well as in those of other companies steaming eastward through the tropics) there is almost the same comfort and luxury as in those already described, and in addition there are punkahs to be used when the heat is tropical; but as to the sleeping accommodation, that may often be found in improvised beds on the floor of the deck under the stars of the eastern heavens !

It is a matter of deep regret to us that we are obliged here to part company with the subject of steam navigation, if, indeed, we have not already trespassed too far upon the patience of our readers. We should have been pleased to take some notice of the various enterprising individuals and companies which have brought distant lands into closer communion; the remaining Atlantic companies, as the Anchor Line, with its beautiful" Cities" of Rome and Paris, and the German lines, with their comfortable arrangements; the various lines from Liverpool, London, Southampton, Bremen, Hamburg, Havre, and Marseilles to Africa, Australia, the West Indies (notably the Royal Mail Company), the Pacific, and indeed to every part of the habitable world. That would carry us entirely beyond the limits of this essay; but before proceeding to consider the progress of railway enterprise and its significance for civilisation, there is still one subject connected with the mercantile marine to which a brief space should be devoted, namely, the system and means which are employed to rescue the victims of maritime disaster.

The first lifeboat was constructed by Lionel Lukin, a native of Dunmow, in Essex, a town still famous for its well-known matrimonial custom. Lukin took out a patent for his boat, the Unimmergible, in the year 1785, but gained nothing by his humanitarian enterprise beyond the inscription on his tomb that he was "the original inventor of that principle of safety by which many lives and much property have been preserved from shipwreck." He died in 1834. Shortly after the period just named (1785) other attempts were made to provide lifeboats, and in 1798 the Duke of Northumberland ordered and endowed one at his own expense, which was stationed at North Shields, and immediately signalised itself by saving seven men from the sloop Edinburgh, wrecked on the Herd Sands. Northumberland had not only the honour of initiating a new era in the history of the lifeboat, but gave birth to the heroine Grace Darling, whose exploit is still cited, especially at the meetings of ladies, whose "Auxiliaries" to the National Institution are now to be found throughout the land. The number of boats on the coast continued to increase, but in 1849 there were still only nineteen in England and Ireland, and none at all in Scotland. These boats were under the

management of the "National Shipwreck Institution," of which the total income in the year just named was £354, 178. 9d.

PROTECTED CRUISER COST ABOUT

£ 900,000.

In 1850 the institution was at its lowest ebb, but it was reorganised, and in 1855 its name was changed to the " Royal

National Lifeboat Institution." It has now 308 lifeboats, including two propelled by steam, and its income in 1894 was £73,526, the whole subscribed from voluntary sources. The first steam lifeboat, named after the early benefactor of the institution, the Duke of Northumberland, is stationed at New Brighton, at the mouth of the river Mersey, and its distinctive feature is that it is worked by means of a turbine, without either screw or paddles. Propulsion is obtained through the force exerted by a very powerful centrifugal pump, taking in its water through a supply orifice in the bottom, and discharging it at the sides through outlets pointing in the opposite direction to that in which it is wished to propel the boat. The direction in which the water is discharged can be changed, being regulated by valves worked by handles on deck, without any interference with the running of the engines, and by that means the boat may be moved in any direction; whilst running at a speed of eight or nine knots an hour it can be brought to a dead stop in thirteen seconds. The chief objection raised to-day against these steam lifeboats is their cost-3500 to £5000-and the cost of maintenance; but if the reader will take another look at the plate, and will compare the cost of the little life-saver with that of the life-destroyer, costing nearly a million, we venture to think that, whatever may be his views on the abstract question of peace and war, he will give the precedence to the life-saving boat as an effective civilising agent. Since the Royal National Lifeboat Institution was established, its boats, and those of fishermen rewarded from its funds, had up to November 1895 saved 39,238 souls from shipwreck. Steam lifeboats, which are undoubtedly the life-saving craft of the future, are being built in this country for use in Continental states.

On the 6th October 1829 there was a locomotive competition for a prize of £500 at Rainhill, near Liverpool, on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the prize being offered by the Company. Five locomotives were entered for the stakes, which were won by the Rocket, made by the brothers Stephenson. The following were the conditions of the "running":-The engines were weighed with their boilers charged, and a load was to be added three times the weight of each engine. The water was to be cold, and to each was then supplied the quantity of coal which was deemed requisite for the run. The engines were to be drawn by manual power to the starting-point, and they were to start as soon as the pressure of steam was raised to 50 lbs. on the square inch. They ran consecutively over a course of about two miles in length, which had to be covered ten times, making in all about

twenty miles. Stations were erected at each end of the course to contain the judges. As already stated, the prize was awarded to Stephenson's Rocket, which was furnished with a tubular boiler, whereof the invention was claimed by M. Seguin, a French engineer. Her cylinders were 8 inches diameter, with a 16-inch stroke; the driving-wheels were 4 feet 8 inches in diameter.

But it will be interesting to give some further details connected with the Rocket in contrast with those of the Queen Empress and the Greater Britain, two locomotives now ruu

ning on the London and North-Western Railway, designed by the Company's superintendent engineer, Mr. F. Webb, of the Crewe Works. Such a comparison will serve to give the reader the best insight into the immeuse strides which have been made in this branch of mechanical engineering since the time when railways began to supersede the old stage-coach:

and the latter is now the general speed of the express trains on several of the leading railways.t

It will be seen that the conditions of the competition as to draught of load were not adhered to.

In his work on "Industrial Evolution in the United States," Colonel Wright describes and delineates "The Empire State Express Engine, No. 999, of the New York Central and Hudson's River Railroad," which, he says, 66 ran for a considerable distance at the rate of 112 miles an hour, hauling its regular train."

To return for a few moments to the earlier engines, which were of a variety of types of construction. One of those which entered the first contest, the Novelty, ran without a tender, like some of the present ones, and she drew a coach contain

ing forty-five passengers. Frequent repairs were, however, necessary during her trials. The carriages first used, both for passengers and goods, were as rude as the engines were primitive; and for a long time the former were built as much as possible on the model of the stage-coach. This is also *Plate copied, by permission, from part of a coloured plate, copyrighted by Mr. Cotsworth, York, and published by R. Tuck & Sons.