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Grey River Argus, Volume IX, Issue 722, 3 September 1870, Page 2

The only arrival since Thursday was the p.s. Lyttelton, from Hokitika, for auother cargo of coal. The departures have been the s.s. Waipara, for Brnce' Bay and Martin's Bay, and the s.s. Kennedy, for Westport and Nelson. The p.s. St. Kilda will leave this morning for Wanganui. The p. s. Charles Edward left Westport for Greymouth yesterday afternoon, so that she wilb probably enter the river during the night. ". The s.s. Gothenburg, from Melbourne, arrived at the Bluff on Thusday night. In another column we publish a telegraphic summary of the news brought by her. The schooner Excelsior has cleared out for Hayelock, and will be towed to sea to-day. The. Sultan, 12, iron armour-plated ship 5.226 tons, i2OO-horse power, which has been building in No. 2 dock at Chatham, was launched or "floated out" on May 31, in the presence of a large crowd of spectators. The ceremony of christening was performed by a daughter of his Excellency Muslims Pasha, the Turkish Ambassador to the Court of London. The Sultan is a broadside ship of peculiar construction, the first of the kind ouilt at Chatham., She was designed by Mr E. J. Reid, tlie Chief Constructor of the Navy. Her first plate was laid on August 1, 1868. The3e are the dimensions of the shin :— Extreme length, 338 ft 6in ; extreme breadth, 59ft; depth in hold, 21ft. To hasten her construction, from the be .'inning of the work in dock a large number af workmen nave been engaged on the Sultan, and of late nearly 1000 hands have been at work on her. The Sultan will be a most formidable vessel. She is ranked in the Navy List as a 12-gun ship, and she will carry 12 very powerful guns, but on her upper deck she will have in addition a number of guns of smaller calibre. The main deck battery will consist of eight 18-ton guns, the two most forward of which can, by the construction of the portholes, like those of the Hercules, be fired almost straight ahead. There will also be two guns of less weight and well protected in the bow of the vessel. But the special feature of the ship is an upper battery, at the after end of the main deck battery, semicircular in form, the rounded ends projecting somewhat over the sides of the ship, which will contain two 12^-iibn guns, so mounted on Captain Scott's carriages that they can be fired in almost every direction— fore and aft and as part of the broadside. AH the gum of the battery are strongly protected by armour plates.