenditure of no less than 38541 bof powder.! The firing of these guns has ., been estimated to represent the development of a power each minute equal to praising the Amphitrite a height of 75ft.Sixteen of the guns are of the 6in quickfiring type, the. Vickers weapon of this calibre fires eight 1001 b shots per minute, at a velocity of 2775 ft per second. Two of these guns are placed on the forecastle, two on the upper deck firing ahead, and two on the main deck firing ahead, enabling . the Amphitrite when chasing to .fire ahead each minute 48 shots of 1001 b weight each, .capable of going through lOin of wrought iron at 1000 yds range. A similar shower of shot can be fired astern, and all the guna can be fired over the broadside. MUSICAL NOTES. «!»■ ■ ; '■ [" Canterbury Times."] Mr Phillip Newbury is said to have discovered a young miner at Bendigo who possesses a remarkable light tenor voice. To what base uses! ejaculates the Sydney " Bulletin." At one of his -Sydney. Town Hall recitals, organist Wiegand placed three of his own compositions — the " Aldertnan Jessep 4 Melody in G flat,' " the " Alderman Ives ' Souvenir de Merrylands," " and the "Alderman Chapman 'Victory March.' " Ye gods ! _. ■<■ Once whon Madame Nordica was singing .it a concert in Texas she forgot her warm overshoes. A cowboy whom she had utterly fascinated offered to bring them to her, and' did so, but he only brought one at a time. Wlvrn Madame Nordica thanked him, and in her gracious way regretted to have given him so much trouble, he said to her, ** Don't name it. mam. I v'sti you were a centipede. Sr Frederick Bridge, the eminent English organist, in a recent lecture on Chopin, gave .the true date of the composer's birth, as established by the discovery made the.' other 4»v, of bis baptismal certificate,"' as, Feb, 22, 1810. Chopin seems :to have inherited . his peculiar seusitjveness and ; Sclavonic,; temr peraimht from his mother, Justina de Kryzanbwsa. * Chopin :' matured early... for, when barely :hine; he improvised in public, /and a 'decade later was .a virtuoso, giving recitals in Vienna, Munich and Paris ; ultimately making the last-named city his home, and joining in the new romantic school of music of which Berlioz was the most daring representative. . A writer in " Freeman's Journal " criticises certain of Madame Melba' s actions very severely. " From time to time," he remarks, "we are told,- and asked to believe, that she is a sort of fairy god-mother, a guardian jmgel, and a lady bountiful all combined to the .Australian singers and instrumentalists who go to try their fortunes in London. This is a pure romance. A dozen or more Australians have had bitter experiences in the ' big smoke.' They have worked, and waited, tried this manuger and that. Mslba would not lift a finger to help any of them, even ■when appealed to. One Melbourne man, an old friend of the Mitchell family who was graciously permitted to see the great Madame Melba, told me on his return to Australia that the prima donna., with whom, he had been on terms of intimacy for years, affected not to know him. When Collins Street was mentioned Melba lifted her eyes in a great effort of recollection, and in a foreign accent remarked : 'Is that not in Melbourne?' He also calls MacLaire Melba to account for her treatment of Miss Ada Crossley and her ingratitude to poor Cecchi, her old teacher, who taught her gratuitously." | .Many attempts of a more or less legitimate ' kind have (says the " Musical Opinion " of August) been made, to illustrate by abstract music a csrtain story, set of scenes, or pro- ; gress of emotions. Probably the earliest examples which can be pronounced artistically successful are the famous Pastoral Symphony and the sonata " Les Adieux, l'Absence, etle Retour," by Bpe'hoven. Mendelssohn tried to paint Fingal's Cave in his Hebrides overture, and in his Scotch Symphony he sought to convey the impressions made on him during his visit to Scotland. Schumann painted a whole set of fisrures and characters in his " Carneval " ; and,, in his great Fantasia in C, he se 1 - out with a very definite intention to convey the meaning of a verse by the poet Schlegrel. Berliez went further, and proposed to tell the episodes of the life of an artist in a symphony so named. Unfortuhis morbid and rather gruesome genius chose very renulsive pictures to paint ; and he also made the m'stake of entrusting a certain character or sentiment to a certain phrase, — evidently impossible without words s°t to #ie music, or a previous explanation. Raffs Lenore Symphony, Mackenzie's "La Belle Dame," and Liszt's " Mazeppa " are good examples of well-known poems set forth in music alone. MacCunn's "Land of the mountain and the Flood" is a descriptive overture ; and Liszt's and Saint-Saen's Symphonic Poems are very beautiful and expressive.