The Daily Dispatch: March 15, 1861., [Electronic resource]

---

---

The missing steamer Australasian

--The steamer Australasian is now twenty-four days out from Queenstown, and some anxiety is beginning to be felt for her safety. This ship left Liverpool on her appointed day, the 16th of February, and went into Queenstown on the 17th, and sailed the same evening for New York. She had on freight about $55,000 in specie, but we are unable to give even an estimate of the number of persons on her passenger list, and consequently a large number of persons in this country — who have friends who intended sailing last month for the United States--are unable to tell in what vessel they embarked, and they are daily growing more uneasy in regard to their safety. Many suppose that her machinery has been injured and that she has put back for repairs, as it is scarcely probable that would attempt a western passage at this season of the year, under sail alone, when she would have a fair wind to return with. It is to be hoped that such is the case; but on the other hand, many contend that, should the ship have been crippled in her machinery during the prevalence of a heavy Atlantic gale, whose force would prevent her keeping sail on the vessel, she would fall into the trough of the sea, and almost inevitably swamp and go down.