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Rh and others. Under its provisions numerous highly dangerous wrecks have been removed.

In 1893 the chairman of the Institution moved a resolution in the House of Commons that, in order to decrease the serious loss of life from shipwreck on the coast, the British Government should provide either telephonic or telegraphic communication between all the coast-guard stations and signal stations on the coast of the United Kingdom; and that where there are no coast-guard stations the post offices nearest to the life-boat stations should be electrically connected, the object being to give the earliest possible information to the life-boat authorities at all times, by day and night, when the life-boats are required for service; and further, that a Royal Commission should be appointed to consider the desirability of electrically connecting the rock lighthouses, light-ships, &c., with the shore. The resolution was agreed to without a division, and its intention has been practically carried out, the results obtained having proved most valuable in the saving of life.

On the 1st of January 1898 a pension and gratuity scheme was introduced by the committee of management, under which life-boat coxswains, bowmen and signalmen of long and meritorious service, retiring on account of old age, accident, ill-health or abolition of office, receive special allowances as a reward for their good services. While these payments act as an incentive to the men to discharge their duties satisfactorily, they at the same time assist the committee of management in their effort to obtain the best men for the work. For many years the Institution has given compensation to any who may have received injury while employed in the service, besides granting liberal help to the widows and dependent relatives of any in the service who lose their own lives when endeavouring to rescue others.

A very marked advance in improvement in design and suitability for service has been made in the life-boat since the reorganization of the Institution in 1883, but principally since 1887, when, as the result of an accident in December 1886 to two self-righting life-boats in Lancashire, twenty-seven out of twenty-nine of the men who manned them were drowned. At this time a permanent technical sub-committee was appointed by the Institution, whose object was, with the assistance of an eminent consulting naval architect—a new post created—and the Institution’s official experts, to give its careful attention to the designing of improvements in the life-boat and its equipment, and to the scientific consideration of any inventions or proposals submitted by the public, with a view to adopting them if of practical utility. Whereas in 1881 the self-righting life-boat of that time was looked upon as the Institution’s special life-boat, and there were very few life-boats in the Institution’s fleet not of that type, at the close of 1901 the life-boats of the Institution included 60 non-self-righting boats of various types, known by the following designations: Steam life-boats 4, Cromer 3, Lamb and White 1, Liverpool 14, Norfolk and Suffolk 19, tubular 1, Watson 18. In 1901 a steam-tug was placed at Padstow for use solely in conjunction with the life-boats on the north coast of Cornwall. The self-righting life-boat of 1901 was a very different boat from that of 1881. The Institution’s present policy is to allow the men who man the life-boats, after having seen and tried by deputation the various types, to select that in which they have the most confidence.

The present life-boat of the self-righting type (fig. 2) differs materially from its predecessor, the stability being increased and the righting power greatly improved. The test of efficiency in this last quality was formerly considered sufficient if the boat would quickly right herself in smooth water without her crew and gear, but every self-righting life-boat now built by the Institution will right with her full crew and gear on board, with her sails set and the anchor down. Most of the larger self-righting boats are furnished with “centre-boards” or “drop-keels” of varying size and weight, which can be used at pleasure, and materially add to their weather qualities. The drop-keel was for the first time placed in a life-boat in 1885.

Steam was first introduced into a life-boat in 1890, when the Institution, after very full inquiry and consideration, stationed on the coast a steel life-boat, 50 ft. long and 12 ft. beam, and a depth of 3 ft. 6 in., propelled by a turbine wheel driven by engines developing 170 horse-power. It had been