untry
cobles, and ordinary boats, slightly modified. The committee appointed
to decide on their respective merits had a difficult task to perform.
After six months' careful, patient investigation and experiment, they
awarded the prize to Mr James Beeching, of Great Yarmouth. Beeching's
boat, although the best, was not, however, deemed perfect.

The committee therefore set Mr James Peake, one of their number, and
assistant master-shipwright at Woolwich Dockyard, to incorporate as many
as possible of the good qualities of all the other models with
Beeching's boat. From time to time various important improvements have
been made, and the result is the present magnificent boat of the
Institution, by means of which hundreds of lives are saved every year.

The self-discharge of water from a lifeboat is not so easy to explain.
It will be the more readily comprehended if the reader understands, and
will bear in remembrance, the physical fact that water will, and must,
find its level. That is--no portion of water, small or great, in tub,
pond, or sea, can for a moment remain above its flat and level surface,
except when forced into motion, or commotion. Left to itself it
infallibly flattens out, becomes calm, lies still in the lowest
attainable position--in other words, finds its level. Bearing this in
mind, let us look again at Figure 3.

The dotted double line about the middle of the boat, extending from stem
to stern, represents the _floor_ of the boat, on which the men's feet
rest when standing or sitting in it. It also represents, or very nearly
so, the waterline outside, that is, the depth to which the boat will
sink when afloat, manned and loaded. Therefore, the _boat's floor_ and
the _ocean_ _surface_ are on the same level. Observe that! The space
between the floor and the keel is filled up with cork or other ballast.
Now, there are six large holes in the boat's floor--each hole six inches
in diameter--into which are fitted six metal tubes, which pass down by
the side of the cork ballast, and right through the bottom of the boat
itself; thus making six large openings into the sea.

"But hallo!" you exclaim, "won't the water from below rush up through
these holes and fill the boat?"

It will indeed rush up into these holes, but it will not fill the boat
because it will have found its level--the level of ocean--on reaching
the floor. Well, besides having reached its level, the water in the
tubes has reached