DE OMNIBUS REBUS.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 263, 15 April 1875, Page 4

DE OMNIBUS REBUS.

We take the following from the Melbourne Argus: —“ A rather unusual action has been brought in the County Court, in which Alexander Garrick sued his wife Ann Garrick for £2OO. The case, as stated, was that some time ago, when plaintiff came here from New Zealand, he had £2OO in the custody of a bank, which he took out in the form of two £l€o notes. He put the notes in his house, and his wife got hold of them and lodged them in another bank, giving her name as Kerr. Plaintiff and his wife are now separated, and he sued her for the money, alleging that it was his property, and she had no right to retain it. His Honor Judge Cope said that if the money was plaintiff’s property he could go to the bank and claim it, and then if it were refused, he could sue the bank for it. He returned a verdict for the defendant, with £l2 12s costs.” Iron states that “ a new compass has been invented in France by M. Ducherain, the magnetic force of which resides, not in a bar or needle, as in the ordinary instrument, but in a flat steel ring magnetised, with its poles at two opposite extremities of the same diameter. This ring supported upon an aluminium traverse, pivoted on agate at its centre, has attached to it the ordinary compass card, and acts promptly and efficiently. The author claims for it the following advantages (1) A magnetic power, double that of a needle whose length is that of the diameter of the ring ; (2) two neutral points instead of one as in the needle ; whence it happens that none of the magnetism escapes, and that strong sparks like those from the Holtz machine do not derange the pole ; (3) a better and more prompt performance of the compass, the card seeming to float, as it were in a liquid ; (4) a large increase in the sensitiveness of the instrument; (5) the ability to regulate the magnetic intensity of the ring, and thus to compensate for local causes. This is effected by means of a second magnetised steel ring, smaller than and inside of the first, the position of which —and therefore its neutralising action—may be easily adjusted. Under the direction of the Minister of the Marine, a trial trip of the new compass was made on the steamboat Faon with very satisfactory results. M. Duchemin now proposes, as an improvement, the use of a set of such rings, forming a spherical or spheroidal system of still greater magnetic power. The following on the subject of torpedoes is from the Fall Mall Gazette: —“ We have the advantage just now of watching the development of the torpedo in two perfectly opposite directions. Indeed, the Prussian and Austrian Governments never differed more decidedly in their treatment of any subject than in this; and whatever is being done elsewhere in the use of the torpedo—we confine the word expressly here to the aggressive moveable weapon as distinct from the fixed submarine mine—is but a variety of the two practices carried on the Baltic and Adriatic. In the former sea, as most of our readers are generally aware, the G Tmau navy is developing a perfect flotilla of small torpedo vessels. These are intended to carry the weapon on some sort of boom to the enemy’s side, exactly as the late Ca itain Cushing attacked and destroyed ihe Albemarle in his most famous exploit. The means of propulsion here is in the screw steamer itself. The objections are, of course, that the small vessels prepared, which are intended not to be easily seen by the fl ct they would attack, are so light and low as to be easily disabled and are unfit to face a heavy open sea. Moreover, there are obvious mechanical difficulties in the management of the tremendous engine at the extremity of a long outrigger or boom, and in preserving the torpedo boat itself from coming within the radius of explosion, and thus letting the engineer bo ‘hoist with his own petard,’ Yet the German naval officers arc confid' in their proposed method as the rigb* follow ; and the latest reports f r ,‘ jnc confirm the opinion that um nc . stc principle of propelling *’ ie opposing water by its own ae*‘ * lie torpedo under torpedo, in short-' ’ ‘■ lon —that of the fish Austrian office -is inherently defective. The theorizin'* - rs have found the deviation of from .n Whitehead torpedo outof its course, V' currents and other disturbing forces, to ,c so considerable that they recently have tried to improve it by making it |longer and finer, and have reduced its diameter to 15in, the length becoming nearly 20ft, of which the charge occupies nearly the first four. Greater speed and accuracy are thus gained, no doubt, but the loss to the destructive power of this submarine weapon is so considerable that it is very doubtful whether an ironclad struck by it would be seriously hurt. The conditions of the problem of firing a long-range shot under water seem, in fact, to have been hitherto found insoluble.”