"WE have in different parts of this Journal pointed out the advisability that we believe exists for providing on board all vessels, and especially on board passenger-ships, some provision for decreasing the risk of life to those on board them in the event of their being cast on shore, or accident befalling them at sea.

We introduce the following extracts from a letter recently received from the United States of America, addressed to his Grace the President of the Institution, as illustrating that not only has the same opinion existed in another great commercial country, only second to our own, but that that opinion has been to some extent acted on, and that a law actually exists there which compels every passenger-steamer to carry a life-preserver for each person on board; thus evincing a practical appreciation of the value of human life, and a sense of the responsibility which rests on every Government to provide for the protection and welfare of those committed to its care.

The letter was accompanied by a description and diagrams of a life-belt, of which the writer of it is the inventor, who, however, states, that his " motive for forwarding the communication is not a pecuniary one," but that his " object is only the saving of life." " The life-preservers of the annexed description are carried in many of the steamboats on the Mississippi river, and on the Gulf Coast, in accordance with a law of the Congress of the United States, which requires all steam-vessels carrying passengers to be supplied with one for each passenger carried.

" The loss of the ship Tayleur, in Dublin Bay, is the occasion which has prompted me to introduce to your Grace's notice a life-preserver which, if it had been on board the ship and kept in such places as it might be without inconvenience to the crew or passengers, would have saved many lives, if not all; for it appears from the account of the wrecking of the ship received here, that she struck so near the shore that persons jumped from her deck, or swung from her yards to it. Now as she remained above water fifteen or twenty minutes, every one in her might during that time have supplied themselves with life-preservers, had they been on board and been kept in proper places.

" The ship Lady Evelyn, wrecked within a quarter of a mile offshore, is also an instance where life-preservers would have been of some use.

" Again, iii the instance of the loss of the steam-ship Amazon, burnt off Sicily-, if each of the passengers and crew had had on a good life-preserver, made in a proper shape, and so placed on the person as to allow free use of the arms to work, they might have freely gone into the water, and have formed rafts of such spars and other floating articles that did not burn, which would have been the means of saving many from drowning.

"Now, it appears to me, that if the Governments of Great Britain and the United States were to pass laws compelling all vessels to carry for every person on board, life-preservers possessed of about 20 Ibs.

buoyancy each, (and, I believe, from my experiments in the water that is little enough) and would designate the proper places where they should be kept, that many valuable lives would be saved—fully one-half of those shipwrecked.

" (Signed) EDWARD G. FITCH.

" New Orleans, 20th Feb., 1854.".