SHIPPING INTELLIGENCE.

New Zealander, Volume 7, Issue 553, 2 August 1851, Page 2

SHIPPING INTELLIGENCE.

AUKIVU.S. July 30— Eliza, 42 tons, G. Newhnrn, from Hawk's liny, willi 20 tons humpback oil, 120 bushels wheat. July 30— ftlniys, 20 tons, John Shearer, from tho IJay ofPlenty, with -IN pigs, 200 bushels of maize. July 30— Children, oQ tons, A. Jones, from Russell, with 7 head of cattle, and 4 pigb. T. Lewis, agent. July ,}1 — Yictorm, 17 tons, Isanc Wenick, ftom Wnibelci, with 30 tons of firewood. August I —Vivid, '2<> tons, W. llitchingq, from Mongonui, with 100 bushels wheat, 200 ditto corn, -10 pigs. Passengers— Capt. and Mis. Butler.

mnwRTViiES. July 31— Arabia, 02 tons, J. S. Macfailane, for Nobart Town, via llsiwl>e's 15ny, — Salmon & Co., agents. July 3i— Victoria, 17 tons, Isaac Memck ior Waiheli. August ii — Alexander, ship, 398 tons, Captain T. Long, for Tahiti. Passengers — The surviving officers and crew of the l.ito Krcnch corvette Alcmene, in all 192 ; and P. Gale, Esq. — James Blacky, agent. August I— Children, SO tons A. Jones, for Russell, with 1 ton sugar, 3 chests tea, 4 cases slops, 1 ton flour, 2 bnos cunants, 1 bag raisins, 3 paicols sundiies. — T. Lewis, agent. Aupust 1— Emily, 10 ton«, K. Mnir, for Wangaroi, vith 1 ton potatoes, 5 cases sundries, 5 bags wheat, 2 bags flour. Passengers — W. Petmgale.

EXPORTS — rOHKIGN. Per Arabia for llobart Town, " via Hawk's Hay— SO casks (30 tuns) humpback oil, 2 tons wool lashing (to be shipped nt Hawke's Bay), 2,000 bushels maize, 1 case wine — shipped at Auckland. Per Alexander, for Tahiti— 2o casks of honey, (part of original cargo), 5 pipes of wine, shipped at Auckland.

PROGRESS OF STEAM NAVIGATION. (From tlie " Daily News.") A retrospective glance at the history of the rise and progress of ocean steam navigation will throw some light upon the important question, whether our mad contract system has done more to promote or retard that branch of commercial enterprise. The first period | of this history embiaces the yeais which elapsed from the invention of the sea going steam-boat to the commencement of the bounty or contract system. A few yenrs elapsed after the invention of river steamers before the new invention was tried on the open sea. Passing over the preliminary experiments out of which the Bteam-boat oiiginated, we may date tho invention of the present system of steam navigation somewbore between 1802 nnd 1812. Tho Charlotte Dundas of our countryman Symington, which in 1802 towed two vessels, of 70 tons each, 19£ miles on the Forth and Clyde canal, in six hours, had all the essential properties of the maiine steam engine of 1850. Fulton, in 1807, had the undoubted meat of introducing steam navigation for practical purposes on the Hudson, by his Clermont. Hut this honour might have fallen on one of our own countrymen ; for Henry Bell presented his invention in 1800—3 to the Admiralty, ■who, as blind in those days as now, to renl improvement, neglected Mr. Bell, who was not able to start the Comet on the Cljde, till 1812, when Fulton bad six steamers running on the Hudson. The hull of the Comet, built by Messrs John Wood and Co., of Port Glasgow, measured 30 tons ; it was propelled by engines of threes horse power. Symington, Fulton, Bell, nil three, as is usually the case with great inventors, were cruelly neglected by their coutrymen while living, though piaised by them when dead. Yet they had their reward ; for the wealth of a millionaire could not have given any of them the proud sensation he felt, when the Charlotte Dundas, on a winter day, stoutly towed into Poit Dundas, against a strong head wind, the Active and the Euphemia : or < when the Clermont arrived at Clermont, the seat of Chancellor Livingstone, in 24 hours, from New York, a distance of 110 miles ; or when Henry Bell laid the Comet alongside the Broomielaw, then innocent of nught but herring cobbles. The Clyde and Hudson, inferior in beauty to no rivers in the old or new world, were admirably adapted for the infant exertions of tho young giant they brought foith. Fiom Sandy llpok to Albany, from Ailsa Craig to Glasgow, were the nurseries of the youthful Hercules, and to this day these rivers Bend forth the finest specimens of marine steam architecture. Iv Greenock, where James Watt drew his first brenth, the first fruits of his great invention were realised, in bo far as deep sea steam navigation is concerned. Tho first steam-boat proper — using the term in contradistinction to the steamers modelled after sailing vessels — was created by Messrs. John Wood and Co., of Poit Glasgow, in 1810, for the Leith and Loudon station. .Blundering experiments, turning sailing ships into eteam-boat9 possessing the bad qualities of both, had been tried before, as they were long afterwards by the Admiialty; but the first steam-boat proper in this country was the James Watt, of the Messrs. Wood. "David Napier, of Glasgow, was the man who, adopting Henry Bell's idea, first ciossed the Irish Channel in the Hob Koy fiom Glasgow to Belfast; arid William Laird (a Greenock man resident in Liverpool) was the first, in 1822, to establish steamers betweon that poit and Dublin. Private deep sea navigation was confined, from the time of ite first establishment till 1(331, to the coasting trade, and at that date tho most poweiful engines employed were those of the London and Dundee steamers, of 240-horse power. To the late Sir Pulteny Malcolm, who commanded the Mediterranean fleet in 1830, tho credit is due of having established the line of Mediterranean steamers. The full merit of his services will be appreciated by those who remember the ignorance and prejudice he had to encounter. The steamers he got to accomplish this duty were old gun- brigs lengthened, and yet they accomplished an average of 7\ miles per hour. Between 1 830 and 1834 the East India Company ■were not idle. 1 h< j y had learned expeiimenlally the value of steam in the Burmese war; they had gone to a great expense in placing steamers on the Ganges; and they had proved tho ptacticability of the Red Sea route, by the voyages of the Hugh Lindsay between Bombay and Suez. The notes of evidence and documentary information collected and published by the Select Committee of 1834, kindled to a flame the spark of private enterprise. An immense deal of nonsense was talked to that committee, and by men of sense, too, in other respects; it led to the costly find abortive (in so far nanui!communication with India is concerned) exploration of the Euphrates ; and it originated the contract or bounty system. But it was also the means of communicating totbegeueial public a valuable stoieof information respecting deep sea steam navigation. The British and American Steam Navigation Company, and the Liverpool and i\ew Voik Steam Navigation Company, were the fimts of that inquiry. Nor must we overlook the individual enterpiise of Sir John Tobm, who, at l» own sole expense, built and equipped tho " Livoipool for transatlantic trade. It took four years to bring to maturity the concnp tionsoi 1834. At length iho "riinun" ai.d " Grnat Western " achieved the passage of tho Atlantic just ftJ

Ui. Lindner was demonstrating its impossibility, nnd otnbl^lii'tl tiansntl.mtic steam communication. The " JlnliMi Queen," the " Liverpool," the ill-fated " l'rofiidciU," and the "Groat linuin," followed. Vessels of nil sixes and varieties of structure were laid down by pi ivate individuals aiul companies, unaided by Government assistance, uncheeied by government pilronuge, to try, ni the open race of competition, for mastery on the broad Atlantic. It was an ennobling and hoart-inspii in? sight, the way in winch the energy and enterprise of the lSnghs.li people, left to their own vigour and lcsourccs, msbed into the field of ocean sleam uavi^ntjoi). Numbers might lose their morey, time, and labour, aa Raleigh and their iorofutlieiV had clone before them ; buL of the ultimate successful result of th.it enterprise which had i educed the pass.ige across the Atlantic from an unceit.iin one of '10 days to a certain one of 1-1 days no onr» did or could entertain a doubt. Hosv this dawn of promise was overcast by government interference must bo reserved to foim the subject of another paper.