Shipping.

Colonist, Volume II, Issue 105, 22 October 1858, Page 2

Shipping.

ENTERED OUTWARDS. October 19.—Necromancer, schooner, 20, Short, for Collingwood, with 2 casks and.lo bags sugar. October 19.—Pride of the Isles, schooner, 28, Davidson, for the Wairau. October 20.—Gipsy, schooner, 20, M'Lean, for the Wairau.

Postal Service with Australia.—Addressing the Editor of the Morning Chronicle, frbm Weymouth, under the initials " F. W. W.," a correspondent of that paper says:—Notwithstanding the munificent subsidies provided by the Australian colonies to secure a certain and reliable postal communication with Great Britain, they continue subject to the most vexatious irregularities, tending seriously to affect not only the social, but commercial interests of the colonists, with whom a universal feeling of indignation prevails. The excuse urged by the contract steam companies to justify such irregularities is the great distance for a steamer to traverse between Suez and back, rendering punctuality impracticable. Such assertion is equally absurd and untenable; evidenced by? the fact that we have established lines which perform quite as long voyages with perfect regularity, from Southampton to Calcutta, and Liverpool and Valparaiso ; therefore the Australian people contend that there exists no substantial reason why, with efficient steamers, the postal communication with the mother country should. eVer exceed sixty days, either via Point de Galle or Panama. The latter route appears created by nature, from the placidity of its ocean, peculiarly adapted as the direct thoroughfare for steam navigation to Australia, and which the Ameri.cans tested four years since from S}'dney to Panama in the Golden Age r a magnificent steamer of 3000 tons, in which the writer made two voyages -from Sydney to Melbourne. If, then, the Australian people are to be afflicted with these gross blunders and irregularities of the postal service much longer, which seriously jeopardise the commercial prosperity of the richest colonies in the world, no matter whether arising from supineness of the Imperial Government or breaches of contract of steam companies, the merchant princes of those magnificent colonies will take ihe matter in their own hands, and secure for themsejves a faithful and punctual mail service with Europe; for ;, the mere infliction of penalties for breaches of contract provides no redress or satisfaction either in a commercial or social view. To the former it may involve serious pecuniary loss, and entail on the latter (the Australian settler) one of the greatest discomforts of his life, not receiving intelligence from his kindred and friends in Fatherland.

The Leviathan Measubed in-Pins.—There is probably no object of modern industry and skill that has created a greater amount'of interest and speculative observation than the Leyiathan. Her gigantic proportions, her vast and roomy arrangements, and her enormouß tonnage, having fully entitled her-to be' termed the mammoth of the deep; and if her sailing

powers are equal to the magnitude of her other arrangements, there is every probability that she-will effect as. great a change in maritime affairs as the railways have done in that of locomotion. The structure of this huge ship, however, is nothing more than the natural development of our maritime capabilities. In our leading factories, and in our spacious warehouses and shops, we have long demonstrated the fact that large returns and small profits are the most profitable and beneficial both to producerand to consumer; and if the application of this principle holds good on land there can be no question that it will be found equally so upon the sea, for the mere medra of transit can make no difference in that respect. As compared, then, to the minnows of the ocean this maritime mammoth holds about the same position as the late millionare Morrison's town-of a'Warehouse in this metropolis does to the myriad of minors which are devoted to the same class of industry. Yet huge, mammothic, and gigantic as the Leviathan may be when compared with her many sailing sisters of the deep, wo venture to think that few—veiy few—of the many thousands that have seen her, and the many millions who have heard of her, and, doubtless, would be delighted to see her, have anything but a vague and un defined notion of the canying power which she possesses, and of the space which can be devoted to that purpose, in her peculiar structure. The tonnage of the Leviathan is stated to be 22,500 tons; this is an enormous carrying power, which, however, can only be estimated by those who have a practical knowledge of such matters, and who are almost daily habituated to observe them. At the first blush of the question, many would suppose that this huge vessel is capable of carrying a large street, or a small town, men. women, children, chattels, houses and all; but, when we suggest to this magnitudinously-visioned class another mode of conveying to their mind's eye the size and power of the Leviathan, they will, we believe, have a different notion of what she really is, and how much she can really accomplish, as regards her'carrying capacity. We shall simply measure that capacity!! which is not proportionate to the other appointments' 'of the vessel, by a mere piri, and not by feet and inches, asis the common practice, which from its very contrast will perhaps convey the best notion of its size and extent. Suppose, then, that any one was allowed to pay the Leviathan a visit once a week for &■ single year, upon this condition, that a pin must be dropped upon her deck at the first visit, and that upon each of the-succeeding weekly visits the number of pins must be doubled. There would, then, be fifty-two deposits; of pins, and each would be double that which preceded it. Many no doubt imagine that the capacious hold of the huge monster will contain the aggregate quantity of pins deposited. -The pin, we ought to premise, must be. one of those which are for ordinary use, and about one inch in length. Let us calculate for a moment or so. On the first week there would be one pin, on the tenth week there would be 512~ pins, on the twentieth week Jihera-'wouTcl be 524,288 pins, on Jljfi^iOth^hiefe would be 549,755,813,888, and ; "on the fifty-second or the close there would be the great enormous number of 2,251,799,813,685,248 pins. Now, the weight of this quantity of pins would be, as nearly as possible, 251,316, 943 tons 7 cwt. 67 lbs. 5 oz. So that it would require about 1117 Leviathans, calculating the tonnage of each at 22.5u0, to cany the weight of pins that might be deposited in fifty-two weeks, upon the simple condif tion of commencing with the unit and doubling the quantity each time. Applying the pin-measurement moreover, to the length of the voyage of the Leviathan to Australia and back, giving 15,000 miles as the distance out, and the same home, it will take just thirty-two deposits of pins to complete the line, each pin occupying an inch, and the whole to be laid end to end. The ship would pass over the space, in a right line, of 1,900,800,000 superficial inches, and the number of pins that pro rata would be deposited in the time specified would be 2,147,483,648, which would cover rather more than the same length of line. Again, if we take the total number of pins deposited in fifty-two weeks, and assuming each pin to be an inch in length, the aggregate deposit would measure 35,539,709,786 miles, which, at 30,000 miles the voyage out and homeward, would give for completing the same distance by the Leviatban, 1,184,659 voyages, i and the time required for making them, giving 50 days I out and home, will be 324,564 years, a pretty long distance for a single vessel to make. But calculations of this nature, it may be said, belong rather to astronomical science, in which distance maybe imagined by the aid of figures, yet cannot be realised to the practical conceptions of the mind, and are of little value when applied to the mere definite area within which maritime matters, however extended, must necessarily be confined. Be it so ; still there is many a. mind set to think upon the subject when it is placed before it in lan out-of-the-way manner, which otherwise it would leave unnoticed; and though these calculations may be considered more curious than instructive; still they must be acknowledged to be as useful as those which have occasionally described the precise length to which a pound of cotton can be lengthened by spinning, the singular tenuity of a grain of gold when beaten into leaf, and the area which the sovereign, required to redeem the national debt would cover, if each were laid upon the ground, or, indeed, any other calculation upon a subject 'of a kindred nature.— Bell's Messenger,