The artificial harbour was formed (1807-1832) between the mainland and the picturesque island of Ireland's Eye, and preceded Kingstown as the station for the mail-packets from Great Britain, but was found after its construction to be liable to silt, and is now chiefly used by fishing-boats and yachts.
Benjamin Franklin in 1775 and Charles Blagden in 1781, by means of numerous observations of temperature made on board the packets plying on the Atlantic passage, determined the boundaries of these two currents and their seasonal variations with considerable precision.
Packets, attached as ovisacs or egg-strings to the genital openings, or enclosed in a dorsal marsupium, or deposited singly or occasionally in bundles.
The sulphate of quinine and the cinchona febrifuge thus produced are issued for the most part to medical officers in the various provinces, to gaols, and to the authorities of native states; but a large and increasing amount is disposed of in the form of 5-grain packets, costing a farthing each, through the medium of the post-offices.
But these two memoirs contain only a part of the electrical researches he carried out between 1771 and 1781, and many more were found after his death in a number of sealed packets of papers.
The same may be said of the numerous silly stories told of his life, such as that of his procuring a free passage to Paris by inscribing packets "Poison for the king," and so forth.
The British mails are carried under contract with the colonial government by packets of the Union-Castle Steamship Co., which leave Southampton every Saturday and Cape Town every Wednesday.
- This machine is designed to weigh out tea in quantities of 4 lb each, which are done up in separate packets by hand.
He would have been astonished to hear that, before the end of the century, his office had to deal with more than 3,000,000,000 postal packets a year, and that the net profit which it paid into the exchequer was to be more than double what it received in 1839.
On the south of the harbour is an obelisk in memory of Captain Skinner, of the steam packets, washed overboard in 1833.
Posts and Telegraphs.-There were 379 post offices and receiving offices in 1905, and 327 telegraphic stations; 12,616,000 postcards and letters, 2,800,000 packets, and 7,200,000 newspapers were received and despatched.
It was not, however, until August 1823 that the emperor drew up the necessary papers, in the presence of the metropolitan Philaret and other witnesses, and deposited them in sealed packets, to be opened at his death, with the council of state, the senate and the holy synod.
No steps were taken to open the sealed packets, and he himself took the oath to Constantine, and, with characteristic contempt for constitutional forms, usurped the functions of the senate and council of state by himself ordering its imposition on the regiments stationed in St Petersburg.
The letters carried amount to about 80 per head, the newspapers to 32 per head and the packets to 15 per head.