ckets
being old and badly made. Nevertheless, at twenty-two stations, 214
lives have been saved by them. The evil is, that neither rockets nor
mortars are of any use unless the wreck lies within a short distance
of the shore; for the maximum range attained is only 350 yards, and in
the teeth of a violent wind, often not above 200 to 300 yards. If a
ship, therefore, is stranded on a low shelving shore, she is almost
certain to be beyond the range of the life-rocket or of Manby's
mortar. The main reliance, therefore, is the life-boat, and to it we
return.

The Duke of Northumberland recently offered a reward for the best
model of a life-boat. This offer was responded to by English, French,
Dutch, German, and American boat-builders; and the amazing number of
280 models and plans was sent in. About fifty of the best of these
were contributed by the duke to the Great Exhibition; and he had also
a report and plans and drawings of them printed, of which he
distributed 1300 copies throughout the world. Baron Dupin, chairman of
the Jury of Class VIII., thus summed up the award of the jury
concerning them:--'These models figure among the most valuable
productions in our Great Exhibition, and furnish an example of
liberality in the cause of humanity and practical science never
surpassed, if ever equalled. Such are the motives from which we have
judged his Grace the Duke of Northumberland worthy of receiving the
Council Medal.'

The inventor of life-boats, as is well known, was Henry Greathead, of
South Shields, in 1789. His boat was 30 feet long, with 10 feet
breadth of beam, 3-1/4 feet depth of waist, stem and stern alike
nearly 6 feet high, and pulled ten oars (double-banked.) A cork lining
went fore and aft 12 inches thick, on the inside of the boat, from the
floor to the thwarts; and outside was a cork fender, 16 inches deep, 4
inches wide, and 21 feet long. 'She could not free herself of water,
nor self-right in the event of being upset.' She was launched in 1790,
and in the year 1802, the inventor was rewarded by the Society of Arts
with its gold medal and fifty guineas; and parliament voted him
L.1200, 'in acknowledgment of the utility of his invention.' Many
presumed improvements and modifications of the original boat have been
effected, with more or less success. James Beeching, a Yarmouth
boat-builder, has carried off the prize offered by the duke, and we
may therefore suppose his was the best of the models submitted.