Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 12.djvu/255

* LIFE-SAVING SERVICE. 233 LIFE-SAVING SEEVICE. calities and are equipped and manned for their special purposes. The houses of refuge on the coast of Florida are small dwellings, each large enough for the residence of one man, who has charge, and his family. They are supplied with provisions and other necessaries and are in- tended for places of shelter only, as the character of the neighboring shores makes it possible for wrecked persons to reach the land with little difficulty, their chief danger being from hunger and thirst. The stations are designated by local names indicating their positions. When they are near each other, some being not more than four or five miles apart, they are connected with tele- phone lines, which makes it easy to concentrate two or mure crews in combined effort at the scene of wrecks. It often happens that several vessels strand at the same time in the same neighborhood, and for this reason it is desirable to have means to assemble speedily the necessary force to assist them. Whenever practicable, unadjacent stations are connected with the near- -t available point that will put them within ■ legraphic reach. The telephone lines of the -■■rvice are of value to the commercial interests nf the country, as they are used in giving mari- time exchanges, underwriters, and others con- cerned early notice of disasters, and in advis- ing them of the condition of wrecked vessels and their cargoes. During the war with Spain the telephone system was used by the surfmen as a military coast signal service. The stations on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, with the exception of the floating station at Boston, are manned from August 1st to May .31st of each year. In the months of .June and .July, termed the inactive season, the keepers alone are in charge on those coasts, that being the period least liable to high winds and rough water. The members of the crews, however, who are off duty at that time are required to respond promptly to any call for assistance that may reach them, and are paid for services rendered on such an occasion, while volunteers are also relied upon in case it becomes necessary to at- tend a wreck. Stations on the Pacific Coast, and the one at Louisville, are manned continuously, while on the Great Lakes active service covers the interval between the opening and closing of navigation. The floating station in Boston Har- bor is employed from May 1st to November 15th of each year, its work, like that of the Louis- ville station, consisting largely in the rescue of imperiled persons from small craft and requiring unremitting vigilance. Its equipment includes a steam launch and two gasoline launches. A life-saving crew is composed generally of a keeper and from six to eight surfmen, although the number depends a great deal upon the nature of the service they are to perform, in some cases a larger crew being necessary to man a station properly. At most of the sta- tions on the Atlantic Coast an extra man is put on during the winter season. A surfman must be a citizen of the L'nited States, not under eighteen nor over forty years of age when origi- nally enlisted, able to read and write the English language, physically sound, a good swimmer, and experienced in the management of boats. .Ap- pointments are made upon examination and cer- tification by the Civil Service Commission. Great care is exercised in selecting the men, no one being admitted or promoted to a higher grade who has not furnished manifest proof of his fitness for the position. A vacancy in the keeper- ship of a station is filled by the promotion of a surfman judged to be the most competent avail- able man in the district. The keeper is intrusted with the care of the buildings and their contents and the government of the station. He is the captain of the crew over which he has control. In the boat he takes the steering oar and at other times directs the operations. The crews are put through a rigid course of drills, recitations, and inspections, which the keeper carries out on specified days each week, weather and surf permitting, while the dis- trict officers and others in authority make fre- quent visits to the stations. The drills, which tlie regulations of the sen-ice prescribe, are with the beach apparatus (each station has a drill- ground on which is a wreck pole representing the mast of a stranded vessel), surf and life boats, life-car, international and general service signal codes, method of resuscitating the ap- parently drowned, etc. Keepers and surfmen provide themselves with uniforms which they are required to wear at all times when on duty. The service uses several principal appliances for saving life from shipwreck. The first of these is the cedar surfboat, which is the boat most suitable to launch from flat beaches through the shoaling waters of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. The various types of this boat are de- velopments of the boats used in surfing by the fishermen of Long Island and Xew .Jersey when the first stations were placed on those shores. Those in most general use are from 22 to 27 feet long, 6 to 7 feet beam, and are provided with end air-chambers which make them insubmergible. I^ach is completely equipped with oars, boat- hooks, boat-hatchets, bailing-buckets, life-pre- servers, life and righting lines, cork fenders, an anchor, a canvas drogue, heaving-stick, etc. This boat, being comparatively light, can easily be hauled along shore on its carriage. Its action in the hands of the station crew is often marvelous, the boat being manoeuvred in the breakers and in proximity to wrecks with great dexterity. It is propelled by from five to eight oars, and is ex- pected to carry, besides the crew, from nine to twelve persons, although as many as fifteen have been safely landed at a time in a bad sea. Other contrivances are the self-bailing and self-righting lifeboat, a reproduction of the Eng- lish model, and the Beebe-McLellan self-bailing boat of American design. (See Lifebo.t.) Lifeboats are used with good efTect on the Great Lakes, where the conditions favor their employ- ment, are utilized to some extent at selected points on the ocean coast, and often go long dis- tances under sail. The matter of placing boats at stations has always to l>e carefully considered, as the tvpe which may be suited to one locality may be entirely unfitted for another. TNTien it is impracticable to use a boat, wreck ordnance is relied upon for communicating with stranded vessels. A small, bronze, smoothbore gun. weighing with its carriage ISo pounds, in- vented by Jfajor David A. Lyle, of the army, is the appliance in general use. It carries an 18-pound elongated ca.stiron projectile, in one end of which is an eyebolt or shank that pro- jects sufficiently beyond the muzzle of the gun to protect the line "which is fastened to it from