to be said of the other parts of our shores during that
same wild storm? It would take volumes instead of chapters to give the
thrilling incidents of disaster and heroism in full detail. To convey
the truth in all its force is impossible, but a glimmering of it may be
obtained by a glance at the Wreck Chart which is published by the Board
of Trade every year.

Every black spot on that chart represents a wreck more or less
disastrous, which occurred in the twelve months. It is an appalling
fact that about two thousand ships, upwards of seven hundred lives, and
nearly two millions sterling, are lost _every_ year on the shores of the
United Kingdom. Some years the loss is heavier, sometimes lighter, but
in round numbers this is our annual loss in the great war. That it
would be far greater if we had no lifeboats and no life-saving rockets
it will be our duty by-and-by to show.

The black spots on the Wreck Chart to which we have referred show at a
single glance that the distribution of wrecks is very unequal--naturally
so. Near the great seaports we find them thickly strewn; at other
places, where vessels pass in great numbers on their way to these ports,
the spots are also very numerous, while on unfrequented parts they are
found only here and there in little groups of two, three, or four. Away
on the nor'-west shores of Scotland, for instance, where the seal and
the sea-mew have the ocean and rugged cliffs pretty much to themselves,
the plague-spots are few and far between; but on the east coast we find
a fair sprinkling of them, especially in the mouths of the Forth and
Tay, whither a goodly portion of the world's shipping crowds, and to
which the hardy Norseman now sends many a load of timber--both log and
batten--instead of coming, as he did of old, to batten on the land. It
is much the same with Ireland, its more important seaports being on the
east.

But there is a great and sudden increase of the spots when we come to
England. They commence at the border, on the west, where vessels from
and to the busy Clyde enter or quit the Irish Sea. Darkening the
fringes of the land on both sides, and clustering round the Isle of Man,
they multiply until the ports have no room to hold them, and, as at
Liverpool, they are crowded out into the sea. From the deadly shores of
Anglesea, where the Royal Charter went down in the great and memorable
storm of November, 1859, the signs of wreck and disaster thicken as we
g