Page 2 Advertisements Column 2

Patea Mail, Volume II, Issue 130, 8 July 1876, Page 2

A fever-stricken post-office is one of the latest sensations in Victoria. Within a few days four deaths occurred in the Richmond post-office, the grave finally closing over the postmaster-himself. All the while the disease was raging in the office, letters and papers were being received from, and despatched thence to all parts of the Colony, and it was only when pressed by a deputation that, the postal authorities consented to close the building and transfer the post and telegraph business to an adjacent store. A German inventor, Wiillam F. Schroeder of Baltimore, is said to have submitted to the New York Engineer’s Association, a model of an airship, designed for carry.ng the mails between America and. Europe. The air-ship is to be steered by a hydraulic apparatus of S-horse powsr, and to be carried by gas balloon. The ship weighs 2.Booibs. ; and has a carrying capacity of 12,000 ibs ; its minimum rate of progress is estimated at seventy miles an hour. Experiments are now being made with it ; should they be successful, a proposal will be made to Congress to, entrust the mail s -rvicc to air-ships.