SINCE the publication of the Report of the Northumberland Life-boat Committee, a good deal has been said and written on the subject of the self-righting principle in life-boats in the event of their being upset, a quality which was strongly advocated in that Report, and assumed as an essential condition in all such boats.

It is hardly necessary to say that we rejoice at the discussion that has arisen ; it is apathy and indifference that we fear as far more hurtful to the cause than anything else. There is nothing like a free, full, and impartial hearing of all sides of a question in order to elicit truth, and it is truth above all that we earnestly seek and contend for.

Those who are disposed to treat lightly the quality of self-righting state that it is of more importance to give a boat stability so that she shall not capsize than to go out of our way to seek a remedy for an evil that may never arise. We fully admit the value of stability, it is an essential quality without which all other good points would be in vain, and such appears to have been the opinion of the Northumberland Committee, as in their list of qualities they placed stability near the head of the list, and annexed a numeral value to it nearly double that of the self-righting power.

Stability, however, would appear to have been more aimed at hitherto by means of breadth of beam than by attention to the form of the boat, to judge by many existing life-boats, and especially those built at Shields, Sunderland, Whitby, &c., where the breadth is generally one-third of the length. Now it is at once admitted that it is difficult (although far from impracticable) to combine great breadth of beam and self- righting power; we must seek then to give equal stability by the form of the boat, and this any good builder knows can be done.

Again, it is objected that the raised ends will render a boat difficult to keep head to wind, and prevent her pulling off a lee-shore.

If carried to any great extent, raised ends would certainly be open to this objection, but we believe that moderately raised ex- tremes will suffice for the purpose, as all that is required is sufficient buoyancy to float the boat when bottom up, so that her gunwale amidships should be just clear of, or even with, the water; in that position a very small weight on the keel will cause her to turn on her two raised ends as pivots, and to self-right.

We do not propose to enter largely into the question he.re, as some boats that have been built have proved that there is no such difficulty as was imagined. But we would ask boat-builders to dismiss all prejudices, and to give the subject fair consideration.

The accidents that have happened to life- boats have not been carefully investigated, and the necessity for meeting these accidents with a remedy has not forced itself upon their minds. Of the 16 disasters to life- boats, recorded in the Report before alluded to, 9 of them were caused by the upsetting of the boats, and their drifting on shore bottom up, involving a loss of 56 lives. Now this is a fact that must not be overlooked; we know it, and we must grapple with it, and although it is probable that some of these persons would have been lost even if the boats had self-righted, still we should be neglect- ing our duty not to do all in our power to mitigate the evil when it does occur. We believe that the difficulty, if it be one, has been overcome, and that the self-righting principle might be applied to many of the existing life-boats, certainly to all those of moderate breadth of beam, and without ren- dering them less efficient as boats.

Nor is this any new discovery. It is a singular fact—and it serves as an additional proof of the want of some systematic record of discoveries accessible to all persons, from the absence of which the same points are brought forward time after time, and others are completely forgotten—that the property of self-righting which when recently pro- posed as one of the requisites of a good life- boat, was almost treated with derision by some of our best boat-builders, should have been acknowledged and publicly exhibited at Leith by the Rev. JAMES BREMNER, of Walls, Orkney, as far back as July, 1800.

He first proposed, in 1792, to enable all ordinary boats to self-right by placing two small water-tight casks parallel to each other in the head sheets of the boat, and one athwartships in the stern sheets, firmly se- curing them down to the keelson, and by attaching a small weight, not exceeding 3 cwt. of iron, to the keel. A boat thus fitted was publicly tried at Leith in the year 1800, and repeatedly righted herself, for which a piece of plate was awarded to Mr. BEEMNEE. The plan was also laid before the Royal Humane Society and the Trinity House of London, and was approved of by them, as a mode of fitting a ship's boats to answer as life-boats, and carry the crew on shore. In 1810 the description, with a drawing of this plan, was published in the Transactions of the Society of Arts, vol.

xxviii., p. 135, and rewarded with a silver medal and 20 guineas. Yet, in 1850, half a century after its first public trial at Leith, the practicability of making a boat right herself was almost derided! It is remarkable that no notice of this plan was taken by the builders of our life- boats at that period; it was only a few- years previous, in 1789, that HENRY GREATHEAD of South Shields had built the first life-boat used in England, but he made no attempt to make his boat self-right, although he adopted as much sheer of gunwale in his plan as it is now proposed to do, that is, one inch for each foot of length, and his stem and stern were quite high enough for the purpose.

Mr. BREMNER'S great object was to show that each collier that sails along our coasts, and we may add, each emigrant ship, troop ship, or steamer, that crosses the Atlantic, has the means on board for fitting the boats of the vessel as life-boats in a simple and inexpensive manner, and so it un- doubtedly has, yet none, we believe, adopt it. Why, when a light collier starts on her homeward voyage (for it is chiefly light colliers that are wrecked), should she not secure an empty tight water-cask into the head and stern sheets of her principal boat ? It would not be half an hour's work, when the lashings were once prepared and the ringbolts in her keelson, and if not required, ten minutes could remove the whole on reaching her port. The materials are always on board, and any sailor could fit them to the boat, and then in case of need there would be a life-boat that could not sink, even if filled with water, always ready to land the crew in case of wreck. Vessels are frequently cast upon a coast where there is no life-boat, and on many occasions a ship's boat would drive ashore before the wind, when owing to the fury of the gale no life-boat could get off from a lee shore to her assistance. Should this little Journal happen to fall into the hands of the master or mate of one of our colliers or coasters, we heartily beg of him to give this simple plan a fair trial; it can cost him nothing but a piece of rope, and may be the means of saving the life of many a fellow-creature.