and ducks are so common, that they are easily killed. Rabbits also are plentiful; and fish, at particular seasons of the year, frequent the coast in great numbers. We thought nothing of bringing home thirty or forty brace of ducks and geese as a common day's sport; indeed, a much greater number would fall to the share of a dexterous shot.

The situation, climate, and resources of the Falkland Islands would render them important to England as a colony; and if Englishmen. could be induced to try to settle on them, with the necessary apparatus for cultivating and draining the land, they would find a tenfold harvest in return.

On the 16th we resumed our voyage, with the feeling that enough had not been done at home to give these islands a fair chance of rising into importance. At the latter end of the month we were off Cape Horn, and passed several icebergs. The thermometer then was at 27° of Fahrenheit; and we felt the cold excessively, as we had just left a warm climate. It rained constantly during the passage, and we experienced great difficulty in getting our clothes dry, which, with the cold, added nothing to our comfort.

We had finer weather in the Pacific than the Atlantic, and arrived at Valparaiso on the 24th of July, where we found H.M. ships Blonde and Rover; the former bearing Commodore Mason's broad pendant. Valparaiso,* or the Vale of Paradise, is situated in a bay at the foot of a hill, protected on the east and west by the jutting land, but exposed to the full force of the north winds which prevail during the winter months. It is the port of St. Jago, the capital of Chili, and the head-quarter of the British squadron. The port is also the principal rendezvous of the French and American men-of-war, each of whom have a commodore's pendant flying in these seas. The high land above the town is 1,260 feet above the sea, and is of a dark red colour, impressing the mind of a stranger that the country is barren and unproductive. But on travelling a little way inland, the delusion gives place to admiration and surprize at the amazing fertility of the soil. The scenery around is also beautiful. The Andes are in the distance, capped with snow, and towering above the clouds, with the immense plains extending for miles, and yielding every species of fruit and vegetables, alternately varied by high hills and mountain scenery. The climate, too, is delicious, uniting with the warmth of a tropical sun, the bracing air of an English spring. All this cannot fail to excite feelings of pleasure and delight; and an Englishman's first exclamation is, "What a pity that these people should have such a country!" The peasants are always civil and obliging to strangers, and make you perfectly welcome to their homely fare, which consists of rice, milk, and calavances. Those who can afford it, are very fond

* Named after the Conde de Valparaiso, a Spanish nobleman.

of a peculiar dish,-a mixture of fowl, potatoes, rice, and greens,all of which are boiled up together, and form an excellent repast. The manners, customs, and dress of the people in Chili and Peru are precisely the same as at Buenos Ayres, with the exception that the women do not wear any large combs. Riding is their principal amusement, and the lasso and knife their only weapons. The government consists of a president and council, and they talk a great deal about freedom and liberty. Since the decline of the Spanish power, and the nominal independence of the different republics that once composed it, there has been nothing but misery and oppression. Blessed by nature with every advantage of situation and climate, that make them at once capable of becoming the theatre of a vast commercial intercourse with the other nations of the world, and of enriching themselves by the exportation of the valuable and important productions of their soil; instead of improving on these advantages, instead of establishing themselves by industry and activity as a free and commercial people, they have sunk, and are still sinking into sluggishness and ruin.

Now that the first fruits of their dearly-earned conquest have passed away, and the glory of the revolution is forgotten and obscured in the passing events of the present day, the people have suffered themselves to become the children of idleness and vice, and look on, without shame and without remorse, on the opportunities they have thus foolishly lost. Their rulers are becoming daily more despotic, and are gradually curtailing republican freedom. All these innovations they calmly look upon without one spark of patriot feeling; and when too late, they will open their eyes to the reign of terror around them.

The merchants of Chili chiefly reside at Valparaiso, while those who are connected with the mines are at St. Jago. We have a great deal of trade here, but the greater part is carried on by Americans. We had no sooner arrived, than we were ordered to prepare for the South Sea Islands. We received six months' provisions, and every one was busy in making preparations for the voyage. Coloured cloths, ornaments, such as ear-rings, bracelets, and rings, were eagerly provided. Gunpowder, tobacco, and knives were also in requisition; and until the day of our departure all was activity, anxiety and anticipation.

COLLIER'S BOILERS.

MR. EDITOR,-The article on "Collier's Boilers" which, as appeared in the last number of your valuable magazine, may be considered one of the many, and frequent instances where a writer of no ordinary talent can find time, even among a "multiplicity of engagements," to sit down deliberately, and under the cloak of honesty and disinterestedENLARGED SERIES.-No. 7.-VOL. FOR 1838.

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ness, ingenuously lay before the public, statements, which indeed may have some object to serve, but which rest on no permanent foundation, while pompously supported by the opinions, surmises, and assumptions, of-nobody knows who; and opposing the testimonials of individuals whose names are well known in the scientific world, in a manner highly disreputable to fair and useful argument. Happily, however, for the public, and still more for those most deeply concerned, that kind declamation, baneful as it may be deemed, provokes a discussion by which the former arrives at the truth, and the latter in the end obtains a triumphant victory over those whose interest it may have been to employ an anonymous writer to depreciate the value and the advantages which my invention may be found to possess over their own, or to militate against their plans and prospects. Their statements, by appearing in your pages, may indeed serve their ends for a month, but the re-action, which a repetition of their worthless assertions must produce, when overwhelmed by undeniable statements of the actual facts, from personal examination and experiment, must carry with them that sort of conviction which we trust will eventually be productive of universal benefit.

Your correspondent Hiram, who gives nothing from personal knowledge, commences his attack on the first experiment which was made upon Collier's Boilers, in 1834, on board her Majesty's ship Meteor, which was the first time they were (he does not say how or why) brought under his notice. He gives an erroneous description of these boilers on the very outset, although taken from a drawing, which he surely could not have examined; but as this mistake has already been exposed by yourself in an editorial note, we need not take up more of your time with it, hoping that, as Hiram had never seen the boilers themselves, this error may by the charitable be imputed to consummate ignorance, and not to any wilful attempt at imposition; it may, however, be added, that it is in the weight of water which he has nearly doubled, as well as in the construction of the funnel, that he has been most erroneous. The contempt with which he has treated the names of the men employed, of Professor Brande and Dr. Ritchie, is, indeed, a specimen of argument which every writer must treat with indignation; and with regard to Mr. Manby, who we know to be a talented as well as a highly educated engineer of the first class, we shall be silent, well knowing, if he thinks it worth his while to reply to the laboured and inconclusive deductions and remarks which all depend on a statement he never made, that he can do so most effectually; we shall, therefore, proceed to the trial with the Firebrand, which vessel he assumes to have been loaded, when the fact was that she was kept as a yacht, and always in the best trim.

The comparative speed of both her and the Meteor, were previously known when the latter had her old boilers, and the object was

now to try, if with Collier's boilers, which only occupied half the space and consumed half the fuel, she maintained a superiority over the Firebrand. Nothing could be more satisfactory than this trial; and the public may rest assured, that the Lords of the Admiralty are not so silly as Hiram seems to imagine them, as to make such a trial without a due consideration to the displacement, and every other relative circumstance; and we may justly add, that whether her velocity was ten knots, or ten statute miles, is of not the smallest importance, the trial was relative and triumphantly in favour of the Meteor. If your correspondent says, "I shall omit to notice how she reached Lisbon, or how she got back to Falmouth," which he calls "of little importance," although it was the only good trial that was made; as this trial was completely successful we shall only say the omission has been made for "obvious reasons; " but we must beg leave to remove the "impression" on his mind, that no satisfactory result took place by documentary proof, Mr. Collier having in his possession the Admiralty letter of approbation; neither is he correct with respect to the cost and re-purchase of the boilers. Although it has been published why the boilers were removed from the Meteor, and returned to the patentee, Mr. Hiram pleads ignorance, and we are, therefore, bound to tell him it was simply this:-one of the chambers was damaged either by accident or design, after Mr. Collier left the ship, and it was impossible to repair it without great detention. The boilers were, therefore, taken out and returned, although it was the wish of the Admiralty that they should be continued: but this damage has been of great moment to Mr. Collier, inasmuch as it pointed out a method of preventing the possibility of even an ill-disposed person to injure the chambers; and also a method of replacing the chambers in a very short time if damaged. The commander of the Meteor had given in his report of the voyage to Lisbon previous to the accident, and as he did not know how the chambers were damaged, any further report was unnecessary; moreover, it was deemed extraordinary that this accident happened to the boilers very soon after they were out of the superintendence of Mr. Collier, and without throwing the blame individually on any one, we may add, it was but too evident that foul play had been used: and had that been suspected before the boilers were returned an investigation ought and would have taken place.

Having disposed of the "cavils" in the five first pages, we come to the Commercial Company's steamer, Glasgow, which is, "unfortunately," a recent case with which we are completely acquainted, from having actually made the first passage in that ship to Southampton, for the express purpose of putting to a fair test the merits of Mr. Collier's boiler, without having the smallest interest in their success. Mr. Hiram asks, "Were they not a failure?" We answer, from personal knowledge, "Decidedly not."-" Are they not now removed to

make way for new ones of improved construction?"-" Decidedly not."-They are removed to make way for others of the same construction, but of a proper size for the engines, which are of 112 instead of 100 horse power, as was supposed; and we are of opinion that the boilers, by supplying sufficient steam to engines of 12 horse power above their calculation, to propel the ship faster than (by the captain's account) she had gone before, did wonders. But, in a vessel that had to compete with others, it was natural that the Commercial Company should wish their steamer to be as complete as possible, and consequently to put boilers into her of the proper size; the new boilers will no doubt have the improvements already mentioned, and I am quite sure that Mr. Hiram will be very welcome to inspect them. Since, indeed, he had not time to examine the boilers himself, it is a pity he did not think of sending down some poor boy, with a measuring tape to the wharf where he might (as we did) have actually obtained the precise measurement of both the old and the new, as they lay within a few yards of each other: he would have saved himself all the trouble of his calculations, and have found to his entire conviction, that Collier's boilers were ninety-six feet smaller than onehalf the size of the former boilers'; and of course, all his calculations founded on the generating surface were fallacious, from his ignorance of the internal construction.

We shall now proceed to inform you, that after having made several very satisfactory experiments at the manufactory, it was determined to put the boilers to the test, on board the City of Glasgow, which was said to have engines of 100 horse power, but which having cylinders of 41 inches diameter, with a three feet six inch stroke, were certainly of 112 horse power, being twelve or one-ninth more than the boiler was calculated to supply. We made our passage to Southampton, in twenty-nine hours, under the most disadvantageous circumstances, the snow falling on the steam-chest, the casing wet, the engine newly repaired, and the vessel without copper, and deeply laden with iron and sugar; notwithstanding which, she went eight miles an hour when calm, which the captain said was more than she ever went before, even with a strong fair wind, and she made her passage in as short a time as she had ever done. It is true that Mr. Collier not having sufficiently calculated on the tremendous draft, a perfection he could not at first know to the full extent that his boilers possessed, had not constructed the lower part of the funnel so as to take full advantage of that circumstance; but the fact has not escaped him in the construction of his new boilers, although it appears to have escaped Hiram, though manifestly delineated in the plate from which he says he made all his deductions. During the voyage, Mr. Blaxland, the inspecting engineer to the Company, the captain, and three passengers, all declared in favour of the boiler, and were unanimously of opinion that the boilers had done all that was expected,―more