ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

Wellington Independent, Volume XVI, Issue 1507, 22 March 1861, Page 3

ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

New Zealand Timber.— Some very fine speciments of the Pinus Kauri, our New Zealand pine, are now being worked into topmasts aud other spars in Portsmouth dockyard. The trees from whioh these sticks are taken are magnificent vegetable productions, often reaching 90 feet without a branch, consequently there are no knots to weaken the spars. The wood is very lightinits colour, and though hard, planes very smooth and works well, lis grain is remarkably close, and exhibits a small bird's eye appearance when polished off. The wood is well adapted for every purpose of house building, but for topmasts for our largest men-of-war, as for bowsprits, lower masts, and yards it has uot its equal in the world. The stem of the tree is as straight as a carpenter's rule, and is of enormous girth, specimens of 12 feet diameter beiug by no means rare. Under the same mast-house in which the spars from the Kauii are .to be seen, is the mainmast of the Tribune, 30, screw, recently returned from the Pacifio ocean, under the command of Captain G. T. P. Hornby. This mast is another instance ofthe magnificent timber to be found in our own colonies. It was made out of a single tree felled in Vancouver's Island in 1859, and worked into its present form on the spot. The tree when out down measured 167 feet in length, and was of 28 feet circumference for nearly 90 feet from the root. As the mast now lies in the store it is a 100 feet 10 in. loug, having a diameter of 2 feet 8| in. from end to end, and is without doubt the finest lower-mast made from a single stiok that ever has been seen in this country. It would, off course, have been possible to have made the mast of much larger proportions out of suoh a vast tree, as the surplus wood ohopped away more than equalled what was left behind. A great many nautical and other visitors have been to see this very fine speciment of navy timber furnished by our own colonies. New Zealand and Vancouver's Island spars are now slowly finding their way into our home dockyards where they are much wanted. We wish we could see some specimens ofthe Puriri (Pohutukawa is undoubtedly, the timber meant) or New Zealand oak introduced into this country, for it is, perhaps, the most valuable timber produced in the forest of that colony. The wood is wonderfully durable, words like oak, and appears to be invulnerable to the attacks of the weather. For shipbuilding purposes it is invaluable, and would be a great acquisition to our navy yards, It is a gnarled and knotted tree, and works well iuto limbers, knees, &o. It grows from 20 to 40 feet high without a branch, when it spreads out with a five head, the bole being often from 12 to 20 feet in circumference. The forest treasures of these fine islands have not received a full consideration, aud it would be desirable if the timber brought from them was liberated from the many treasury orders relating to their measurement. This would be the means of introducing upon a iarge scale some of the finest wood for shipbuilding in the world, and would be a boon at the present moment, when we ate experimenting with Green Heart, Teak, Amerioan white oak, and greeu oak from our own forests, to the detriment of the well-being of our material navy.— Army and Navy Gazette.

New Zealand Steel.-— -Ever since the settlement of New Zealand by Europeans their attention has been daily called to the peculiarities of a kind of metallic sand along the shores of New Plymouth, in Tarauaki. This sand has the appearance of fine steel fillings, and if a magnet be dropped upon it, and taken up again, the instrument will be found thickly coated with the iroa granules. The plaoe where the sand abounds is along the base of Mount Egmont, an extinct voloano, and the deposit extends several miles along the coast, to the depth of many feet, and having a corresponding breadth. The geological supposition is that this granulated metal has been thrown out of the volcano along the base of which it rests into the sea, ancl there pulverized. It has been looked upon for a long time as a geological curiosity, even to the extent of trying to smelt some of it; but although so many years, have passed since its discovery, it is only recently tnat any attempt has been made to turn it to a practical account; in faot, the quantity is so large that people out there looked upon it as utterly valueless. It formed a standing complaint in the letters of all emigrants that when the sea breeze was a little up they were obliged to wear veils to prevent being blinded by the fine sand that stretch ed for miles along the shore. Captain Morshead, a gentleman in the West of England, was so much impressed with its value that he went to New Zealand to verify the repßrts made to him iv this country, and was fortunate enough to find them all correct. He smelted the ore first in a crucible, and subsequently in,a furnace; the results were so satisfactory that he immediately obtained the neoessary grant of the sand from the Government, nnd returned to England with several tons for more conclusive experiments. It has been carefully analyzed in this oountry by several well-known metallurgists, and has been pronounced to be the purest ore at present known ; it oontains 88-45 of peroxyde of iron, 1 1 -43 of oxyde of titanium, with silica, and only 12 of waste in a 100 parts. Taking the

sand as it lies on the beaoh and smelling . it, the produoe is 71 per oent. of iron of : the very finest quality ; aud, again, if this sand be subject to what is called the ,c ( e-; .. mentration process, the result is a tough, ',"■■ first-class steel, which, in its properties, seems to surpass any othejr description of that metal atpresent known. The investigations of metallurgical science bave found that if titanium is mixed with iron the oharaoter of the steel is materially improved ;but titanium being a scarce ore, such a mixture is too expensive for ordinary/ purposes. Here., however, nature has stepped in, and made free gift of both vessels on the largest scale. To give some idea of the fineness of this beautiful sand, it will be enough to say that it passes readily through a gauze sieve of 4,900 holes or interstices to the square nch. As soon as it was turned into steel, ... by Mr. Musket, of Coleford, Messrs. Mosely, the eminent cutlers and toolmakers, of New-street, Ooveut- garden, were requested to see what could .be done with the Tarauaki steel. They. havo tested ie in every possible way, and have tried its temper to the utmost, aud they say the, matter in which the metal has : '

passed through their trials goes far beyond anything 'that they ever worked in steel before. It has been formed into razors, scissors, saws, pepknives, table cutlery, surgical instruments, &c, and the closeness of the grain, the fineness of polish, aud keenness of edge plaoe it in the very foremost rank— almost iii the position of a new metal. Some silk-cut-ting tools have beeu made, aud so admirably have they turned out that one particular firm_will in future have no others. Iv the suFgical instriments the edges have been examined by the microscope, and have stood the test in keeping the superiority. A number of gentlemen interested in such matters have called at Messrs. Mosley's, and have taken various articles of this steel away for the purpose of trying it. It is stated to pos.ess peculiar advantages for gun. barrels and boringcutters for ordinance purposes. As far as is at present known of tbis extraordi. nary metal, it bids fair to claim all tbe finer classes of cutlery and edge-tool instruments to itself as well as everything made from it turned out. . Messrs. Mosely, in whose hands the sole manufacture of cutlery and edge-tools is vested for this country, have placed a case/ filled with the metal in all its stages, in the Polytechnic Institution. There is the five metallic sand, some beautiful speciments of tbe cutlery made from it, and the inter? mediate phrases of the. iron and steel. An official experiment is expected to be made at some ofthe Government establishments shortly, and it is also intended to forge some chain cables, anchors, &0., iv order to fully set forth the great superiority of the Taranaki ivoii:-^-The Australian Mail.

A Sample of "Nation ' ?al Fjeeling. —The repulse of 347 men of ; the 40th Regiment the other day at Waitara, in New Zealand, with the loss of 29, by upwards of 1000 well-armed savages, protected by an almost impassable stockade, is magnified by the Nation into a perfect cataclysm of disaster of British armis, and one would actually imagine from the account of the Nation, that the affair was one rivalling the olden glories of Clon. tarf, or the lately budding renown of Solferino or Magenta, We append the following as a curiosity in journalistic literature, aud as a sample of what the Americans would call "piling up' the agony." We give it as a characteristic exhibition of petty malice, otherwise it has no value for anybody : — " Routed and flying, It is Peiho again ; this time at Waitara. The British array has been smashed by the patriotic Maori force. The fight was tough, bloody, and severe; the route utter and oomplete ; the retreat woeful and disastrous. One thousand eight hundred British marolied fiercely to the fight ; one thousand and odd, a few hours later, raoed actively home with their baoks to the foe. Wo wait the usual cry in these oases: — ' Massacre, foul play.' As in the Peiho

case, the British was the attacking party — the aggressors iv the fight whioh punished them so awfully. The native patriots were entrenched in a fort ; the foreigners sent a reconnoitering party to see how it might be.best assailed. The natives put au end to the reconnoitering by a few eloquent rifles. Whereupon the British we are told, 'resolved toohastise this aggression.' It reads like" a story of 'The biter bitten, or the would be ohastiser right well chastised.' " Were this ill-oouditioned scribe living under that Frenoh rule whioh he so constantly affeota to desire, we rather imagine that suoh a, paragraph as the foregoing; would have the effect of depriving the literary world of an ornament for the time to come, and that au imperial extinguisher would be put on a oertain shining light \vhioh,.like phosphoric radiance of oarrion, owes its only brightness to rank corruption. — Nor* them Whiy.

Visit of the prince of Wales to Australia. — The Australians are putting in a claim for a visit from the Prinoe of Wales. The Melbourne Argus, in an artiole overflowing with loyalty, undertakes to represent the colonies in this matter, and promises the Prince a spectacle fit, indeed, for the heir of a constitutional throne to gaze upon. He would see with his own eyes," says our contemporary, " a continent but yesterday a savage wilderness the home of a group of thriving British communities, rioh in all the ap- . plicances and comforts' of life— free, prosperous, and happy. He would Team by what a golden ohain they are bound't ; o ; Eugland ; how bravely her .name is upheld, and how loyally it is cherished."

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