by high wind, in the first week or two of 1854, produced a most lamentable loss of life and property on our eastern coast.

After all that may be and has been said, shipwrecks partake more of the character of moral events than we are generally in the habit of supposing. Captain Fitzroy, who was examined before a Committee of the House of Commons in 1843, used the following remarkable words :-'I think the principal cause of the losses of British ships has been the neglect or incompetency of those in command of them. It is very rarely that any vessel is lost except in consequence of neglect or mismanagement. In saying neglect, I mean not attending sufficiently to the position of the ship, to heaving the lead, to taking all those precautions which ought to be taken by a good seaman anxious for the safety of his ship, and knowing how to take care of her; and incompetency from not knowing how to make proper observations for ascertaining the ship's place, and not being practical seamen acquainted with their duty, and not having had sufficient experience either as masters or mates of merchant ships to entitle them to take under their charge not only the ship and cargo, but the lives of all who are embarked on board.' The education of nautical men has occupied a good deal of attention, both from the government and the legislature, in the ten years which have elapsed since Captain Fitzroy made these observations; and we believe there is ground for the opinion, that captains, masters, and mates, are becoming more competent and sober men than they were some years ago.

Many shipwrecks illustrate, or rather serve as warnings against, a laxity of watch when approaching an island or coast. Such, so far as seems to be known, was the case with the Meridian, wrecked on the island of Amsterdam on the 24th of August 1853. The Meridian left Gravesend for Australia on the 4th of June, with a crew of twenty-three persons, a large cargo of merchandise, and eighty-four passengers. We have spoken above of a laxity of watch; but if the accounts be correct, there was something more than this, for, a few hours before the wrecking, the Meridian passed another vessel bound for Sydney, and the captain, wishing to maintain his advantage, was induced to steer in such a way as to run too close to the island of Amsterdam. The weather was boisterous, and the shock occurred when the crew seemed to have imagined the vessel to be some miles distant from the island. On looking out it was found that the ship had struck on a reef of rocks, about a quarter of a mile from the island of Amsterdam; and shortly afterwards she was driven from the reef right upon the desolate and inhospitable shore of the island. At the first crash, the stern posts and rudder were washed from their places, admitting the water into the hinder part of the vessel; but this proved a source of safety to the passengers; for many tons of water poured into the cabins through the broken sky-lights on deck, and this water, instead of drowning the persons who were cooped up in the cabins, found an exit through the

fractured shell of the poor ship. The second-class passengers, who had scarcely time to get out of their cabin-the water suddenly rising between decks up to the neck—were brought into the cuddy, where the whole of the passengers passed a wretched night, of eight or nine hours' duration. About the middle of the night, the vessel parted in two; the hinder half, containing the passengers, being separated from the front half. As soon as daylight appeared, the passengers prepared to leave the vessel: the main-mast had fallen so as to form a sort of bridge from the cuddy door to the shore, and along this formidable bridge they scrambled to the island.

One very special cause of shipwreck is the existence of icebergs floating about in the North Atlantic. It is difficult to see how human foresight can avoid these, except by taking a more southerly route altogether. The following is one among many examples of disaster so occasioned :-On the 10th of May 1849, the Maria was sailing from Limerick to Canada, with a crew of 10 hands and 111 emigrants. She seems to have been an old vessel, and was very probably unseaworthy, like too many other emigrant ships. When about fifty miles from the American coast, she ran into an iceberg with terrific force. The whole of her bows were stove in, and the next moment the sea was rushing into the hold with the violence almost of a cataract. A piercing shriek was heard from below, but it was only of a moment's duration, as the ship went down almost immediately. It being the mate's watch, he, with one seaman and a cabin-boy, succeeded in saving their lives by one of the boats which floated from the wreck as she foundered. About twenty of the passengers managed to reach the deck just before she went down, some of whom jumped on to the ice, while others clung to the floating spars. Nine only, however, could be preserved, together with two women and a boy, who had got on to the ice. Nothing was seen of the master or the rest of the crew; they all perished with the remainder of the passengers. Exposed in the boat to the most inclement weather, the survivors remained the whole of the next day, until relieved by a passing ship.

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Some of the calamities on shipboard must be attributed, it is evident, to a want of due proportion in the various parts of the vessel. Such, in the opinion of many persons, must have been the case in respect to the Dalhousie, wrecked off Beachy Head on the 18th of October 1853. The Dalhousie was a fine Indian teakbuilt ship, of 800 tons, launched at Moulmein in 1848. She became one of the White Horse' line of Australian passenger ships. Happily, as matters turned out, the passengers on the intended voyage in question were very few in number; but the freight was valuable, and the crew consisted of sixty-one persons. A steam-tug towed the vessel down from London to the Downs, where, after a brief shelter from a rough sea, she set sail, and passed Dungeness on the way towards Beachy Head. About four

in the morning, when Beachy Head Light-house appeared about eight or ten miles distant, the man at the wheel observed that the ship began to lurch deeply, going a long way over on her broadside, and being scarcely able to recover herself after a roll. Shortly afterwards, the starboard-quarter boat was carried away by a sea; and at about five o'clock, the crew commenced throwing overboard water-casks, sheep-pens, and other lumber. While this was going on, the ship gave a violent lurch_to_starboard, and a heavy sea at the time going over her, washed away the long-boat. The weather was then getting worse. The ship continued to lurch violently, and at half-past five she rolled right over on her starboard beam-ends, and remained in that position with her masthead in the water, lying at the mercy of the sea, which then made a clear breach over her, and washed away the larboard-quarter boat. A great many of the crew took refuge in the maintop; while Joseph Reed, the seaman at the helm, and the only survivor of the catastrophe, got outside the ship on the weather-quarter gallery. To stand on deck was an impossibility. Captain Butterworth, the commander of the vessel, together with the chief and second mate, the carpenter, the cook, and some of the crew, dragged through the gallery window four passengers. Reed and another seaman succeeded in getting out of the water a young lady who had come out of one of the poop-cabins; they lashed her to a large spar, and placed her with the rest of her party on the gallery. Immediately afterwards, an enormous wave broke over the ship, and washed off a gentleman, his wife, and their four children-all of whom at once found a watery grave. As it was evident that the ship could not remain afloat many minutes longer, Joseph Reed cut the lashings of the spar to which the young lady had been made fast, in order to give her a chance for her life; but as the spar went adrift, the captain, one of the mates, and one or two seamen proceeded to cling to it; and in a brief space of time the whole were washed away and drowned. At the time when the hapless Dalhousie actually went down, Reed was standing with the cook and the carpenter on the quarter, and a few others were holding on to different parts of the wreck. As the ship sank lower and lower, Reed and the surgeon climbed one of the masts higher and higher, until they reached the top; and when the top finally sank, Reed swam off to some planks near him. Hour after hour passed; poor Reed was repeatedly washed off his plank, but as repeatedly gained his position again: he saw many vessels pass each way, but received no aid from them--he being an almost invisible speck upon the water. He saw his companions drop off one by one from the floating fragments to which they had clung, and sink to rise no more. At length, about four in the afternoon, he was observed by the crew of a brig, who picked him up, and landed him safely at Dover. Reed believed that he was the only living being who escaped the wreck: he had been ten hours on his frail bit of

wood, and had been washed off at least a dozen times. There was much newspaper narrative at the time concerning the remarkable escape of many persons who had taken their places by the Dalhousie, but had preferred going on board at Plymouth; and concerning the conduct of the crew of a schooner, who, it is alleged, might have aided the hapless ship, if so minded. But these are matters on which we need not comment; it concerns us only to know that the catastrophe is by many persons attributed to the vessel being top-heavy, and also crank, from the stowage or shifting of the cargo. It is an opinion entertained, that if Captain Butterworth had cut away the masts while the ship remained on her beam-ends, both vessel and crew might perchance have been saved, since there does not appear to have been any rent in the bottom.

But let us now proceed with our more immediate subject, taking up first the life-boat question.

The first life-boat, professedly intended as such, was built in 1790. In September of the preceding year, the Adventure collier was wrecked near the mouth of the Tyne; the crew were seen to drop from the rigging, and perish in presence of thousands of spectators, who watched them from the shore, but could render no assistance. The mournful event made a great impression in the neighbourhood, and a committee soon afterwards offered a reward for the best model of a life-boat. The prize was awarded to Henry Greathead, a boat-builder of South Shields. The boat which he made, in conformity with his plan, was 30 feet long, 20 feet in length of keel, 10 feet broad, 34 outside depth at the waist, and 5 feet high at each end. It was like a steamer's paddle-box boat, with stem and stern alike. There was a thick cork lining running along the upper part of the interior of the boat, and a cork fender on the outside. The boat was very buoyant when in its right position; but it had no means of freeing itself from water, nor of righting itself if upset. From 1790 to 1798 this was the only lifeboat; but it saved, during this interval, the lives of six wrecked crews, and the inventor received rewards from parliament, from the Trinity House, and from Lloyd's. In 1798, Greathead built a second life-boat, which the Duke of Northumberland stationed at North Shields; and by the year 1803, he had built upwards of thirty.

Ship-builders, boat-builders, seamen, mechanics, amateur inventors-all from time to time made new life-boats. If ingenious novelties could save endangered seamen from destruction, we should surely hear very little of shipwreck. It would hardly be credited, except by persons who have watched the progress of mechanical invention, how numerous are the boats which have been contrived as safeguards against drowning. We have said that Mr Greathead's was the first real life-boat; but it was not the first boat intended for some such purpose. He was preceded by a Mr Lukin in the construction of a boat rendered buoyant by air-tight cases; and

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he has been followed by a string of inventors so numerous as to defy all calculation. In the year 1807, the Society of Arts gave a prize-medal to Mr Wilson for the invention of a life-boat, the chief peculiarity of which consisted in having the air-cases separated and isolated, insomuch that the disrupture of any one might not affect the others. One inventor after another put forth new inventions for life-boats, often ignorant of each other's doings, but in most instances depending on the use of cork or of air-tight cases. When the era of India-rubber and gutta-percha commenced, a new field for the exercise of ingenuity was found, by the employment of these materials in boats. Mr Macintosh, in 1839, suggested the employment of a sheet of India-rubber cloth, so sewn as to assume somewhat a boat shape, and having air-tubes at its edges to form buoyant gunwales; this was not actually a boat, but an apology for a boat, available on emergencies. Mr Salt, in 1841, brought another agent to work-the paddle; he proposed that a life-boat, ballasted with water, which could be let in or out at pleasure, should be provided with paddles worked by hand. Mr Holcroft's pontoon or safety-boat was so curiously formed of a framework covered with India-rubber cloth, that although forming a convenient boat when open, it could be folded up flat like a portfolio into one-sixth of its former bulk. Dr Patterson contrived a boat with a bottom so constructed, that any water which washed into it might find an exit through valvular openings. Captain.Smith's paddle-box boats, for steamers, were not recommended so much for any peculiarities of construction, as for their adaptation to the tops of paddle-boxes, which they could be easily turned over and lowered to the sea. When Lady Franklin fitted out an expedition in search of the gallant old man who left our shores eight years ago, Captain Forsyth, who commanded it, took out with him a gutta-percha boat, or rather, a boat having a skeleton of wood and a covering of India-rubber. The boat behaved so well, that he gave the appropriate name of Gutta-percha Inlet to a place which he discovered with its aid: it bore all the bumps and thumps of the huge blocks of ice, and the sharp cutting action of the smaller pieces; and, in short, it got over difficulties which no other material could probably have surmounted. This success has led to the employment of gutta-percha in many of the experimental lifeboats produced within the last few years.

When the wonders of the Crystal Palace were attracting all eyes, persons could scarcely understand how or why so many models of boats made their appearance. Fifty-four models of lifeboats, by fifty-four inventors, were sent by one committee or society alone; while a large number were sent by other persons. One of them excited almost as much amusement as if it had been a joke instead of a sober stern reality. It had as many deep circular boxes, and as many covers to them, as it was calculated to carry persons; and we could never look at that strange array of boxes, without thinking of the oil-jars in which Morgiana put the

No. 69.

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