EXTRACTS.

Westport Times, Volume II, Issue 233, 30 April 1868, Page 3

EXTRACTS.

Fiji.—The gentlemen who are anxious to invest in Fiji securities will do well to ponder over the following extract from our American files : " The President has received a very singular treaty from the King of the Fiji Islands, which the latter hopes will be ratified. It consists 'of an immense tooth of a whale, attached to a grass string, and enclosed in a piece of bark. The naval agent who delivered the tooth was instructed to say to the President, that it was a treaty by which the King of the Fijis mortgaged his lands to the United States for the payment of the instalments or indemnity due to the United States, to continue for three years, the President, on his part, to agree to prevent the rival Fiji king from levying war against the legitimate sovereign during the continuance of the mortgage. On being asked how the treaty was to be ratified and exchanged, the agent said his instructions were, that if the President accept the tooth, then the treaty is established; if he declined the treaty, he is to return the tooth to the King. It is not known, as yet, whether the Senate will ratify this treaty ; probably not, as it comes from the hands of President Johnson.-— Melbourne Herald. Peabl Fishery.—The Yankee nation, having had a rather satisfactory experience in the business of mining for silver and gold, is now about to turn its attention to the pearl fishery, and the next thing in order would be diamonds. PearlSj however, will be sufficient for the present —if they can be got. The old fashioned method of diving for them is too slow and costly for these times. The divers go down on an average only 12 times a day, and remain down a minute at a dive, so that twelve minutes at the bottom is a day's work on an average, and in that time they get about one hundred oysters. The submarine armor and diving hells are inconvenient, dangerous, and costly in many respects. The apparatus now about to be used consists of a submarine boat, made of boiler iron, 36ft long, 10ft wide, and 7ft deep, open at the bottom. This boat is nearly full of air when it leaves the surface, and the breathing of the men rapidly produces carbonic, (gas) but by an invention or application, devised, we believe, by Mr Byerson, a Californian inventor, this gas is absorbed by throwing water in spray through the boat, thus leaving the atmosphere pure. All the expense of pumping air down, and all the dangers ClllU II I tUII V CingtivO vl jjLLttUJLLtbII.JU.UiI CU-1 airtube open to the surface are avoided. The boat and apparatus have been tried in New York harbor with the most satisfactory results, where a party of six remained for hours at a depth twenty-five feet below the surface. The Pacific Pearl Company, of which Mark Brumaglm is President, and in which a number of Californians own stock, is incorporated in New York, and has published a pamphlet, in which the annual expenses are estimated at 33,500d015., and the gross income 10G,850d015., from shells, and 250,000d015. from pearls, leaving a net income of 414,350d015. Of course, the enterprise is hazardous in its nature but it is not too wild to deserve the attention, interest, and encouragement of the press. It is understood that if they succeed'at Panama, they will soon send a boat to the Gulf of California. — Alia California.

A scnooL, it is said, will he shortly opened at Constantinople for the united instruction 0/ 300 Christian and 300 Mussulman children.

An American paper says:—" Most people think' editing a paper as easy as malriug lovo. A half-day's experience will explode tho pleasant fiction We had rather make love to a dozen women than edit ono paper.