meeting was subsequently held to urge upon Parliament the propriety of taking steps to preserve it. ---- The penny subscription for a monument to Sir Robert Peel has been closed, and is found to have yielded over £1737, which has been placed in the hands of trustees. ---- A good deal of interest has been excited by the report that on the 20th of April, 1851, the captain, mate, and others on board the ship Renovation, on her way from Shields to Quebec, saw _two vessels_ imbedded in a large iceberg, about thirty miles from Cape Race, the southern point of Newfoundland. The captain of the ship has not been heard from in regard to it; but two or three persons distinctly testify to having heard him relate the facts; while the mate, a sailor who was at the helm, and a passenger on board, concur in saying that they saw the ships. Mr. Simpson, the mate, examined them with a glass, and describes them as having been three-masted ships, with their masts struck and yards down, and all made snug. They were near each other--one upright, and the other with a slight inclination. The captain was sick at the time, and no pains were taken to examine the ships more closely. The Admiralty has pursued its inquiries into the accuracy of the statement, under the supposition that the vessels seen may have been the ships of Sir John Franklin; but no reliable conclusion can as yet be formed upon the subject. ---- A new and well-appointed searching Expedition, under Captain Belcher, set out for the Arctic Seas on the 15th of April. Very remarkable accounts reach England of the abundance of gold in Australia. According to a careful return, compiled from reliable sources, it is stated that from the 29th of September, the date of the discovery of the gold field, to the 17th of December, there had been taken out gold valued at £730,242. The papers report that the field seems to be unlimited--the indications of gold extending over scores of miles, and each new deposit apparently surpassing all others in richness. FRANCE.