Cleanings.

Kaikoura Star, Volume XIV, Issue 789, 8 November 1894, Page 7

Cleanings.

Courage to Spare.

Edward Pellew, afterwards Lord Exmouth, and at the time of his death Vice-Admiral, was one of the men who seem born for deeds of bravery. When he was 12 years old a house in the neighbourhood caught fire. In it a lot of gunpowder was known to be stored, and the bystanders, quite naturally, were shy of the danger. The lad went into the house alone and brought out the powder. At 13 years of age he entered the Navy, and began the career which made him famous. His life is briefly sketched by a writer in the Atlantic Monthly. Pellew, then 18 years old, was on board the ship in which General Burgoyne embarked, in 1775, for Canada. When the distinguished passenger came aboard the yards were manned in his honour, and he was startled to see on one yard-arm a midshipman standing on his head. On expressing alarm he was laughingly reassured by the Captain, who told him that Pellew—for he it was who had put this extra touch upon the General’s reception—was quite capable of dropping from the yard, passing under the ship’s bottom, and coming up on the other side. A few days later the young officer did actually leap from the yard-arm, the ship going fast through the water—not, however, in the spirit of bravado, but to aid a seaman who had fallen overboard, and whom he succeeded in saving. Throughout his youth his exuberant vitality delighted in such feats. Once, when old enough to know better, he jumped out of a boat, under sail, after his hat, which had blown overboard. He was in the open channel and alone. The freak nearly cost him his life, for though he had lashed the helm down and hove-to the boat, she fell off, and gathered way whenever he approached. When at last he laid hold of the rail, after an hour of this fooling, he had barely strength enough to drag himself on board. For a long time he lay helpless, waiting for a return of his powers. He served throughout Burgoyne’s operation on Lake Champlain, and after the surrender returned to England, where he was promoted to a lieutenancy, and then was made captain. But he was still full of youthful activity. ‘ I remember once,’ said a midshipman who served with him at this period, ‘ in closereefing the main top-sail, the captain had given his orders from the quarter deck, and sent us aloft. On gaining the top-sail yard the most active and daring of our party hesitated to go upon it, as the sail was flapping violently, making it a service of great danger. J ust then a voice was heard from the extreme end of the yard, calling upon us to exert ourselves to save the sail from beating to pieces. A man said, ‘ Why, that’s the Captain. How in creation did he get there ?’ He had followed us up, and clambering over the backs of the sailors, had reached the topmost head above the yard, and then descended by the lift ’—a feat not easily explained to landsmen, but which will be allowed by seamen to demand great hardihood and address. Once he is supposed to have been frightened. On the king’s birthdaj’ he had dressed in full uniform to attend a dinner on shore. The weather was hot, and the crew had been permitted an hour’s swimming around the ship. While his boat was being manned the captain stood by the frigate’s rail watching the bathers, and near him was one of the ship’s boys. ‘I, too, shall have a good swim soon,’ called the boy to one of his comrades in the water. * The sooner the better,’ said Captain Pellew, coming behind him and tipping him overboard. No sooner had the lad risen to the surface after his plunge than it was plain that he could not swim ; so in after him went the practical joker, with all toggery. •If ever the Captain was frightened,’ says an officer who was present, ‘it was then.’

A Mechanical Fluid.

An ingenious device, the invention of C. W. Hunt, an American engineer, is mentioned in Engineering. It is a mass of hard steel balls of two sizes, oneeighth and one-fourth of an inch in diameter, respectively. Under pressure this mass flows and transmits pressure in all directions like a fluid. The device is calculated for use wherever fluid pressure is desired without leakage, and it has already been employed for tightening the brasses of connecting rods, a pocket at the side being filled with the balls and pressure applied with a set screw.