Adam Sedgwick, M.A., Woodwardian Professor of
Geology in the University of Cambridge.

The Society of Arts has issued a notice, intimating
that, as the Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all
Nations in 1851 has rendered it superfluous for the
Society to pursue its ordinary course by the offer of its
usual prizes, the Council are of opinion that it will be
most useful for them to encourage the production of
philosophical treatises on the various departments of the
Exhibition, which shall set forth the peculiar advantages
to be derived from each to the arts, manufactures,
and commerce of the country. They, therefore, offer
the Society's large medal and £25. for the best, and the
small medal and £10. for the second best, several treatises
on the objects exhibited in the section of raw
materials and produce, the section of machinery, the
section of manufactures, and the section of the fine arts.
Each treatise must occupy, and not exceed, 80 pages of
the size of the Bridgewater Treatises, and must be
delivered on or before the 30th of June, 1851. The
Society will also award its large medal and 25 guineas
for the best general treatise upon the Exhibition, treated
commercially, politically, and statistically; and small
medals for the best treatises on any special objects or
class of objects exhibited. The treatises for which rewards
are given are to be the property of the Society;
and if deemed suitable for publication, should the council
see fit, they will cause the same to be printed and published,
and will award to the author the net amount of
any profits which may arise from the publication after
the payment of the expenses.

The Gloucester Musical Festival was held on the 10th,
11th, 12th, and 13th, instant. The performances were
on a great scale, but destitute of any novel feature. The
collections for the charity amounted to £864. 6s. 6d.,
being £100. more than was received at the last Gloucester
Festival.

The Eisteddfod, or congress of Welsh bards and
minstrels, was held at Rhuddlan on the 24th, 25th, 26th,
and 27th. It was got up with great splendour, and
attended by a large assemblage of the nobility and gentry
of the principality.

The Submarine Electric Telegraph between the
English and French coasts, was successfully laid down
on the 28th of August. The points chosen were Shakspeare's
Cliff at Dover and the opposite chalk headland
of Cape Grisnez on the French coast midway between
Calais and Boulogne. The operations were conducted
from the Goliah steamboat. Between the paddle-wheels
in the centre of the vessel, was a gigantic drum or wheel,
nearly fifteen feet long and seven feet in diameter, weighing
seven tons, and fixed on a strong framework. Upon
it was coiled up in close convolutions about thirty miles
of telegraphic wire, encased in a covering of gutta percha.
The connexion of the thirty miles of wire enclosed in
gutta percha was made good to three hundred yards of
the same wire enclosed in a leaden tube, to protect it
from being chafed by the shingle on the beach and in
the shallow water. The Goliah then steamed forward
at the rate of about three or four miles an hour, in a
direct line to Cape Grisnez. The great drum was put
in corresponding motion, and from it the wire was paid
off over a roller at the stern of the vessel. At every two-hundred
-and-twentieth yard (one-sixteenth of a mile),
the square leaden clumps, weighing some twenty pounds,
were rivetted to the wire to sink it well to the bottom,
and to assist in embedding it in the submarine soil.
The depth of the water varies between one hundred and
one hundred and eighty feet; but at certain points there
are ridges and valleys which made the sinking of the
wire one of careful management. Between two of these
ridges, well known to sailors, and called by the French
the Colbart and the Varne, is a steep valley surrounded
by shifting sands, many miles in length, parallel to the
shores; and in these sands, as with the voracious Goodwins,
ships encounter danger from losing their anchors,
and fishermen lose their nets. The wire was successfully
plunged to the bottom, however, safe equally from
ships' anchors, sailors' nets, or monsters of the deep.
The remainder of the route was safely and slowly traversed,
and the Goliah reached the French coast about
eight o'clock in the evening. In half-an-hour the wire
had been carried ashore and run up the face of the cliff,
and messages had been carried from end to end of the
wire. A few days afterwards it was discovered that the
wire had been cut asunder among the rocks at Cape
Grisnez, the leaden tube in which it was enclosed having
been too soft to protect it from injury. The communication
between the coasts has been consequently suspended
till means of greater security are adopted.

The operation of Throwing down a portion of the
Cliff near Seaford by an explosion of gunpowder, was
successfully performed on the 19th. Its object was to
project a part of the cliff, above 200 feet high, upon the
beach, so as to constitute a groin for the protection of
vessels. Several immense charges, containing many
thousand pounds of powder, were deposited under the
cliffs, and ignited by voltaic batteries. There was no
very loud report; the rumbling noise was probably not
heard a mile off, and was perhaps caused by the splitting
of the cliff and fall of the fragments. There seemed to
be no smoke, but there was a tremendous shower of
dust. Those who were in boats a little way out felt a
slight shock. It was much stronger on the top of the
cliff. Persons standing there felt staggered by the
shaking of the ground, and one of the batteries was
thrown down by it. In Seaford, too, three quarters of
a mile off, glasses upon the table were shaken, and one
chimney fell. At Newhaven, a distance of three miles,
the shock was sensibly felt. The effect of the explosion
was stupendous. The chalky cliff cracked along a
frontage of more than a hundred feet; and then the
whole mass of the precipice seemed to crumble into pieces
and fall into the sea. The dislodged mass formed a
bank about three hundred feet broad and nearly three
hundred long towards the sea, and about a hundred feet
high.

The government have completed the purchase of all
the ground and property requisite for the construction
of the New Harbour of Holyhead; and the whole of the
works will now be pushed forward with the utmost expedition,
nearly l500 men being constantly engaged in
the various operations. The engineers are proceeding
rapidly with the extension of the sea-walls at the
Northern breakwater, and are also proceeding with the
erection of the stages. Many thousands of cubic feet of
stone are now ready for the commencement and erection
of the immense sea-wall, and fresh supplies are daily
obtained from the lofty heights that overhang the harbour,
where extensive quarrying operations are carried
on. The material thus obtained is thrown down into
the breakwater, in masses from ten to fifty feet in thickness.
The estimated coast of this new harbour, which
will give 316 acres of sea-room, is 700,000/.

Canal Locks have been Superseded by the introduction
of an inclined plane, on which the boats can be
drawn up to the proper level by means of a stationary
steam-engine. This new process was put to the test on
the 24th of August, at the Blackhill Locks, on the
Forth and Clyde Canal. The result was most satisfactory;
three boats having been drawn up in less than five
minutes, while to have made them pass through the
locks would have taken half an hour.

Mr. Hind, the astronomer, has given an account of
the discovery of a New Planet, made by him on the
evening of the 13th. It is in the constellation Pegasus,
and appears like a star of the ninth magnitude, with a
pale bluish light. At 11h. 29m. 36sec., Greenwich
time, on the 13th, its right ascension was 23h. 44m.
45·08 sec., and its North declination 14° 6' 42·9"; at 8h.
28m. 24 sec., on the 14th, its right ascension was 23h.
44m. 2·56 sec., and its North declination 13° 50' 29·3".
Mr. Hind says, "This new member of the solar system
forms the twelfth of the group of ultra-zodiacal planets,
the third of which I have been fortunate enough to discover
in the course of a rigorous examination of the
heavens." He proposes to name it "Victoria," and
to symbolise it by "a star surmounted by a laurel
branch."