824 



SIDERIUM. 



SOUTH CAROLINA. 



gnstenburg is the next legitimate heir to the 

 duchies. 



To forestall the claims which it was foreseen 

 Prince Frederick of Schleswig-Holstein-Son- 

 derburg-Augustenburg would raise to the suc- 

 cession in the duchies upon the death of the 

 childless King Frederick VII., the Danish Gov- 

 ernment had prevailed upon the Great Powers of 

 Europe (England, Austria, Prussia, France, Rus- 

 sia, and Sweden) to agree upon the " Treaty of 

 London," of May 8th, 1852, by which the said 

 Powers acknowledged the " integrity of the 

 Danish monarchy " as a perpetual principle in 

 European politics, and engaged to recognize the 

 succession of Prince Christian, of Gliicksburg, 

 and his male issue, to all the lands united un- 

 der the sceptre of Frederic VII. The London 

 treaty was afterward acceded to by Han- 

 over, Wurtemberg, Saxony, Electoral Hesse, 

 Oldenburg, Holland, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, 

 Greece, and the Italian States. The Duke of 

 Augustenburg was also prevailed upon to sign 

 an aqt (December 30th, 1852), by which he re- 

 nounced his claims to succession. The London 

 treaty was not acceded to by the Federal Diet, 

 and the Diets of the two duchies. The eldest 

 son and the brother of the Duke of Augusten- 

 burg declared that they did not consider them- 

 selves bound by the declaration of the duke, 

 and the former (Prince Frederic) therefore, in 

 the place of his father, asserted his claims to 

 the duchies. Those who advocate his rights, 

 assert, that "to change the order of succession 

 in any country subject to princely rule, it is 

 required to obtain : 1. The consent and re- 

 nunciation of all the male and female heirs 

 (agnati and cognati), whose right to the inherit- 

 ance would be impaired by the change. 2. The 

 consent of the people of that country, or its 

 lawful representatives, and that neither of 

 these two conditions has been fulfilled. 



The Federal Diet of Germany, at the close 

 of 1863, had not yet decided the question, 

 whether Germany would recognize Prince 

 Frederic as Duke of Holstein, or confine itself 

 to compel Denmark to repeal the Constitu- 

 tion of November 18th, 1863, and give guaran- 

 tees for the protection of the constitutional 

 rights of the duchies. 



SIDERIUM. In course of the development 

 of his invention for producing on a commer- 

 cial scale the metal magnesium, Mr. E. Sonn- 

 etadt, of Loughborough, England, is said to 

 have discovered a new metal. This he found in 

 the " carcasse " remaining when the chloride 

 of magnesium is obtained by evaporating and 

 igniting the mixed chloride of the same and 

 of sodium. In many of its reactions this new 

 metal corresponds almost precisely with iron, 

 for which it may hitherto have been mistaken. 

 It appears to occur invariably in connection 

 with magnesium, which cannot be entirely 

 freed from it. 



SOUTH CAROLINA. A special session of 

 the Legislature of South Carolina was held in 

 April. Governor Bonham, in his message, 



made a number of recommendations of which 

 the following are the most important : To pro- 

 hibit the planting of over a half, or at most 

 one acre with cotton, to the " full hand " (able- 

 bodied slave), and that the hands to be enumer- 

 ated should only be such as " work in the crop ; " 

 also, to adopt some legislation to arrest the pur- 

 chase and monopoly of articles of prime neces- 

 sity, even when it is not intended to export 

 them beyond the limits of the State ; also, to 

 prevent the undue distillation of spirits from the 

 cereals and molasses, for which the enormous 

 profits on whiskey offered a great temptation. 

 The governor declares that the act to supply 

 negro labor for the coast defences cannot be 

 made effectual for the accomplishment of its 

 objects. 



Early in June, Colonel Montgomery, with 

 five companies of his negro regiment, and a 

 section of company G, 3d Rhode Island artil- 

 lery, left Beaufort with three steamers on an ex- 

 pedition up the Combahee river. They carried 

 eight guns, a portion of them 10-lb. Parrotts, 

 and the rest 12 and 24-lb. howitzers. The par- 

 ty landed at Field's Point, about twenty miles 

 up the river, and there found two deserted 

 forts and numerous rifle pits. A rebel force 

 appeared in the distance, but hastily retired. 

 Leaving a few men in the forts and rifle pits, 

 Colonel Montgomery threw out the balance 

 of his command as skirmishers, making the en- 

 emy believe that he had a large force in re- 

 serve. Upon the withdrawal of the rebels, the 

 gangs of slaves who were just going to work 

 on the plantations broke away from their over- 

 seers, and came rushing down to the landing- 

 place in droves of hundreds and thousands. 

 They were sent on board the steamers, till all 

 the spare room was taken up. Meanwhile com- 

 panies of negro soldiers were sent in various 

 directions to burn buildings and secure horses, 

 provisions, and . other property. Several rice- 

 mills, store houses filled with rice and cotton, 

 and every house, barn, or other building be- 

 longing to any known rebel were burned, and 

 all the portable property of value brought 

 away. One store house that Avas fired contain- 

 ed two years' crops of rice ; and another $10,- 

 000 worth of cotton. The locks by which the 

 plantations are irrigated were destroyed, flood- 

 ing the~fields of rice and destroying the young 

 crop. One company alone burned twenty-five 

 buildings, many of them containing immense 

 quantities of rice. All this work of devastation 

 was done in a few hours, when Colonel Mont- 

 gomery thought it prudent to withdraw, and 

 did so without loss, arriving at Beaufort with- 

 in twenty-nine hours of the time of his de- 

 parture. The trophies of the expedition were 

 over eight hundred slaves, men, women, and 

 children, several hundred bags of hominy, a 

 fine lot of horses, and a large quantity of house- 

 hold furniture. 



About the same time that the above raid was 

 made, Colonel Barton, with a large picked 

 force, made an expedition on three steamers 



