THE Hawke's Bay Times. Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri. FRIDAY 9TH JANUARY, 1874.

Hawke's Bay Times, Issue 1540, 9 January 1874, Page 74

THE Hawke's Bay Times. Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri. FRIDAY 9TH JANUARY, 1874.

Mails for Poverty Bay, per Opotiki, close this day at 9 a.m.; and for Auckland, per Success, at 11 a.m. Mails close for the East Indies, the United Kingdom, and the Continent of Europe, via fcmez, on Wednesday next, 14th January, at noon. Correspondence for Europe intended for transmission by this route, should be specially so addressed, or it will be detained for the next San Francisco mail. —Mails for Wellington, all parts of New Zealand, and the Australian Colonies, also close at noon on Wednesday, the 14th instant.

The heat during the last few clays has been excessive—on Tuesday ■ the thermometer registered 98 degrees in shade. Every breath of wind raises h cloud of dust, which eddies round street corners, and invades the shops and dwellings; anil the Carlyle-street swamps, many of which arc nearly dry, exhale a foetid odor, nauseating to the passer-by, and intolerable, one would suppose, to dwellers in the neighborhood. The single artesian well is often the centre of an impatient crowd, waiting for the water-carriers to iill their casks. We hear that several cases of sickness are attributed to the use of bad water in certain parts of the town, owing to the long drought. .Rain is anxiously looked for, and Mr Garry's boring operations are watched with great interest. Subscriptions are being raised among the shoj)kecpers—rather late in the day, certainly—for the purpose of watering the streets, and the project is meeting with liberal support.

The necessity of an efficient system of water supply is at present being' unpleasantly forced upon the attention of the public of this town, and various projects have been mooted. One of these is a grand scheme to bring water 'in nine-inch mains from an elevated natural reservoir on the Taupo line, ten miles from Napier. This is said to be " within easy reach and cost " —namely from £'J,OOU to & 10,000. Wo cannot see the necessity for any such expensive and elaborate scheme, to carry out which the sum of £IO,OOO would probably bo found quite inadequate. The artesian supply is witbin much easier reach and cost, and being practically unlimited, would be amply sufficient for nil requirements. The one well in use has proved a priceless boon to the town : another has been successfully sunk, and a third is in progress. The practicability of this source of supply has thus been proved, and, in our opinion, it is from the vast stores of pure and cool water beneath our feet, rather than from any elevated natural reservoir, inland, that Napier must look for its water supply. .Dining the last two days Mr Garry and party have been engaged in sinking an artesian well on the premises of the Union Bank of Australia. Previous attempts in this part of the toAvn have all failed ; but Mr Garry appears to have a fair prospect of success. He has passed through the shingle strata, which are saturated with salt water, and is thus beyond the beds of boulders which have been the cause of failure on previous occasions. He is now in a stratum of clay, and had reached a depth of 60ft. at 5 p.m. yesterday. Capt. M'Donald, of the Success, has adopted a style of fishing which is a novelty in this port. Several mornings recently he has exploded a charge of dynamite under water, the result beinggreat slaughter among the fish. On the first occasion, in addition to a large catch of herrings, several kawai, a fine eel, a flatfish, &c, made their appearance on the surface of the water, and were picked up. Fish killed m this manner do not show the slightest sign of injury, and as articles of food are in no way deteriorated.

"VVc have to acknowledge receipt of No. lof the Poverty Bay Herald. It is printed on a double-demy sheet, and lias the appearance of being rather large in comparison with the population of the district it represents; but from the leading article, it appears to be the editor's view that his large sheet will serve to advertize the district, and increase its trade. The paper contains an interesting account of the oil springs, which, however is marred by some remarks about Christmas Day and the event it commemorates, in extremely bad taste, which have caused a good deal of comment in Napier. The Poverty Bay Standard, we observe, is enlarged, and now contains twenty long columns. The promised [' New Zealand Times" has not yet made its appearance, the necessary arrangements being as yet incomplete, and the "Independent" still retains its old style and title.

We would direct attention to Mr Arthur Vivian's entertainment, this evening and to-morrow ; particulars of which appear in an advertisement elsewhere. , .' ;!X.i,....U;:'';

There liave been no cases before the Resident Magistrate's Court since our last, issue. •■'

Church of England Services- will be held (D.V.) oii Sunday, 11th Jan., at Puketapu at 11 a.m., and at Meanee Church at o p.m., when sermons will be preached in behalf of the Melanesian Mission. The offertory at each service will be devoted to the funds of the mission.

Considerable interest has of late been excited by an invention termed " air gas," by which it is asserted that atmospheric air can be used for the purposes of illumination, &c, in the same way as the ordinary coal gas. A patent has been recently been taken out for the protection of the invention, and a company has been formed for its working as a commercial speculation. The process of preparing the " air gas " appears to consist in causing a current of atmospheric air to pass through certain highly-combustible hydro-carbon fluids, whereby it becomes charged with so much of the fluid as it is capable of dissolving. In practice, the use of this new product appears to be attended with considerable danger, as it is perfectly analagous to an explosive mixture of atmospheric air and an hydro-carbon gas. Amongst our English extracts will bo found an example in point, in which a formidable accidenthas occurred to an individual who was attempting to make use of the process, an accident which is not surprising to lis. Explosions of gas. or rather of gas and atmospheric air, arc not of uufrequcnt occurrence when, either by accident or heedlessness, the gas used for illuminating purposes has been permitted to escape into an apartment, and, mixing with the atmospheric air, is afterwards brought into contact with a flame. Such explosions are identical in character with those of the fire-damp of coalmines, which at times produce such disastrous results. It is to be observed that the gas itself is not explosive—it will, in fact, extinguish a lighted taper, if such be plunged into any vessel containing it. It burns only in contact with the air, and becomes explosive when a certain amount of air is mixed with it. The gas used for illuminating purposes is a compound of hydrogen and carbon in certain proportions, so also arc all the various oils, &c, used for the same purpose, 'these are all. hydrocarbon compounds, and are in fact reduced to the state of gas, even in ordinary lamps and candles, before they are consumed. The matter of which they consist, rising by capillary attraction along the fibres of the wick, is volatilized by the flame, and then consumed by combination with the oxygen of the atmosphere. Hydrogen itself, though highly combustible, gives off little or no light in burning. The light given oil' by any illuminating flame appears to depend on the solid particles of carbon contained in the particular hydro-carbon consumed, which particles are rendered incandescent during the process of combustion ; but hydrogen gas can be rendered illuminating if it be first passed through a fluid hydro-carbon (oil of turpentine, for instance), in which case it will dissolve and carry off with it sufficient carbon particles to produce the desired result, and becomes to all intents and purposes an illuminating gas. The discovery that atmospheric air, in like manner, if forced through an hydro-carbon fluid, will dissolve and carry off a sufficient proportion of the particular fluid used to become itself a combustible and illuminating gas, is rather a matter of regret than otherwise. The combination of air and hydro-carbon matter is essentially of an exceedingly dangerous character, as it will be within the limits of that proportion that constitutes an explosive mixture, and result in accidents such as that which we have referred to.