A DESERT IN QUEEESLAND.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 277, 22 November 1877, Page 4

A DESERT IN QUEEESLAND.

The. whole of West Moreton (says the Observer) is a desert, without a solitary oasis escept some swamp, around whose moist edges there is still a litttle vegetation. The whole of that immense district of the Main JRauge from Nauango to Mount Lindsay, and downwards to the coaat, is as barren of Yegitatiou. as it blasted by the simoom that withers all before U. On Franklyn Vale the cattle have died ia hundreds, and away towards Normanby, Faaeifern, DungundaD, Cochin, and away to Maroon and down to the Logan, there ia the same dismal tale •of desolation and destruction; and away towards Cressbrook, Durundur, and ali the country lying on the head of the Briabene River, there is similar story of devastation. Throughout the whole district the cattle are daily dying ia scores, and every creek and gully shows its long array of rotting caroases. In one little waterhole not ten yards ia diameter, on the Upper Bremer, we noticed twelve dead sheep and two cows; (and wherever water is found, there will also be discovered one or more carcases of sheep, cattle, or horses — for horses also have died in considerable numbers. Gloomy as the state of things was known to be, we had no idea that the effects of the drought were so general aud so disastrous as they 'really were. We have been through the country between Ipawich and Frankly a Vale, and there were dead aud starving cattle, sheep, and horses all along the road; and as one part of tha district may be considered aa index to the remainder, that one ghastly dreary picture would enable ua to conceive the rest. To the farmer it means dead stock and do crops, the two ominous phrases which are to him expressive of present or prospective ruin.

A Polite Criminal. — There is room for improvement in the method in which executions are conducted in this country, and there is still a greater need for reform of the gallows in America, where "hangings" are, as a rule, so clumsily managed that the unhappy criminals too often die a liogeripg and horrible death. A man, however, named Guidry, who was hanged for murder at New Orleans, on July 25, was fortunate enough to die instantaneously^ owing to the fact that he personally superintended the arrangemeuts for his own execution. Guidry, who was a remarkably intelligent murderer, when brought on to the gallows, on inspecting the rope by which he was to be banged, at once saw that it was not long enough for the purpose. " The fall," he said to tha sheriff, "will not be enough. I want a regular 'break-neck ' fall, about 10 feet." The sheriff at once took the necessary steps to comply with his request, and the rope was lengthened accordingly, and adjusted round tha criminal's neck. Guidry then, after a scornful remark as to the general clumsiness of existing arrangements for the extinction of lffe, pointed out to the sheriff that the rope was too tight and the knot in the wrong place. The sheriff, grateful for any suggestion, immediately re-adjuated the rope and drew the cap over Guidry'a faoe. This was the * s straw that broke the camel's back," and Guidry could no longer suppress his laughter. The cap he pronounced to be a complete farce, "it was too thin, and he could see through it." The point, however, not being of sufficient importance, he would not delay his execution any longer on this account, and continuing to laugh immoderately he allowed the sheriff to proceed. He died apparently in a moment without pain or struggle, < having, as the New York Eerlad elegantly expresses it, "bossed the job hitnßelf," and thus secured the first " thoroughly successful hanging " that has taken place for a long while in the United States.

The difficulty which Russia , experienced in maintaining an ironclad navy in tha Baltic has recently been illustrated by the discovary of the action of frost upon the well-known monitor Peter the Great. Last winter, when the Baltic was frozen over, and solid ice three feet thick kept the Russian fleet still and motionless within the harbor of Crone tad t, the Grand Duke Conatantine, fearing lest tha crew should be unnrepared for any emergency which might occur in the spring, issued orders for the officers and men to pass through a course of gun drill. Three out of the four 35-ton guns belonging to the monitor had been despatched to the Black Sea for the defence of Odessa, so that the practice could only be carried on with one. The result of the firing has just been mode apparent. The Peter the Great was ordered for a five days' cruise in the Baltic, and on her return the captain reported that she had been streaming like a strainer, fully verifying the epithet which had been bestowed upon her as being an " ironclad colander." Besides the porosity of the hull, some of the cylinders were found cracked, and other portions of the cumbrous machinery more or lees fractured. A committee of naval experts was immediately empanelled, and the decision that they arrived at was that the damage had been caused by the vibration arising from the cannon during the time that the iron composing the hull and machinery was under the influence of severe frost. Iron, it is well known, becomes as brittle as glass when the mercury sinks ten degrees below zero, and last winter not only did this Arctic temperature prevail for a considerable period at Groastadt, but it frequently sank to forty, and on three or four occasions as low as fify, which was the same as Captain Nares experienced near the North Pole. — Globe.