little island called the Moro, at the entrance of the harbour, as indicated on his chart, he put to sea again. As no such light exists, I think it possible that the error in this chart might occasion some accident by misleading other masters of British ships navigating to this port, and therefore consider it my duty to report the circumstance for the information of your lordships. The chart in question is entitled 'Chart of the Coast of Colombia and the Carribean Sea, drawn from the Surveys made by Commanders R. Owen and E. Barnett, of the Royal Navy. Published by James Imray, Chart and Nautical Bookseller, 102, Minories, 1852.' And in the book of instructions sold with the chart, it is stated that the chart is corrected from the Admiralty chart, 1851.-Bentinck W. DOYLE, H.M. Vice-Consul, Santa Martha.-To the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty."

EDWARDS' PRESERVED POTATO.-Referring to the evidence given before the select committee, by high naval and other authorities, we are much gratified to find Edwards' Preserved Potato so highly spoken of, as of "great importance to the men when on salt meat rations." On reference to the Patentee's advertisement, letters from various naval officers will be found, which testify to the estimable properties of this vegetable as an anti-scorbutic diet in all climates, and therefore invaluable with salt provisions.

DEPARTURE OF THE FORERUNNER.

A Liverpool correspondent says:-This beautiful steam-ship, the launch of which we announced from Mr. Laird's yard a short time ago, as the pioneer or Forerunner of a line of steamers for the Royal African Mail Company, to carry monthly mails between this country and the west coast of Africa, with various ports of call on the way, and other ramifications in Africa, took her departure on Saturday morning last for London. This vessel is the latest production of Mr. John Laird, of Birkenhead, and she attracted universal admi. ration whilst she lay a tide or two in the Mersey, from her great beauty and rakish appearance.

The dimensions of the Forerunner are as follows:

Length.
Beam
Tonnage about

....

She is constructed of great strength, and very fine lines, with considerable rise of floor, and the bottom is so formed as to give a free access for the water to the screw propeller. She divides the water easily, carrying no head, and scarce making a ripple forward and none aft, the water passing away level, without showing any of the following wave, so common in screw vessels.

The Forerunner had on board coals, to put her down to the load draft for which she was constructed, and all her water, provisions, stores, &c., so her performance on Saturday may be considered a very fair index of her minimum speed, as she will of course lighten as she consumes her fuel, water, &c., and increase her speed. The strength of the Forerunner was tested by laying her on the gridiron (to put on Griffith's screw propeller) with a full load on board, and with water in the boilers-a more severe trial than putting her into the graving dock or on a patent slip, as the bilges were left (particularly in a sharp vessel like her) overhanging without any support, but on an examination inside and out, she did not show the slightest strain either to the iron or wood work.

The cabins of the Forerunner are on deck, and most comfortably and neatly fitted up, with a view more especially to thorough ventilation, each state room having two side lights, and every comfort that her proposed station requires. There is also a forecabin and forecastle, and excellent accommodation for officers and engineers. There are two holds for cargo, one forward and the other

aft, and she carries about 15 days' coal in her coal-bunkers, which are principally just before the midship part of the vessel, so as to admit of her (as the coals are consumed) lightening more forward than aft, with a view of keeping the screw properly immersed. She is rigged as a three-masted schooner, having very tall masts, and the sails laced to the booms, as in the yacht America. The engines of the Forerunner are a pair of nominal 25-horse, or collective power of 50-horse, but in reality work to a considerably greater power; are of Fawcett, Preston, and Co.'s make, and do them great credit in design and workmanship.

The Forerunner was first tried with a common screw, and performed satisfactorily; but she has since been fitted with Griffith's patent propeller, the same that has been proved so efficient in the Weaver. As the screw was only finally fitted on Friday night late, we can only judge of its performance by the vessel's passage as far as Holyhead. She left George's pier-head at 8.42 ▲.M, on Saturday, and passed the Bell buoy at 10.19 A.M., having run a distance of 15 miles, against a strong head wind, in 1h. 37m.; the greater part of the time also she had a heavy chopping sea to contend with, and the tide was against her for 40 minutes after leaving. She landed some of the party who were on board at Holyhead, at 4.30, about 75 miles' run, and having had a heavy cross sea and north-west wind to contend with, it was certainly a good performance for a vessel of 50-horse power-a result that can only be attributed to her superior model, and the great effective power of her engines. As the trial of Griffith's screw is looked forward to with considerable anxiety by those interested in screw vessels generally, we shall endeavour to obtain full particulars of the Forerunner's passage to London, and the action of the screw in the severe weather she had to contend with on Saturday night. But we may, in the meanwhile, observe that this screw differs from the ordinary one in the position of the greatest diameter, which, in the common screw, is furthest from the ship, but the reverse in Griffith's screw. In fact, it is just like a garden spade bent into the screw form.-Liverpool Paper.

IRON VESSELS.-A plan has been recently submitted to Government and private shipbuilders, by M. L. Arman, of Bordeaux, and Mr. J. J. Brunet, of the Canal Iron Works, Limehouse, with the view of obviating the objections which at present exist against iron vessels, owing to their ascertained unfitness for war purposes, and that when employed in warm climates they very soon become foul on the surface, an incrustation of weeds and shells being speedily formed, which very seriously retards the speed of the vessel, and in consequence of the material itself being liable to very rapid deterioration, there being several well-authenticated cases of iron vessels that have been employed for only a few years within the tropics, whose outward plating and frames, when exposed to the action of the water, is found entirely changed in character in many parts, and converted into a sort of plumbago, easily cut with a knife, and without any strength or tenacity. M. Arman proposes to remove these objections by building vessels of the most approved modern lines for speed, the outer frame and planking to be of timber, much thinner and lighter than vessels built entirely of timber, and within the outer frame to build one entirely of iron, also proportionably lighter than if built entirely of iron. The French Government have ordered the building of a corvette at Rochfort, to be named La Megere, with auxiliary engines of 220 horse-power, the specimens M. Arman built for the mercantile service of France having given great satisfaction. The plan appears well adapted for the mercantile service of this country, but it is not probable the Admiralty will order any vessel to be built where iron plating is used, as the splinters from it would be most destructive to the crews when splintered by 32-pounder shot, unless M. Arman can show by experiment that his iron is protected.

HER MAJESTY'S DECISION ON THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON'S FUNERAL.

THE event which has produced the following letter, written by the Earl of Derby, at the command of her Majesty, and addressed to the Home Secretary, has become matter of history :-His Grace the Duke of Wellington died suddenly at Walmer Castle, on the 14th of September. The feelings of the nation are so well expressed in the letter by Lord Derby, that we preserve it in the Nautical, and we have added after it the beautiful lines of Mr. Croker, which pourtray with so much truth and elegance the rarely united and noble qualities of the lamented Duke.

"Balmoral, Sept. 20, 1852. "SIR,-Her Majesty received with the deepest grief, on Thursday last, the afflicting intelligence of the sudden death of his Grace the late Duke of Wellington.

"Although the Queen could not for a moment doubt that the voice of the country would be unanimous upon the subject of the honours to be paid to the memory of the greatest man of the age, her Majesty considered it due to the feelings of his Grace's surviving relations that no step should be taken, even in his honour, without their previous concurrence; and, accordingly, the same evening, in obedience to her Majesty's commands, I wrote to Lord Charles Wellesley (the present Duke having not then returned to England) to ascertain whether the late Duke had left any directions, or whether his family desired to express any wish upon the subject; and suggesting the course which appeared to her Majesty best calculated to give expression to those feelings in which the nation, as one man, will sympathise with her Majesty.

Having this day received letters from the present Duke and his brother, to the effect that the late Duke has left no directions on the subject, and placing themselves wholly in her Majesty's hands, I hasten to relieve the public anxiety by signifying to you for general information the commands which I have received from her Majesty.

"The great space which the name of the Duke of Wellington has filled in the history of the last fifty years, his brilliant achievements in the field, his high mental qualities, his long and faithful services to the Crown, his untiring devotion to the interests of his country, constitute claims upon the gratitude of the nation which a public funeral, though it cannot satisfy, at least may serve to recognise.

"Her Majesty is well aware that, as in the case of Lord Nelson, she might of her own authority have given immediate orders for this public mark of veneration for the memory of the illustrious Duke, and has no doubt but that parliament and the country would cordially have approved the step. But her Majesty, anxious that this tribute of gratitude and sorrow should be deprived of nothing which could invest it with a thoroughly national character anxious that the greatest possible number of her subjects should have an opportunity of joining it-is anxious, above all, that such honours should not appear to emanate from the Crown alone, and that the two Houses of Parliament should have an opportunity, by their previous sanction, of stamping the proposed ceremony with increased solemnity, and of associating themselves with her Majesty in paying honour to the memory of one whom no Englishman can name without pride and sorrow.

"The body of the Duke of Wellington will therefore remain, with the concurrence of his family, under proper guardianship, until the Queen shall

have received the formal approval of parliament of the course which it will be the duty of her Majesty's servants to submit to both houses upon their reassembling.

"As soon as possible after that approval shall have been obtained, it is her Majesty's wish, should no unforeseen impediment arise, that the mortal remains of the late illustrious and venerated Commander-in-Chief should, at the public expense, and with all the solemnity due to the greatness of the occasion, be deposited in the cathedral church of St. Paul's, there to rest by the side of Nelson-the greatest Military by the side of the greatest Naval Chief who ever reflected lustre upon the annals of England.

"I have the honour to be,

"Right Hon. S. H. Walpole, M.P."

"Your most obedient humble servant, "DERBY."

"Victor of Assaye's eastern plain,
Victor of all the fields of Spain,
Victor of France's despot reign,
Thy task of glory done,
Welcome from dangers greatly dared,
From triumphs with the vanquished shared,
From nations saved and nations spared,
Unconquered Wellington.

"Unconquered, yet thy honours claim
A nobler than a conqueror's name :
At the red wreaths of guilty fame,
Thy generous soul had blushed.
The tears, the blood, the world has shed,
The throngs of mourners, piles of dead,
The grief, the guilt are on his head,
The tyrant thou hast crushed.

"Thine was the sword which justice draws,
Thine was the pure and generous cause
Of holy rights and human laws

The impious thrall to burst;
And thou wast destined for thy part,
The noblest mind, the firmest heart,
Artless, but in the warrior's art,
And in that art the first.

"And we who in the orient skies
Beheld thy sun of glory rise,
Still follow with exulting eyes

His proud meridian height;

Late on thy grateful country's breast,
Late may that sun descend to rest,
Beaming through all the glowing west
The memory of his light."

SCREW VERSUS PADDLE WHEELS.-The race between the paddle-box steamer Humboldt and the screw steamer Great Britain across the Atlantic was a most interesting and important one. They both started from New York at the same time, and arrived in England at the same time on Wednesday, one at Liverpool and the other at Cowes. The distance between Cowes and New York is greater than that between New York and Liverpool, and therefore the Humboldt must be considered to have had the advantage. The Humboldt is a remarkably fine steamer, and her voyage just completed was the quickest ever known between Cowes and New York. For a screw steamer to equal a powerful paddle-box steamer, however, and run across the Atlantic in eleven days, is a very significant fact. It is also worth noticing that the Peninsular and Oriental Company's screw steamer Formosa has just made the quickest passage ever known between the Clyde and Southampton Water, she having run the distance in 50 hours.

METEOROLOGICAL REGISTER.

Kept at Croom's Hill, Greenwich, by Mr. Rogerson, of the Royal Observatory. From the 21st of August, to the 20th of September, 1852.

August, 1852.-Mean height of the barometer = 29.835 inches; mean temperature degrees; depth of rain fallen, 4·42 inches.

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