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16 MARINE REVIEW. short space of forty-five seconds. Again, there is a record of a message having been flashed 8000 miles in a second of time, the signal passing from the McGill University at Montreal to the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, and returning over the same circuit. SOME RELICS OF EARLY AND PRIMITIVE NAVIGATION IN THE GREAT SHOW--CURIOUS AND INSTRUCTIVE EXHIBITS. 'There are many curious boats to be seen in the transporta- tion building, such as the Turkish caique, the gondola, the birch bark canoe, the long boats of the south sea islanders, the straw boats used in India, the sharpie and all kinds of imaginable sail- ing boats, as well as the seal-covered skiff of the Esquimaux. There is, however, very little to be learned from this class of ex- hibits, but there is another class of curiosities shown that is very interesting. One of the most important of these is the original patent granted John Ericcson for his screw propeller. It was granted the gth day of Sept. 1845, and is entitled an improvement in the "A Jetter from a respectable gentleman, resident at the Natches, to Mr. Woodwell, merchant at Baltimore : "IT take this opportunity to inform you, as you ponder on miracles, of one of the greatest, perhaps, that you ever heard of. As we were coming down the Mississippi the 2d of this month, we heard a tremendous noise, followed by all kinds of fish, flying, as it were, through the water, and passing our boat. We upset and lost not only cargo and the boat, but with a great deal of exertion preserved our own lives. By the tremendous surge we were precipitated on shore. We found that many millions of fish had followed us, and judge of our horror when we ob- served, not more than a hundred yards from us, a monster re- sembling a beautiful fish, tumbling and roaring in the water. We judged it to be something of the whale kind, but were in- formed by an old gentleman that it was called a torpedo, that he had seen one about a week before, but that it was small. The old gentleman's name was Fulton. He mentioned that a rela- tive of his by the same name had seen four of them on the coast ; Ape 5 '"The GREAT KASTERN, having grappled the lost cable of 1865 three times, getting it from the bottom % of a mile, { and %a mile, in the several attempts, finds her tackling exhausted, steers homeward, a gale Springing up, and night coming on--August 12th, 1865.".--JAMES ANDERSON. screw propeller. After stating that he was a citizen, and the orig- inal and first inventor of the screw propeller, which had not, to the best of his knowledge, been used before, and that he had paid into the United States treasury $30, presented his petition and prayed for a patent, it was granted. The drawing of the orig- inal wheel, as well as the letter patent, is shown, and everybody interested in steam navigation should not fail to see the first idea of the screw propeller, which has made possible the great ad- vancement that has taken place in marine engineering since that time. In the same exhibit, which was collected by Lieut. Baker, is another curiosity. It seems that when the flat-boatmen on the Mississippi river heard of the success of Fulton with his steamboat, they reasoned that the advent of such craft on the river would ruin their business, and they set about at once to create a sentiment against steam boats. One of their number, of avery imaginative turn of mind, concocted an odd circular, which was in the form ofa letter, and which contained for a heading an engraving in colors of the most horrible marine monster that could be thought of. The circular reads as follows: of France and England; that he had ingeniously examined one of these fish, and found the bones of the back was formed with springs, similar to the works of gun-locks. It was his opinion that should these fish frequent this river it would greatly impede the steamboats. A volley of ro or 12 large cannon fired instan- taneously off was, comparatively speaking, only like sneezing to its terrible noise. Fire streamed from all parts of its back, ac- companied with large clouds of smoke; the trees shook and some fell. In about three-quarters of an hour we discovered the mon- ster had got on shore, tossing and tearing everything to pieces with its tusks and claws. We measured this monster of a fish and found it to be 87 feet 6 in. from the end of its tail to the snout. Entas R. CoFFIN. "N. B.--I had like to have forgot to tell you that upon the examination of the entrails of the fish we found to our astonish- ment an uncommon large American Barlow pen-knife that cuts on both sides of the blade." In the Hoboken Ferry Company's exhibit is another curios- ity that will attract more attention than the adjoining model of ae ~S