ACOUSTICS and ARCHITECTURE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume V, Issue 116, 18 May 1870, Page 3

ACOUSTICS and ARCHITECTURE.

To THE EDITOR OP THE NELSON EVENING- MADE

Sir — Will you allow me, as a regular attendant at the Council Chamber, to give expression to tbe dissatisfaction which generally prevails at the difficulty experienced by the public in hearing the speeches made by our Councillors. For instance, I was there the other night, and the subject under debate being one in which I take considerable interest, as I do not think that I have nearly as much land as I ought to have, I took a few notes of what was beiDg said on the subject of the boundaries of properties. On looking oyer my memorandum book next morning I found the following jotted down as being the resolution under discussion: — "That in the opinion of this Council, if- the boundary line between any two provinces, goldfields, or private properties in the colony were to be divided into two parts,, it would be found that the rectangle under the whole and one of the parts, would be equal to the square of that part together with twice the rectangle under the other parts, and that therefore his Honor the Superintendent be requested to have a bill drawn entitled 'A Keep Quiet Bill,' and to take charge of the same in the General Assembly." Finding that the newspaper reports are entirely at variance with my notes, I begin to fancy that the acoustic properties of the Hall are not what they should be. Yours, &c, Is It So?

A Telegram from- Wanganui stales that the steamer Beautiful Star struck on a , snag on Wednesday night below Putiki j 1 since then, sprung a leak and filled. The i cargo was taken out by the John Penn '.- last night. A survey will be held to-day ;by Captains Carey and Low. — Wellington ,; Advertiser, May 14. '; A number of the immigrants who J recently arrived in Dunedin from Nova ■| Scotia, are about to take up land in I Martin's Bay.

Release oi? Tbigker.— The formal intimation that his Excellency the Governor had been pleased to commute Tricker' s, sentence into. imprisonment .to. date, was received by the Phoebe on Tuesday night, and as soon -as possible yesterday, information was sent to the Hon. J. Johnston, Chairman of the Committee, staling that Tricker would be released at three o'clock. About a quarter of an hour after that time the warrant of release reached the gaol, and almost immediately afterwards Tricker, accompanied by the Rev. Mr. Stock and Mr. Gi'fford, left the gaol a free man. It is six years since he entered it a condemned criminal, and during that long period he had not been outside its bounds. Accompanied by the two gentlemen named, Tricker, who seemed niuch agitated and absolutely dazed by the change in his position, came down Willis-street, being eagerly gazed at as he -passed along, and after obtaining a few necessary articles of clothiug, at War moll's) went on board the s.s. Wanganui, which immediately afterwards sailed for Wanganui, where Mrs. Tricker and his family await his arrival. — Well. Independent, May 14.

The Pall Mall Gazette says that, at the Midland Counties Institute of Mining Engineers at Dudley, Mr. Walter Ness, a mining engineer, read a report last week from which it appears that thirty-fou, square miles of the Firth of Forth, which he blocks out, would yield an amount of coal, if properly dredge^, equal to the whole produce of the collieries of Great Britain during the lost fifty years ; or, taking the coal-bearing area of the Firth, he anticipates that 12,672,000,000 tons might be raised ; and, taking other parts of the British coast as jointly capable of of yielding a similar quantity, we should have coal to the value of £956,000,000, a sum, Mr. Ness remarks, more than sufficient to cover the National Debt. Let us hope no delay will take place in commencing the experiment suggested by Mr. Ness. At present we are busy with the Serpentine, which is unlikely to add much to the national wealth ; but when we bave finished this work (if indeed we ever do finish it), the sooner we begin to dredge the Firth the better.