The use of steam at sea was beginning to assert itself. It was only two years since, that I had to chronicle the voyages of the _Sirius_ and the _Great Western_ across the Atlantic—now we have the first steamship to India, sailing on 25 Sep. She was called _The India_, and was 1,200 tons and nearly 400 horse-power. She sailed for Calcutta, calling at the Cape of Good Hope, where she was to stop five days. It was expected that she would complete her voyage, including stoppages, within 75 days. On 30 Sep. the foundation stone of the Nelson Column in Trafalgar Square was laid, without ceremony. It was a large block of Dartmoor granite, weighing 14 tons; and, on 16 Oct. the tenders for building the new Royal Exchange were settled. They varied very considerably, and the contract was given to the lowest, that of Messrs. Webb, of Clerkenwell, whose tender was £2,000 under the architect’s estimate. About this time we begin to hear of Mormonism in England; not that it was absolutely new, for, on 20 July, 1837, Heber C. Kimball, Orson Hyde, Willard Richards, Joseph Fielding and others, landed at Liverpool, on the first mission sent out by the Mormons. Three days after landing they began preaching at Preston, and met with such remarkable success that, within the next eight months, at the expiration of which time, Kimball and Hyde returned to America, they had converted and baptised about 2,000 people. But the sect was uncommon, as we may see from the following extract from the _Leeds Times_, copied into the _Times_ of 31 Oct.: