Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume X.djvu/430

 LIFE BOAT LIFE INSUKANCE the life-saving service is the storm signal sys- tem of the United States signal service; and on the approach of a storm danger signals are displayed upon the flag staffs of the stations along the coast, warning all vessels in sight to seek a harbor or gain a safe offing. Life Pre- servers. There are many devices for the pur- pose of buoying persons in water ; the form most commonly in use is in the shape of a jacket, made of light canvas with cork at- tached. The most of th'ose commonly furnish- ed to sea-going vessels are untrustworthy on account of the inferiority of the cork used in their manufacture. The best cork jacket is that known as the "life belt," invented by Oapt. Ward of the British navy, and adopted by the royal national life-boat institution and the United States life-saving service, also in gene- ral use by European life-boat institutions. The body of the belt is composed of light flax can- vas, tarred to prevent mildewing, and the best FIG. 12. Life Belt. of cork is firmly sewn on in slabs without cov- ering. It sustains a dead weight of 28 Ibs., a buoyancy of 16 Ibs. only being necessary to sup- port a living man in water. The requisite qual- ities of a life-boatman's life belt are : 1, suffi- cient extra buoyancy to support a man heavily clothed, with his head and shoulders above the water, or to enable him to support another person besides himself; 2, perfect flexibility, so as to readily conform to the shape of the wearer ; 3, a division into two zones, an upper and lower, so that between the two it may be secured tightly round the waist; for in no other manner can it be confined sufficiently close and secure round the body without such pressure over the chest and ribs as to materially affect the free action of the lungs, impede the muscular movement of the chest and arms, and thereby diminish the power of endurance of fa- tigue, which, in rowing boats, is a matter of vital importance; 4, strength, durability, and non- liability to injury. Life preservers have been made of various other forms and materials, the object in view being to furnish a very buoyant article that can be readily and securely attached to the upper part of the person, or seized and held by those in the water. Hollow vessels of wood or tinned iron, made air-tight, and shaped so as to serve on board the vessel as seats, have been much used. In one form the seat is made double, and opening on hinges forms a rectan- gular float, in the centre of which is an aper- ture sufficient to admit the body of, a man, his arms hanging over the sides. Bags of caou- tchouc, so made as to be readily filled with air by blowing into them, and shaped for fitting round the neck or body, have also been largely employed for life preservers ; and they have been made into vests, shirts, and jackets, which can be distended with air, giving great buoy- ancy to the person wearing them. By the law of the United States, and also of some of the separate states, steamboats are required to carry a certain number of life preservers, pro- portionate to their passenger capacity. LIFE INSURANCE, a contract whereby an in- surer engages, for a consideration called a pre- mium, to insure a person against a certain amount of pecuniary loss supposed to be con- sequent upon the decease of a certain life. The personal right of property is the chief spur to human industry, and thus lies at the foun- dation of civilized society. Yet the isolation which grows out of it results in such evils as to suggest communism as a remedy. Legiti- mate insurance is a borrowing of communism just enough to cure some of the worst evils of family isolation, without impairing the stimulus to personal exertion arising under it. In a general point of view the most impor- tant case of insurance is that which covers, for the benefit of a helpless family, the chief source of its sustenance, the life of its pro- ductive head. The history of life insurance shows, however, that an institution which has abundantly justified its existence is still in its infancy, struggling amid very unsettled meth- ods. The doctrine of probabilities developed by Pascal and Huygens, in regard to games of chance, was first applied by Jan De "Witt of Holland, in 1671, to life contingencies, but only to determine the value of life annuities and reversions, with a view to aid the gov- ernment in raising loans. Its application to life insurance was not made till nearly 90 years later. Little more than a quarter of a cen- tury, however, passed away before the first distinct germs of modern life insurance, as a provision for widows and orphans, made their appearance in the London " Mercers' Widows' Fund" of 1698, the "Society of Assurance of Widows and Orphans " of 1700 in the same city, and the famous " Amicable Society for a Per- petual Assurance Office," also founded there in 1706, which continued in existence till 1867. The first two seem to have passed away without leaving any trace of their plan of operations ;