aintenance of
order and in support of the police, in case of Chartist or other
agitations. But in 1845 the first steps were taken to utilize the
coastguard as a reserve to the navy. The boatmen were required to sign
an engagement to serve in the navy if called upon. In May 1857 the
service was transferred entirely to the admiralty, and the coastguard
became a part of the navy, using the navy flag. The districts were
placed under captains of the navy, known as district captains, in
command of ships stationed at points round the coast. Since that year
the coastguard has been recruited from the navy, and has been required
to do regular periods of drill at sea, on terms laid down by the
admiralty from time to time. It has, in fact, been a form of naval
reserve.

The rise and early history of the coastguard are told in _Smuggling
Days and Smuggling Ways_, by the Hon. Henry N. Shore, R.N., (London,
1892). Its later history must be traced in the _Queen's_ (and
_King's_) _Regulations and Admiralty Instructions_ of successive
years. (D. H.)

COASTING, usually called tobogganing (q.v.) in Europe, the sport of
sliding down snow or ice-covered hills or artificial inclines upon
hand-sleds, or sledges, provided with runners shod with iron or steel.
It is uncertain whether the first American sleds were copied from the
Indian toboggans, but no sled without runners was known in the United
States before 1870, except to the woodsmen of the Canadian border.
American laws have greatly restricted, and in most places prohibited,
the practice, once common, of coasting on the highways; and the sport is
mainly confined to open hills and artificial inclines or chutes. Two
forms of hand-sled are usual in America, the original "clipper" type,
built low with long, pointed sides, originally shod with iron but since
1850 with round steel runners; and the light, short "girls' sled," with
high skeleton sides, usually flat shod. There is also the
"double-runner," or "bob-sled," formed of two clipper sleds joined by a
board and steered by ropes, a wheel or a cross-bar, and seating from
four to ten persons.

In Scandinavia several kinds of sled are common, but that of the
fishermen, by means of which they transport their catch over the frozen
fjords, is the one used in coasting, a sport especially popular in the
neighbourhood of Christiania, where there are courses nearly 3 m. in
length. This sled is from 4 to 6 ft. long, with skele