Copper and gold ore are found in the mountains, but the mines are not worked. Rock salt exists in great abundance at Lurga, a town about 40 miles east of Dilli, at a short distance from the sea-shore; it is used for preserving meat, and the prahus that touch at Lurga lay in supplies of it; but although of excellent quality it is not an article of commerce, those who require it being permitted to take what they choose. Pearls and pearl-shell are found on the south-east coast, especially at Ama Noobang, called in the charts "The Bay of the Pearl Bank," and formed an article of import at Coepang until a military excursion of the Dutch to the gold mines of Ama Noobang, which the natives, from some superstitious notions, will not allow to be worked, gave rise to a war which put a stop to the trade.

When this settlement is further advanced, a market so little distant may tend to develop the dormant resources of this country, for, although the Dutch and Portuguese residents in Timor do not exert themselves in extending the commerce of the country they inhabit, they do not appear inclined to prevent others from doing so.

(To be continued.)

Loss OF HER MAJESTY'S STEAMER LIZARD.

LETTERS have been received at Portsmouth, conveying the intelligence of the total loss of Her Majesty's steamer Lizard, late on the night of the 24th, or early on the morning of the 25th of July, by her having been run down by the French war steamer, Veloce, about 25 miles to the eastward of Gibraltar, while on her passage thence to Barcelona. It appears from the accounts received, that the Lizard left Gibraltar on the evening of Monday, the 24th, with the wind blowing moderately from the southward, which freshened toward midnight, and the atmosphere became dark and clouded. Within a few minutes of the collision, the look-out on board the Lizard descried a steamer bearing down upon them, and they immediately made signals to, and hailed, the approaching vessel. The crew, however, on board the French steamer evidently could not have seen the signals which were made to her, or heard the hailing, as she kept on her course, and ran right into the Lizard, striking her with tremendous force nearly amidships, and close to her engine-roon. The concussion was so great that many of the Lizard's crew, who were on deck, were thrown down by its violence, and those below hurried up on deck in their shirts, to ascertain what was amiss. It was immediately discovered that the vessel had sustained some very serious damage, as the water was pouring very rapidly into her, and, upon further examination, it was found that any exertions on the part of the crew to keep her afloat would be utterly useless, as she was then in a sinking state. Nevertheless, every possible means were resorted to by the officers and men to save the ship, until the water gained upon her so much, that it extinguished her fires, and her machinery, consequently, became powerless.

The French steamer did not sustain any serious damage, and seeing the condition of the Lizard, remained by her, in order to render any assistance in her power. When all hope of saving the Lizard was abandoned, the attention of her officers was directed to the preservation of the ship's company, which was happily accomplished, without the loss of a single life, by the boats of both ships conveying all hands in safety on board the Veloce. Scarcely had the last of the crew reached the French steamer, and within two hours from the time of the collision, when the Lizard sank.

The Veloce proceeded to Gibraltar with the crew of the Lizard, where they were received on board her Majesty's ship Indus, 72. Though the lives of the officers and ship's company of the Lizard were fortunately preserved, yet

every thing they possessed on board was lost, as were also the ship's stores, furniture, &c., many of the men having had great difficulty in saving themselves. The Lizard has been a considerable time in the Mediterranean, and was the sister ship to the Locust, both of which were employed as tenders between Gibraltar and Malta, and were considered two of the best and fastest vessels of their class in the service.

(Fxtract from a Letter dated Gibraltar, July 27, 1843.)

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On the morning of Tuesday, the 25th of July, when about 20 miles from Carthagena, a light was reported on the larboard bow of the Lizard, The officer of the watch, as the positive orders of the Admiralty are when steamers meet each other, immediately put his helm a-port. The master coming up just at this moment inquired if the helm was a-port?" and on being told that it was so, ordered it to be put "hard a-port;" but owing to the other vessel putting her helm a-starboard, the Lizard was struck by her on the larboard paddle-box a little before the main shaft, the shock of which was so violent as to throw the Lizard over on her starboard side, and carry away all the funnel stays but one. The officers and men below immediately rushed on deck, the engineer in charge, blew off the steam, and was proceeding to pump out, when the rush of water was so violent, and the Lizard was apparently sinking so rapidly, that the men were ordered to save themselves by climbing up the bowsprit rigging of the other vessel.

At the instant the collision took place, the Lizard's boats were ordered to be lowered, but the passage aft was obstructed by the bowsprit and bow of the other vessel, so that the only persons on the quarter-deck were the quartermaster, man at the wheel, and one or two of the officers who had come up from their cabins, who seeing that to all appearance all others had left, followed their example. Determined, however, not to abandon the Lizard whilst there was the most distant chance of saving her, the boats of the vessel (which proved to be the French men-of-war steamer Veloce, of 1,200 tons and 220 horse power,) were lowered, in which, some of the officers and men of the Lizard returned, and saved a sick boy and a passenger, with some two or three others who had been left behind in the first confusion. All hopes of saving the vessel were at once abandoned when we discovered that the water had already made so much head as to put out the fires, and to float the lower deck hatches, and continued pouring in with such violence as to render it most dangerous to remain on board. The last boat had scarcely left the Lizard when she sank head foremost. The night was misty, and the Veloce's lights being placed on her paddle-boxes, whereas the Lizard's were at her masthead, could not be seen until close to.

THE BOTTLE CHART.

Stockholm, 11th July, 1843. SIR. Observing that your correspondent Mr. W. Walker, requires some more information on the subject of the Defence's topmast to help his belief, may I request you to inform him, that at the time mentioned, it was

usual to cut the name of the ship out on the head, as well as the heel of topmasts, also on other places; that the name "Defence," was accordingly not only found on the mast, but on the cross, and trussel-trees that remained; that both the rogues' yarn and the broad arrow were also found; and that every officer of the Actæon as well as myself, was convinced that it was the Defence's top

We have erased a personal allusion from Sir John Ross s letter, which he will excuse us for doing: indeed, we take some blame for not having taken a similar liberty with his former on Commander Fishbourne's.

mast. Moreover, being in the fleet both before and after (and having entered the Navy in 1786, I was not a younker,) it came to my personal knowledge that the Defence, after the loss of her top-mast, did cut away the rigging to clear the wreck,-and I must be allowed to differ with you in opinion," that her getting a new topmast up in 12 hours and 20 minutes was a proof that she had not cut away the rigging to clear the wreck," but, indeed, the very reverse, as, had the rigging been saved, it ought, and would, have been got up in half the time.

I make a very different conclusion from the log, of which you have been kind enough to give an extract. I have only to add that it never was my intention "to put an end to the bottle experiments," but to the fallacious conclusions, or "misuse" of them, and I regret that my letters on the subject should have been misunderstood, however much I may differ with others on the subject of their application to currents in the ocean.

To the Editor, &c.

I am, &c.

JOHN Ross.

SIR.-Sir John Ross commences his strictures on my letter, by asserting that much is irrelevant and much unintelligible to him. Some of this may arise from the circumstances of typhographical errors having been made; but as the context would suggest the correct reading to any of manifestly less information than Sir John, I shall offer no explanation.

Then, though Sir John begs to be excused from following me into that which is "irrelevant," he yet cannot refrain from a sneering smile at the "gratuitous remark on the weakness and wants of man," as if he revolted at the idea of any one confessing that in the acquirement of knowledge, we obtained a sovereignty over matter only in proportion as that knowledge was held in due subordination to God, in proportion as we saw in the works of God, "not a proof of creative wisdom, but an immediate utterance of that wisdom;" or, perhaps he meant to interdict any assertion that would question the insinuation contained in one of the Bridgewater Treatises, "that unbelief was often attendant upon the study

of science."

Sir John states that, my "observations respecting the loaded wood and bottle are too absurd to require a comment;" but does not say why he thinks them so. Where is the discussion here?" that is to enable the readers to form a correct opinion;" perhaps, these observations are amongst the parts which he says “I confess are to me unintelligible." If Sir John's sense of the ludicrous is so great that things which are unintelligible, appear absurd to him, it does not follow that we can admit it as a general principle that, all things which are unintelligible are also absurd, therefore, my position remains unrefuted.

As for the assertion that the Defence's topmast was 21 years in one place, it is Sir John's and not mine. Therefore as a fact, I cannot dispute Sir John's right to pronounce it "beyond my comprehension." The "escape" of the bottles is a discovery of Sir John's I have not laid claim to it, nor does "the chart" imply that you had made that discovery, but the contrary; for it was distinctly stated that the bottles were not supposed to have followed the direction of the lines; therefore, though the lines may pass over the latitude and longitude where the Defence's topmast is said to have laid so long, the bottles may never have been in the same latitude and longitude.

Sir John says that "his conclusions on the facts relative to Icebergs are the very reverse of mine;" but as he offers no proofs of the correctness of his own conclusions, nor of the incorrectness of mine, I am at a loss to know why he felicitates himself " that the discussion? will best enable your readers to form correct opinions on the subject," and doubtless he thinks favourable to his views. Sir John might have agreed with a greater authority on galvanic action than Sir Joseph Banks, (with Sir Humphrey Davy,) and still be far behind in knowledge of what later-day experiments have revealed on that subject.

Your note fully answers Sir John's remarks on the Lagulhas currents.

I cannot descend after Sir John in his questionable attempts at wit, and will conclude by congratulating you on Sir John's" disclaiming any intention of condemning the practice" in question, as its withdrawal seems to arise from the absence of reasonable grounds of objection.

I do not find it stated anywhere in your publication that currents were the cause of the losses on the French coast, as is implied by Sir John; truly, as he says, they were partly attributable to the want of attention to the amount of local attraction, but most certainly it was not the sole cause, as Sir John seems to infer.

To the Editor, &c.

I am, &c.,

G. FISHBOURNE, Commander, R.N.

[We little expected while collecting our bottle papers into one focus in the shape of a small chart, and joining their points of arrival and departure by a straight line (to assist the eye in connecting those two points, and not as the absolute track of the bottle as we then stated,) that our labours would have been cavilled at, our pains looked on as all thrown away, and our chart pointed at as the "bottle fallacy." But so it was termed, and considered as "calculated to do serious injury by misleading the Navigator," by no less an authority than Sir John Ross. We certainly felt no small disappointment at this decision of an experienced seaman, and began to reconsider seriously, whether not only we had done wrong in making such a compilation, but after all whether the 150 seamen out of the 500 or more who had thrown bottles overboard were not all wrong, also that they had been indulging in an idle fallacious speculation, and would have done better to have kept their bottles to themselves. The objections brought against the whole system, are all formidably arranged in Sir John's letter, in our May number, and we are much indebted to our correspondents Mr. Walker and Commander Fishbourne, for their consideration of them. They at all events, with the 500 authors of the bottle papers, and ourselves dissent from those objections, and have elucidated from Sir John that, it is the "misuse" of the chart that he means, and which led him to pronounce it the "Bottle Fallacy". We beg to express our obligations to our correspondents for obtaining for us this denouement, and while we are satisfied that no intelligent seaman can possibly "misuse" our chart, or, mis-comprehend the purpose for which it is intended, we may proceed to add a few concluding remarks to Sir John Ross's objections.

With regard to the experiment off Dover, the bottle drifting to leeward against the weather tide shewed that it was carried by a surface current. How deep that current extended would depend on the strength of the wind. The bottles in the chart can have been drifted in a similar way, whatever current was running beneath them.

The case of the Defence's topmast remains on the authority of Sir John Ross, which goes to shew that the official log is imperfect, as the loss of the topmast is unrecorded in it, while that of her top gallant-mast is so. The topmast however, appears to have been found in lat. 49° N. and long. 20°, while it was lost in lat. 48° 7' and long. 7° 6', having drifted to, or arrived circuitously at, a point above 500 miles to the westward. Now this is directly contrary to the surface drift of all the bottles; and it is also contrary to the drift of the masts of the Little Belt, and other vessels on record † as having drifted from the westward on to the coast of France. Thus the mast was not "stationary" by Sir John Ross's own shewing, but has somehow found its way 500 miles and more to the westward, against known precedent, and that too, after 21 years attacks of barnacles, weed, &c., which we should have considered with the rigging, would have consigned it to some depth below the surface, where its own displacement would be equal to its weight.

The experiment of the full and empty bottles, and the ice off St. John's

* See his letter p. 321.

+ See Purdy's Atlantic Memoir. ENLARGED SERIES.--No. 9.-VOL. FOR 1843.

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correspond the former with the first experiment off Dover, and the latter with the casks of the William Torr in the chart; and we are content to let the cylinders alluded to by Sir John fall into the north-east current which is known to run off Cape Farewell, although the William Torr's casks all chose to take the common set from the poles towards the Equator. All this we are content to concede to Sir John Ross, and along with it the full benefit of his "twelve and a half years' experience of "cruising in the English Channel;" and his having anchored in all weathers on the French Coast, and "often exactly off where the Conqueror was lost," which experience has shewn him "that the determination of a current setting on that coast, by empty bottles having drifted on it is a fallacy."

But along with our concessions, and our respect for Sir John, we have a great regard for our own bottles! and, if they do happen to shew a tendency for drifting on to the French coast, in obedience to winds and currents, they only conform to received opinions formed from experience also. Here are two of these opinions from old seamen, that were expressed in the Shipping Gazette at the time of the catastrophe, and which are well worthy of Sir John's attention. The first who signs himself" An Old Sailor" says "There is another effect which may if not very carefully attended to, lead the mariner astray in that part of the channel; and this effect it strikes me has operated very powerfully in producing the destruction of the Reliance and Conqueror, viz., the tide which sets on the flood (according to the directions) S.E.b.E. between the Isle of Wight and Beachy Head, and east between the Head and Dungeness, and its influence would tend to place a ship coming up channel in a position to run ashore, near where the late losses occurred: for she would be set to the Southward and Eastward, and thus be nearer the French coast than imagined, and further up channel; so that by continuing the course held by ships to the westward of the Ness, she would fall in with the land, about the place where the Reliance and the Conqueror went ashore, and in thick weather this would be more likely to happen undiscovered." So says the "Old Sailor," and Mr. Tucker who signs himself "A Master Mariner," agrees tolerably well with him. He says, addressing himself to the Editor of the same journal, "I beg to inform you, from minute observations in coming up, and going down, the English Channel, that vessels are liable to be led astray by the setting of the tide from the Owers to Beachy Head. From three or four leagues distance off the Owers, the course is E.b.S. or more southerly. I have upon several occasions taken the first of the flood tide, from the Isle of Wight and the elbow of the Owers, and steered the above course with strict attention to it. By the time I have considered myself in sight of the light, have seen nothing of it, and have kept running on the same course till I have thought myself abreast of the light. Upon taking a cast of the lead find I have been considerably set to the southward, consequently have had to haul in due north for several hours, before making the light, which has induced me upon latter occasions to watch the set of the tide from thence by bearings of the land, the lead, and observations.”

"As regards this part of the channel, instead of the flood tide setting S. E.b.E. and the ebb N.W.b.W., I have found the flood setting S.S.E. and the ebb N.N.W., spring tides, at the rate of three and four knots per hour, in consequence of which vessels are completely led astray."

It is clear that the experience of these two seamen differs from that of Sir John Ross, who has found "no indraught" on the coast alluded to. The southerly set above alluded to, with the concurring effects of local attraction, sufficiently accounts for the Reliance finding herself where she was. With regard to "indraught" it is but another name for current, and the accounts published of the loss of the Reliance, testify that as this vessel broke up, "the fragments, which covered the sea around, were all evidently borne towards the land by the current." How they were found strewed along the shore, is too well known; what carried them there but the current, or that indraught which Sir John Ross has not found. Having in a former page fully treated