ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VI, Issue 493, 24 April 1850, Page 4

ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

I It is with great regret we have to announce the death of Queen Adelaide, whose piety and benevolence endeared her to all classes of the community. The following announcement of this melancholy event was published in a London Gazette Extraordinary : — " Whitehall, December 2, 1850. " This morning, at seven minutes before two o'clock, her Majesty the Queen Dowager departed this life, at Stanmore Priory, to the great grief of her Majesty and of all the royal family,' after a painful and protracted illness, which she 1 bore with exemplary patience. The loss of this most excellent princess will be deeply mourned by all classes^>f her Majesty's subjects, to whom her many eminent virtues rendered her the object of esteem and affection." ; The total amount collected on the day of thanksgiving in the churches of the metropplis was £3160 18s. 2|d., exclusive of £250 contributed at the Great Synagogue. The " Ex-Railway King," Mr. Hudson, has sold his Londesborough estate, his Octon Grange estate (bought for £70,000) and his Hutto'ri Craflswick estate, comprising altogether about 16,000 acres of land in the East Riding of Yorkshire, to Lord Albert Denison (late Conynghara), the heir and executor of the late Mr. Denison. He retains now only his Baldersley estate, which cost about £125,000, and on which he has expended some £20,000, and Newby Park, which cost £20,000. Messrs. George and Sir John Rennie have received orders tor build and fit with their engines a handsome steam-yacht for his Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Russia. She is to be 180 feet long^ with a draught of water of only four feet, ana calculated to run seventeen miles' an hour. There are numbers of English travellers on their way to Thebes and Up.per Egypt, and considerable riumbers 'en routt at present. La'st'year the usual intercourse was interrupted by the visitation of cholera, arid it is expected" the present'year's numbers will experience an increase in consequence. H.M. Ship Constance, 50 guns, Capt. W. Courtney, arrived at Portsmouth, 1 Nov; -24th, from (he' South Pacific with Californian gold and oilier freight to the amount of 1,750,000 dollars. ' Mr. Bennett of New York, has offered Jenny Lind 1000 dollars per night for 200 nights, and make a furtner offer to place a carriage at her disposal, and to pay every description of expenses attending the concerts or operas. He has also proposed to place £10,000 in the hands of her bankers in London to secure the fulfilment of his proposal. Lieutenant-General R. Pigot has been appointed to the Colonelcy of the 4th Dragoon Guards, vice Sir G. Anson, G.C.8., deceased. Lieutenant-General Pigot was formerly of the 21st Dragoons. ' The boilers to the 'two steam-engines at the General Post-office' have just been furnished with an apparatus which supplies the furnace with coal without any care trom the attendant, and at the same time consumes all or nearly all the smoke as fast as it is generated. The machinery is very simple, and said to be very effective. The invention, which is by Mr. Samuel Hall, of Basford, is patented. A commission has been formed under the presidency qf the French Minister of Commerce to report on the incase of establishing at Paris, and in 'the large towns of France, public baths and washh'ouses, with th^e co-op-eration, of the state, the departments, the communes, and private individuals. The jurisdiction of the County Courts is expected to be increased to £50, in the next session of Parliament. A coil of copper wire 12,200 feet long, was delivered at the Gutta Percha Company's works, City-road, at 4 p.m. on Monday, the 19th, to be covered with sulphuretted gutta percha for the Prussian Government, with strict injunctions that it must be despatched by the Hamburgh mail on the following day. Notwithstanding this short notice the extraordinary feat was accomplished, the coil being shipped within 24 hours of its arrival. The Boston Emancipator (United States) stales that an inquest being recently held on the body of a female slave, whipped to death by her master, a jury of planters returned the following complaisant and considerate verdict .—". — " Died of apoplexy, brought on by excitement /" A fatal instance of the unskilful em-

ployment of ether, Jas a sedative, occurred at Berlin lately. A young lady, having occasion fora dentist's assistant, and fearing pain, consented to be etherised. ' Her wish was assented to and the sedative applied so effectually that she sank into eternal sleep. All efforts to restore her proved ineffectual. A munificent bequest has recently been made by a Mr. Jenkins of £10,000 for the erection of a forking Man's Hall in the Metropolis. The building is to be for the free use of working men of all denominations, under.the control" of twelve directors, who have been nominated. Mr. Hall, the geologist, it was said, has expressed, bis .intention, on the completion of the building, to present his fine museum' to it; and further, that a gentleman whose name did not transpire, would turnish a library of 1000 volumes. A semi-colossal marble statue of a wrestler,_of surpassing beauty, has been discovered in some excavations made by order of the Government in the Trastevere at Rome. The statue was found in the most admirable state of preservation, and is considered to be, if not superior, at least equal to the Apollo Belvidere. The following description of the discovery of the statue is given in the Giornqle di Roma: — "A few days back Signor Camillo Jacobini, Minister of Commerce and of the Fine Arts, ordered the excavations lately commenced to be continued in the Trastevere, and particularly in a small street called "Vicolo delle Palme." In the middle of that street, not far from the spot where the celebrated horse of bronze was discovered, the workmen dug up a naked statue of Gieek marble, and of a semi-colossal size. In the opinion of several distinguished artists who have seen it, it may be classed with any of the chefs d'ceuvre of Greek sculpture, on account of ifs great beauty and extreme elegance. Although both the arms and the legs were, broken, fortunately none of the pieces were missing, and Signor Tenerani, who was employed to restore the statue, is of opinion that it represents an athlete cleaning his arm with a "strigil." Signor Canina, the director of the excavation in which so esteemed and beautiful a work of art hay been found, declares it to be the work either of Polycletus Sicionius, or of Lysippus, both of .which artists employed similar subjects for their statues, as is described by Pliny in the 34th book of his Natural History, or that it may be a repetition of a work of this last artist, if it cannot be allowed to extend Pliny's description of labours in bronze to those of marble. In this manner this statue may have the additional merit of being one of the few mentioned by Pliny. Such pictures of athlete may be often found designed on cups or on Etruscan vases, but a statue made in this way of a young man who is smoothing or polishing his skin has never been found up to the present time. "The athlete is standing up, and, holding the 'strigil' with his left hand, polishes the skin of his right arm, which he holds extended. His countenance is ideal, bis head is rather small, his neck is rather thick, his shoulders show vigour and force, and his legs hardly surpass the natural size."

Experiments with Lights supported by Parachutes. —Woolwich, November 16. —A number of officers assembled at the Mortar Battery, at half-past five o'clock, p.m., when quite dark, to witness experiments with the common 8-inch carcases of the service used for firing, so as to give light to show the position of an enemy in dark nights, and to compare them with an invention to answer the same purpose more effectually, invented by Captain Boxer, Royal Artillery. The first fired was one of the carcases from an 8-inch mortar, and it fell to the ground at a distance of between 200 and 300 yards, and continued burning about ten minutes. One of the cases containing' Captain Boxer's plan was then fired. It corsists of two tin cases, each being half asphere, the one containing the composition which burns like a brilliant blue light, and the other the parachute, formed of a light description of closely woven bunting. The diameter of the, cases, appeajreij to be about five inches, and wheA fired,, they attained a considerable altitude, but the parachute, in the first instance di,d not, open out sufficiently, and the lighted .composition soon fell to the ground. The second fired, on Captain Boxer.'s plan, was a beautiful spectacle, the shells .ascending to; a-great altitude,, and when at the highest point, an expjos^n took place similar to. the. bursting of a rocket in the air, and out came a parachute fully six feet in diameter, and .about three feet depth, suspending the brilliant blue light, and gra T dually descending in a south-east direction, owing to the point of the compass from which the wind was blowing at the time, and lighting the part of the common on which it descended with a light nearly equal to what is given by a full moon on a clear night. The third aud fourth that were fired on Captain Boxer's principle were equally successful, and all appeared much gratified with the result.

It may be mentioned that the parachute which supports the burning composition on Capjsij? Boxer's plan is about from seven to eight fjc§t above the burning matter; six cords descending from it are attached to a small chain about a to the composition shell.

foot long, fi^ed The"Els<2Tßlc TELEG9.Apg. —The ,cgs| of a telegraph line in England is £150 per mile, in 1 America under £30, and in Prus»i« under £20 per mile. The telegraph jp Prqssia consists of one wire, extending byer lj^p? miles, carried under ground, |hjQUg|v a C£ajting of gutta percha, and affording m*ny advantages over the lines in England. The instrument yised in Prussia is by Morse, and it js capable of transmitting I,ooo' ypiffLk an hour- In America there are 10,0,00 mii^t. of telegraph line, and all worked in a. cheap.. manner. In England there are only 2,000> miles of telegraph ljqe in "operation, and' the cost of transmission is as "yet much' Mghgk than in other countries. In this PQu_ntr,y. wires are exposed to the atmosphere. Stflong as this yaluable mode of commumcatigri' is above ground, so, lon.g mqsj (here 6? amount of uncertainty abouj is, If iap,^tix%» were placed under ground, it would be:much more difficult to destroy them. In the late r revolutionary movements in Prussia £he twenty; miles Vf telegraph above grou^ %r£^sji.j;. r away twenty different times, while those u#jfer ground escaped untouched; The East Indii Company intend tp adopt the under' ground* telegraph for the 10,000 miles of lit^e th^j* are preparing to lay down, in that country. The simplicity and expedition with which telegraphs in America are' constructed is .astonishing. Locust or libarnum poles, twenty feet long, are cut in- the woods.by .the^djffe^ rent farmers along the ling,, apd placed by them at their several stations ; holes ars dug three feet six inches deep ; the poles art set with glass insulators (instead of earttienw,are,, as here), attached to the polqs vyithin three : inches of the top, the wire exuded, and in a , few days, at a comparatively trifling expense*; whole lines are formed. The repairs of $§ posts and wires are entrusted to the farmers living at intervals of five miles along the, lines, who are furnished with a few tpols to, effect repairs, viz. —a hammer, a small anvil, a punch, a pair of plyers and a screw bjr which the ends of the wires are drawn toge/1 ther, a few small rings and lincb pins. With ihe cold chisel holes are punched in the ends' of the wire, both end's passed through the.; ring, and the linch pins, put in, which con> pletes the job, the farmer having for his reward the privilege of making his communjca-. tions by the telegraph free;' The lines' are* invariably carried along the sides of the mail roads throughout the country, and it is astonishing the little amount of repairs annually necessary either to the wires or posts. There is no instance of malicious and wilful injury being done to either throughout the country. This is accounted for in two ways —first, the anxiety on the part of all classes to promote and encourage every useful improvement and invention throughout the whole extent of the.. land; and next, from the fact that each farmer along the whole line who has supplied either materials or labour for its erection becomes very willingly a shareholder to the extent at least of the amount of the labor and, materials he has furnished. Hence the residents along the line have an interest is its safety, and in promoting its success. To realise the regularity, the perfection, and at' the same time the simplicity of the immense lines, of telegiaph in America, they must be seen and examined to be thoroughly understood. In the east, where materials are high and labour not cheap, they are constructed^ a cost of one hundred and' eighty dollars, 'or thirty-five pounds sterling per mile ; in ihe west, where materials are cheap and labour high, the cost of construction is about £30 sterling, or 150 doljars per mile. The line now surveying, and in. contemplation, frqng St. Louis, on the Missouri River, to California, on the Pacific Ocean, extending^ mor4" than- 2,500 miles, is estimated to cost> not more than 150 dollars, or £30 sterling per mile. Within the iast year Morse's, newly invented machine is almost exclusively used, by means of which the communications are printed on a narrow slip of paper and unrolled from a cylinder like a continuous piece of ribbon, the contents of which, as it comes, off the cylinder, is registered in a book belongiqg to the office, and the actual printed *Tid itself nut into' an envelope and sent off direct^ ed'to the party for whom it was intended.-7-Edinburgh Repieut.