by the ex-Pitcairners now, some 300 strong, all told. Three miles from this across the island, on its north-eastern shore, and communicating by a fair road with the town,' and also by a fair road some three miles long, with the other eastern landing-place at Cascade Bay, lies the Mission estate of about 1,000 acres, facing north, and sloping gently down to low cliffs and a rocky shore. The land-a low table flat, broken by gentle gullies-is a light red soil, of fair quality, covered naturally by a close growth of wild couch grass, sprinkled, after a beautiful park-like fashion, with Norfolk Island pines and white oak,' while the gullies and flanks of Mount Pitt' (the chief hill of the island), 1,000 feet high, are full of thick growth of a wild lemon scrub, tree ferns, wild cotton and wild tobacco, and guava. On a slight ridge, half a mile from the sea stand the scattered group of wooden mission buildings."

Lady Belcher's book is by no means a repetition of the mutiny story. It is a highly interesting narrative of the fortunes of the settlers, after leaving Pitcairn Island illustrated with a little chart, and some very interesting views as well as portraits, altogether as neatly got up as a lady's book should be.

THE MONARCH.

WE find the following in the Daily News, and insert it without comment further than observing that we need not be surprised at the catastrophe of the Captain.

We are authorised to make public the results of the recent experiment made for ascertaining the precise position of the centre of gravity of the Monarch, and of the calculations based thereon for measuring the exact amonnt of her righting force at every angle of inclination.

As these results would have no public interest except in a comparative form, the particulars given are confined to those which have been already made public in the recent inquiry into the loss of the Captain, in order that the comparative stability of the two ships at their deep-load draught of water may be seen.

The results are such as must reassure any persons who inferred from certain points of similarity in the two ships that the Monarch was not as seaworthy as has been hitherto supposed.

Monarch.

Angle at which the edge of the deck is immersed......... 28°
Amount of righting force in the above position in foot

tons

Angle of maximum stability.

Maximum amount of righting force in foot tons
Angle at which the righting force becomes zero
Reserve of dynamical stability at an angle of heel of
14° in foot tons

The best measure of the corroborative power of the two ships to resist upsetting, after a given angle of inclination is reached, is to be found in the dynamical stability. This is seen to be at an angle of permanent heel of 14°-nearly sixteen times as great in the Monarch as it was in the Captain. In other words, if both ships were inclined under sail at the angle which immersed the edge of the Captain's deck, the reserve of energy to prevent upsetting by a squall would be in the two ships in the proportion of sixteen to one.

THE EDITOR'S FAREWELL TO THE NAUTICAL AND ITS FRIENDS. THE NAUTICAL MAGAZINE, in the hands of its present manager, has run its course of thirty-nine years. Originally established in the cause of Hydrography, it has seen radical improvements in the seaman's chart, and those instructions by which it is accompanied, to which through its pages the trading merchant commanders afloat have largely contributed. Many a supposed danger has also been swept from the chart by its means; and this is no longer disfigured, by that herd of vigias, left on it by the ancient navigators.

Among the subjects which it has specially advocated, which entirely concern the seaman, next to Hydrography, stands the successful cause of the Lightning Conductors of Sir William Harris, that scourge of lightning which formerly decimated our ships of war is no longer known to them:-the Hurricane Theory of Redfield (now passed into a science) was first introduced into it from his own hand:-It was also the first to disclose those enormous depths of the ocean, obtained by a method of the late Hydrographer to the Admiralty, Sir Francis Beaufort, which has since been replaced by one that secures a more perfect examination of those depths by lead and line, specially prepared for that purpose, by which the various successful deposits of the Electric Cable have been made.

The pages of the Nautical have been ever open to expose abuses, and failings of maritime law; and they have ever been the receptacle of that humble, but fugitive Hydrography of the merchant seaman, which would otherwise have been dissipated and lost.

The Nautical Magazine has contributed its efforts for the improvement of all that concerns the seaman's benefit; and the Editor now leaves to others that labour of love, which has been the mainspring of all his exertions in conducting this work.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

J. CHAPMAN on boats-Communication received-shall appear in

our next.

INDEX.