MISCELLANEOUS.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 403, 27 September 1875, Page 4

MISCELLANEOUS.

We take the following items from our exchanges:— It is stated that the Duke of Edinburgh consents to resign to the German Government his right to the throne of Coburg for £BO,OOO yearly. The- Times of August 6th officially contradicts the report. England and France exchanged territory on the West Coast of Africa. England gave Gambia for Dabon, Great Bassam, Assinee, &c. At a recent meeting of the South-Eastern Railway Company a resolution was carried with only three or four dissentients, authorising the directors to contribute a sum not exceeding £25,000, for the making of a shaft, and other preliminary expenses in reference to the proposed channel tunnel. On August 7th there was solemnised a grand high mass in Dublin, attended by Cardinal Cullen and large numbers of Irish, English, Scotch, and foreign Roman Catholic prelates. The sermon was preached by the new archbishop of Cashel, Dr Croke, lately bishop of Auckland, New Zealand, and who was appointed archbishop by the Pope over the heads of the three nominees of the diocesan clergy. Two casks of specie, value £20,000, have been recovered by divers from the wreck of the Schiller steamship on the Scilly Islands, Miss Alice Burrett, the young Australian pianist, gave her first concert in London at St George’s Hall, Laughton-place, last Saturday, and was extremely well received, Her success in England is assured. Paragraphs about New Zealand are constantly cropping up in the papers. Mr Chevalier, we learn from the Morning Post , the fashionable organ, has had the honor of submitting to her Majesty’s inspection, a series of drawings of scenes in New Zealand. From another source we learn that the Michigan University has just been presented with a large collection of natural curiosities, the fruits of a recent voyage to New Zealand. The collection embraces among other things about fifty specimens of New Zealand birds, including the wingless variety, and an emu’s egg 15in by 13in in circumference. As the defence of the coast line is a matter of considerable importance Jto the colonies, the extraordinary torpedo experiments made a fortnight back at the Alexandra Palace are well worth attention. A man, furnished with certain appliances, can live, and work under water without any communication or connection with the surface for two hours—can move about in any direction, raise or lower himself as he pleases, guide himself by compass, and can read by the light of a lamp, which he can light or extinguish at pleasure, and with these appliances can either remove torpedoes placed by the enemy, or arrange others for the destruction of his ships. What will next be effected