SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
433 
rock-boring machine of Messrs. Beaumont and Appleby recently drove a 
bore hole 84 feet, in thirty-six consecutive hours, through very hard rock, 
at a slate quarry near Portmadoc. A machine capable of accomplishing 
such a feat ought to prove of immense service both to mining and civil 
engineering. 
The Captain. — While we write the news of the terrible catastrophe 
which has happened to this vessel reaches us. The Captain was the only 
vessel which completely exemplified the ideas which Captain Cowper Coles 
has so ably and so persistently urged on the Admiralty. As a mere fighting 
machine, she was one of the most powerful vessels afloat, if not the most 
powerful of any ; and in her preliminary cruise she appeared to be tho- 
roughly seaworthy. No particulars have reached us which would enable us 
to surmise whether she has fallen a victim to circumstances which no fore- 
sight could have provided against, or whether the catastrophe will prove 
that we have not yet completely mastered the problem of carrying enor- 
mously heavy armour on vessels of her class. In thinking over the peculi- 
arities of the Captain , we cannot forget that her main characteristic, that 
to which her designer attached most importance, was an excessively low 
freeboard. Intended when first designed to have a freeboard of 8 feet only, 
and a height of port of 10 feet, she had actually, in consequence of altera- 
tions during construction, or for some other reason, a freeboard of only 
6 feet and a height of port of 8 feet. — ( Engineering , June 24.) She was 
therefore an extreme example of the low freeboard type of sailing vessel, 
for the American monitors, with a freeboard of only 16 ins., do not carry 
sails ; and, in spite of the voyages of the Monadnock and Miantonomoh , 
have not yet established a position as ocean cruisers. The Monarch , 
designed by Mr. Reed as a sister vessel to the Captain , has a freeboard of 
14 feet. In the trial cruise of the Monarch and Captain both vessels proved 
remarkably steady and easy in their pitching and rolling motions. 
MEDICAL SCIENCE. 
The First and Second Stages of Labour. — In regard to this point, a very 
able paper was contributed to the Royal Society by the Rev. Samuel 
Haughton, F.R.S. In the first stage of natural labour the involuntary 
muscles of the uterus contract upon the fluid contents of this organ, and 
possess sufficient force to dilate the mouth of the womb, and generally to 
rupture the membranes; and he endeavours to show, from the principles of 
muscular action already laid down, that the uterine muscles are sufficient, 
and not much more than sufficient, to complete the first stage of labour, and 
that they do not possess an amount of force adequate to rupture, in any 
case, the uterine wall itself. In the second stage of labour the irritation of 
the foetal head upon the wall of the vagina provokes the reflex action of the 
voluntary abdominal muscles, which aid powerfully the uterine muscles to 
complete the second stage by expelling the foetus. The amount of available 
additional force given out by the abdominal muscles admits of calculation, 
and will be found much greater than the force produced by the involuntary 
contractions of the womb itself. 
F F 
YOL. IX. — NO. XXXYII. 
