Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/340

 out in 1863, from the vast number of vessels now traversing the ocean, and especially the English and other great channels of commerce.

Various necessary and excellent regulations are embodied for the construction and equipment of steamships, without interfering with their form, leaving their owners and builders every possible scope for improvement, and compelling the fulfilment of certain conditions necessary to insure safety without relieving their owners from their just responsibility to the public. Vessels built of iron must be separated into water-tight compartments, which has since been repealed, and, in the case of steamers, the engine-room must be kept entirely distinct from the hold and cabins; passenger ships (of which further notice will hereafter be taken) are under special regulations with regard to surveys and signals, the use of fire-engines, and the shelter of all persons conveyed on deck.

In the fifth part, the powers and general jurisdiction of pilots and pilotage authorities are defined. Power is also given by this Act to dispense with the use of pilots which had been enforced at certain places, by the Acts of 1849 and 1853, and was subsequently extended to all ports in the United Kingdom except London, Liverpool, and Bristol, so as to permit "the master or mate of any ship" who "may, upon giving due notice, and consenting to pay the usual expenses, apply to any pilotage authority to be examined as to his capacity to pilot the ship of which he is master or mate, or any one or more ships belonging to the same owners," and, if found qualified, to receive a pilotage certificate.

The sixth part of the Act refers to the manage