CASUALTIES IN CAPTAIN COLLINSON'S BEHRING STRAIT EXPEDITION. Ir is with great regret that we have to announce the following lamentable casualties in the Enterprize, Captain Collinson, C.B. We copy the account from the Times. On the 16th inst., we mentioned that H.M.S. Dædalus, Captain Wellesley, had reached San Francisco on the 22nd of October from Behring Strait, which she left on the 1st of that month. By that ship information was received that the Plover, Commander Moore, had passed the winter in Grantley Harbour. The crew of the latter had suffered a good deal from scurvy, but no lives were lost, and a great number of the crew were removed, and replaced by volunteers from the Daedalus. We now learn that the Enterprize, which rejoined the Plover on the 3rd of July, was less fortunate, having lost two officers, Lieutenant J. Barnard and Mr. Whitehead, clerk in charge. Lieutenant Barnard and Mr. E. Adams, assistant-surgeon of the Enterprize, had been left at Michaelowski, the Russian trading post in Norton Bay, in October last, for the purpose of collecting information of the missing expedition from the Russian posts and from the natives inland. In pursuance of this object, Lieutenant Barnard, with an interpreter, had gone early in January, to a distant post, intending to communicate if possible, with some of the neighbouring chiefs. During the night the post was surrounded by a large body of Ko-yu-kuk Indians, several of whom at daybreak entered the principal dwelling and killed the Russian Governor. Lieutenant Barnard and the interpreter, who were in the same house, made such resistance as drove the Indians out of the house. They then lay siege to the post, sheltering themselves behind wooden shields, stuck upright in the snow, but one of them being soon afterwards shot, the whole party retired to an Esquimaux village at some distance, where they committed great cruelties, killing upwards of sixty natives, including women and children. Lieutenant Barnard died of his wounds on the afternoon of the day following the attack. Mr. Adains, on hearing of the event at Michaelowski, proceeded with a number of Russians to the distant post, where he saw the body of his late companion, in which were numerous wounds, the principal one being in the abdomen, and of such an extent as to have proved inevitably fatal. Mr. Whitehead's death took place on board the Enterprize, while on her passage from Hong-Kong to Port Clarence. MUSEUM OF PRACTICAL GEOLOGY: LONDON.-We understand that officers of the Army and Navy, as well as those of the Honourable East India Service, are admitted to the Lectures of the Museum of Practical Geology, in Jermyn Street, at half the usual charge of admission. FIVE BOATS IN THE PLACE OF ONE.-Berthon's Boats. It will be readily admitted that a superabundance of boats and still better of life-boats, is a most desirable thing for every sea-going vessel. But the question is, where and how are so many life-boats to be stowed? For instance an emigrant ship with 500 passengers, where is she to carry enough life-boats to save so large a number from wreck, or that still more terrible calamity, fire, which has been so very frequent of late with this class of vessels? The above question is satisfactorily solved by the life-boats recently invented and fairly tried by the Rev. E. L. Berthon. A full description of these boats with drawings will be given in another number. At present we confine ourselves to a brief and general notice of their construction. &c. They combine instantaneous collapsibility and expansion, with enormous strength. The very largest boat ever carried by a first class ship will shut itself into little more than two feet, and being always under the davits is ready to lower at any moment. When in the water they are most perfect life-boats, with rowing and sailing powers second to none. The expense is moderate-weight very small. The position in which these boats are carried, viz:-outside the bulwarks and not rising above them, renders them safe from destruction by fire, an event which added so much to the fatal result of the burning of the Amazon. As a proof of the strength of these boats, it may be stated that a twenty-one foot boat placed upon two blocks at the stem and stern out of the water does not bend the smallest portion of an inch, even when filled with men. THE HARBOUR OF NEWCASTLE.-Although the harbour is not so easy of access as it is desirable it should be, ships when once within its precincts are perfectly secure by reason of the shelter and protection afforded by the "breakwater." It has lately been surveyed at the private expense of the Port Master, Captain Livingstone, and from the chart laid down by the surveyor, Captain Peters, it would appear that vessels of almost any tonnage might enter, and find good anchorage in sand and mud. Large ships, it is true, cannot take in entire cargoes under the Company's staith, or at Donaldson's Wharf. Twelve feet is found on the bar of the coal channel at low, and seventeen and a half high water spring tides; but within such narrow limits that it is not considered generally safe to take vessels over, when drawing more than fourteen to fourteen feet and a half, the slightest diverge from the centre of the channel bringing a vessel at once into nine and fourteen feet and a half, in the respective states of the tide above mentioned. The rise of tide is five feet and a half full and change. This obstruction obliges some vessels to load partly in the stream by the aid of lighters, an inconvenience that might, and probably will, be remedied, by the Company running a shoot across the channel into deep water. There is as yet no lighthouse here, but in lieu thereof, a beacon fire light is maintained during every night at the signal station. Taken at the flag staff the latitude given on the chart is 32° 56′ south, longitude 151° 44′ 15′′ east. The leading winds are south-east to south-west inwards, north-west to north-east outwards. An excellent wharf running east from the Queen's Wharf has been constructed with ballast discharged from coasting and other vessels, and others are in course of formation of the same material, to be run in the contrary direction. When completed, much valuable ground will be reclaimed from the water.-Sydney Paper. NEW CHARTS AND, BOOKS. Published by the Hydrographic Office, Admiralty, and Sold by J. D. Potter, 31, Poultry. ENGLAND, THAMES RIVER, sheets No. 1, 2, and 3, corrected to 1851, by s. d. Capt. Bullock, R.N., each 3 LOWESTOFT ROADS, corrected to 1852, Capt. Bullock, R.N. 0 1 2 9690 WEST INDIES, BAHAMAS, Wide opening, Capt. Barnett, R.N., 1838, Ditto CLONAKILTY BAY, Com. Wolfe, R.N., 1846 0 6 1 1 MED TERRANEAN, ARCHIPELAGO, sheets 2 and 3, Cupt. Graves, R.N., 1850, each AFRICA, (South Coast), sheet 10. SORDWANA POINT to DELAGOA Bay. DERWENT River, REVOLVING STORMS 2 1 1 Hydrographic Office, November 20th, 1851. JAVA, Directions, Second Edition MEDITERRANEAN LIGHTS, corrected to 1852 FRENCH, SPANISH, and PORTUGUESE LIGHTS, to 1852 666 90009906 METEOROLOGICAL REGISTER. Kept at Croom's Hill, Greenwich, by Mr. Rogerson, of the Royal Observatory, From the 21st of December, 1851, to the 20th of January, 1852. December, 1851.-Mean height of the barometer = 30 258 inches; mean temperature degrees; depth of rain fallen 0 69 inches. Hunt & Son, Printers, 6, New Church Street, Edgware Road, 40.0 REPORT ON SABLE ISLAND, IN THE ATLANTIC OCEAN.-By Captain H. W. Bayfield, R.N. SABLE ISLAND was discovered very early in the sixteenth century, and although the strong and irregular currents around its formidable sandbars, together with the prevalent fogs, soon made it the dread of navigators, it appears nevertheless, to have been not unfrequently visited, in those early times, by the Portuguese, French, and English fishermen. Cattle and swine are said to have been landed there by the Baron de Lery in 1518, and by the Portuguese in 1553. The first of these reports wants confirmation: the second was so far credited, that it induced Sir Humphrey Gilbert to visit the island in 1583, in the hope of obtaining supplies. He, however, found no cattle on the island, and having lost one of his three vessels on its dangerous bars, he sailed for England with the other two. But this distinguished half brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, celebrated for the virtues of public and private life, was destined never again to behold the land of his birth; for his vessel, the Squirrel,* foundered in a violent storm which she encountered on the passage home, and all on board perished! This voyage is full of interest, from the circumstance of Newfoundland being taken possession of, the discovery that was made by it, and the fatal events by which it was attended. The ships arrived at Penguin, (now Fogo,) Island, and went on to Conception Bay, and afterwards to St. John Bay. Sir NO. 3.-VOL. XXI. R In 1598, the Marquis de la Roche landed forty convicts on the island, of whom twelve only were found alive at the end of seven years, when a vessel was sent to bring them back to France. Although the total wreck of a French ship supplied them with some provisions, and also with the materials for the huts that prevented them from perishing from want of shelter in the first winter, yet twenty-eight of these miserable people appeared to have perished from the difficulty of subsisting so large a company upon the walrus, seals, fish, and berries, which formed their only food, and which it must often have been exceedingly difficult to procure. If therefore, the reports of cattle having been previously landed on the island be true, they must have been exterminated before these unfortunate people arrived there. It is, however, certain that they were introduced very soon afterwards, and that they multiplied exceedingly, for in 1635, the number of horned cattle on the island, was estimated at eight hundred head. It is said, that the island was several times stocked with cattle, as a humane provision for the shipwrecked, but that notwithstanding their rapid increase, the danger of remaining long near the island, and latterly a proclamation of the Governor of Nova Scotia forbidding them to be killed, they were as often extirpated by unprincipled persons who hunted them for their hides and tallow. At last they were replaced by the present race of wild horses, but when, or by whom, designedly or accidentally from wrecks, is not known. Haliburton, from whose interesting history of Nova Scotia I have drawn most of the foregoing particulars, states, that there was for many years "a small herd of wild hogs on the island, which became exceedingly fierce, but that the climate which had always restricted their increase, finally overcame them altogether, the whole having perished during an unusually severe winter. It is also stated, that these creatures, from their occasionally feeding on the dead bodies that came on shore from wrecks, were regarded with the utmost horror Humphrey Gilbert took possession of Newfoundland, and received presents from all the vessels he found there, particularly those of the Portuguese. Mutiny and sickness broke out in his fleet, while in St. John Bay, by which many were lost. He sailed in search of Sablon (Sable) Island, on which he was told that the Portuguese had landed cattle thirty years previously. His ship struck on a sandbank, (probably off Sable Island) and several of her crew were lost. The admiral was saved, and went on board a small vessel of his fleet, (the Squirrel of ten tons!) and shaped his course for England. But, having passed the Azores in September, they were overtaken by a storm; and the small vessel, in which the admiral embarked, foundered, with all on board. Mr. Barrow, in his valuable Chronological History of Voyages into the Arctic Regions, quotes the following passage concerning Sir Humphrey Gilbert, from Prince's Worthies of Devon. "He was an excellent hydrographer, and no less skilful mathematician; of an high and daring spirit, though not equally favoured of fortune; yet the large volume of his virtues may be read in his noble enterprises; the great design whereof was to discover the remote countries of America, and to bring off those savages from their diabolical superstitions to the embracing the gospel of our Lord and Saviour Christ; for which, his zeal deserves an eternal remembrance." The day before his vessel foundered, she having recovered from being nearly overwhelmed by a sea, Sir Hugh was seen sitting abaft, with a book in his hand, and was heard calling out to his crew, "Courage, my lads! we are as near to heaven by sea as by land!" |