d his wishes to Mr Thomas Wilson, M.P. for the City of London;
and the two gentlemen called a meeting in 1824, the result of which was
the establishment of the "Royal National Institution for the
Preservation of Life from Shipwreck." From that time forward great
encouragement was given to the building of lifeboats; and there are few
parts of the coast now without them. Of course, a lifeboat must differ
greatly from a common open boat, for even the best of them is easily
filled with water, or upset.

A lifeboat must be buoyant, and firmly ballasted, self-righting,
containing plenty of space for the rescued, strength to battle with the
heavy seas, and power to resist the many strikings against rocks and
wrecks. The buoyancy is obtained by having air chambers formed along
the sides of the boat, and a watertight deck, the space between which
and the boat's floor is filled by air chambers. Beside this, at each
end there are air cases built across, and reaching to the high gunwales
of the bow and stern. The power of discharging water is obtained by
forming a watertight deck at the load-water-line. In this deck there
are several large open tubes, having their upper openings on the surface
of the deck, and the lower ones in the boat's floor, thus passing
through the space between the deck and the floor, and, of course,
hermetically closed to it. In some boats the tubes are kept open, but
in the self-righting boats they are fitted with self-acting valves,
which open downwards only, so that they will allow any water shipped to
pass through them, whilst none can pass upwards. Papa explained that,
as the deck is placed above the water-line, any water resting on it will
be above the outside level of the sea, and will run out through the
valves and tubes into the sea. As fluids always gain their level by
specific gravity, the water passes through the valves until none remains
above the surface of the deck. In the smaller lifeboats, which have no
decks, the only way to relieve the boat is by bailing. It is important
that a lifeboat should be well ballasted, especially the larger
sailing-boats. These are now ballasted with water, which is let in
after the boat is off the beach, and is allowed to fill every available
space to a certain height. By being thus heavily ballasted, they can
make their way through the most tremendous seas, which would drive back
any ordinary boat. Only once has a boat of this description been upse