UNDER the above heading the Board of Trade have issued a Circular, No. 646, July, 1873, which.is to come into action on the 1st January, 1874. It is supple- mentary to the 292nd Section of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, which up to the present time has constituted the law on the subject.

As we have often had to lament the incompleteness and insufficiency of the above Section of the Act of 1854, and more especially in that it contained no definition of the character of the Life- boats required to be carried on board merchant vessels, we cannot but rejoice at the step in advance, which, if it does not do all that we could wish, will, at all events, insure the comparative effi- ciency of Life-boats, life-buoys, and life- belts; and it will be open to future modification should experience show the necessity of it. Indeed we know that the Board of Trade are anxious to do all that is practicable to provide for the safety of life at sea, but they are met by various obstructions and difficulties which time only can overcome. We will place the Circular, " in extenso," before our readers, and will then add such comments on it as may seem to us appropriate.

The annexed is a copy of the Board of Trade Circular on the subject:— LIFE-BOATS AND Life-BUOYS.—The 292nd Sec- tion of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, is as follows :— The following rules shall be observed with respect to Boats and Life-buoys (that is to say): "(1.) No decked ship (except ships used solely as steam tugs, and ships engaged in the whale fishery) shall proceed to sea from any place in the United Kingdom, unless she is provided, ac- cording to her tonnage, with boats duly supplied with all requisites for use, and not being fewer in number, nor less in their cubic contents, than the boats the number and cubic contents of which are specified in the Table marked S. in the Schedule hereto, for the class to which such ship belongs.

"(2.) No ship carrying more than ten pas- sengers shall proceed to sea from any place in the United Kingdom unless, in addition to the boats hereinbefore required, she is also provided with a Life-boat furnished with all requisites for use, or unless one of her boats hereinbefore required is rendered buoyant after the manner of a Life- boat.

" (3.) No such ship as last aforesaid shall pro- ceed to sea unless she is also provided with two Life-buoys ; and such Boats and Life-buoys shal! be kept so as to be at all times fit and ready for use; Provided that the enactments with respect to Boats and Life-buoys herein contained shall not apply in any case in which a certificate has been duly obtained under the 10th Section of the ' Pas- sengers Act, 1852.'" Questions have arisen under the above-quoted section, as follows, viz.:— 1. How should the contents of a boat be ascer- tained ? 2. What should the Surveyors pass as a Life- boat ? 3. What should be deemed to be "all requisites for use " in boats ? 4. What should be deemed to be a Life-buoy ? 5. Should such of the contents of a boat as are taken up by a steam engine and boilers be deemed to be cubic contents of the boat? 6. In the case of a boat fitted with steam engines, should the boilers be provided with safety-valves, oat of the control of the engineer when the steam is up? For the guidance of Surveyors in giving decla- rations under the Merchant Shipping Acts, and of officers passing ships under the Passengers Acts, the following instructions on the above points are issued :— 1. In ascertaining the cubic contents of boats the Surveyor should bear in mind that hitherto the cubic contents of a boat have been assumed to be the contents of the extreme dimensions of the boat, and have been ascertained by multiplying the length, breadth, outside, and depth inside, into each other. Thus a boat 28 ft. long, by 8 ft. 6 in. wide, and 3 ft. 6 in. deep, has been accepted as having a cubic capacity of 833 cubic feet; this is, of course, not accurate. To ascer- tain the contents of a boat accurately, Stirling's rule should be applied; but, as that would entail much labour, the Board of Trade have adopted the use of the factor -6. In future, therefore, the Sur- veyor is to take the length, breadth, and depth, as before, to multiply them into each other, and then to multiply the product by '6. Thus the boat 28 x 8-5 x 3-5 = 833 cubic feet, 833 cubic feet X'6 = 499-8, this boat will therefore be assumed to be 500 cubic feet, instead of 800 cubic feet as here- tofore. The dimensions of the boats will, of course, remain the same as before, but their cubic contents with the same dimensions will be described as less. The totals of contents given in page 5 of Circular 591, will have to be mul- tiplied by the factor -6.

2. As regards Life-boats, square-sterned boats are not to be considered as Life-boats.—No boat should be passed as a Life-boat wherever carried, unless at least one-third of its cubic capacity is occupied by strong and serviceable air-tight compartments, so constructed, fitted, and arranged that water cannot find its way into them. Zinc is not to be used.

These air-tight compartments must be so dis- tributed as to give the boat good buoyancy and stability ; whether a part of the air-cases should be under thwarts, or whether they should be all in the end and sides, must be left to the option of the owner.

Spaces filled with or containing any material are not to be deemed to be air spaces. No boat fitted with a steam engine is to be passed as a Life-boat.

No Life-boat other than a metal Life-boat should be passed if carried sufficiently near the funnel to be injuriously affected by the heat.

3. As regards requisites for use.—The Sur- veyors should see that in all boats the full com- plement of oars, and two spare oars at least, are provided; in large boats more than two spare oars ought to be provided; that each boat has two plugs, and one set and a half of thole pins or crutches attached to the boat by lanyards, a baler, a rudder and tiller, or yoke and yoke lines, a painter of sufficient length, and a boat- hook, the rudder and baler to be attached to the boat with sufficiently long lanyards.

In the case of Life-boats, a mast or masts, with at least one good sail for each mast, and a life- jacket or life-belt for each oarsman, and one for the coxswain, must also be provided. No life- jacket or belt should be passed that is not capable of floating on the water for 24 hours with 23 pounds of iron suspended from it.

4. As regards Life-buoys.—No Life-buoys stuffed with rushes, or with cork shavings, or other shavings, or granulated cork, or any loose material, should be passed. All cork Life-buoys should be built of solid cork, and fitted with life- lines and loops, and none should be passed that will not float for 24 hours in water, with 32 pounds of iron suspended from it, If Life-buoys are not made of solid cork, then any other strong Life-buoy of an approved pattern may be passed, capable of floating in the water for 24 hours, with 40 pounds of iron suspended from it. No contrivance is to be passed as a Life-buoy that requires inflation before use.

5. As regards steam launches, or boats fitted with steam power, the contents taken up in the boat by the engine and boiler are not to be deemed to be part of clear contents of the boat.

6. As regards the safety valves fitted to the boilers of steam launches and of other boats carried by passenger steamers: the Surveyors should see that the boilers are provided with safety-valves out of control when steam is up, and subject to precisely the same rules as the safety-valves on the main boilers. The lifting or easing gear should actually lift the valve, and not merely the weight; the boilers should also have a steam gauge, a glass water gauge, and test cocks.

This Circular should be strictly complied with in all cases after 1st January, 1874.— Circular No. 646, July, 1873.

After reciting the 292nd Section of the Shipping Act, the Circular states that six queries had arisen as to the inter- pretation; and it proceeds, in the form of further instructions, to define the same, for the future guidance of the Sur- veyors, and other officers, whose duty it is to see that the requirements of the Act are complied with.

We confess it has been matter of asto- nishment to us that during the many years the' Merchant Shipping Act has been in force the character of the Life- boats, life-buoys, and life-belts required by the Act to be carried on board pas- senger-ships, has been left undefined, except, in the case of boats, as regards their dimensions; the necessary conse- quence of which has been general ineffi- ciency. However, better late than never; and whether or not the Board of Trade have been emboldened to take this long called for step through Mr. PLIMSOLL having paved the way for it over the rough ground of interested opposition, the British seaman is equally indebted to the Board of Trade for this additional security to his life in the event of his meeting with disaster at sea, or being wrecked on our own or foreign shores.

Of the sis heads under which the new instructions have been issued, there are three which are more especially allied to the work of the NATIONAL LIFE-BOAT INSTITUTION, viz., the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th.

We propose to offer some remarks on each.

" The 2nd involves the all-important question, What is to be the character of the future Life-boats of the British mer- cantile marine? Are they io be real Life-boats, or sham ones? Are they -to be not only insubmeigible, if fitted by a heavy, broken sea, with a full crew and passengers on board, but are they then to float light enough to be manageable, and to have good lateral stability, so as not to be easily upset ? The instructions on this head are, that they are not to be square-sterned, and that one-third of their cubic capacity is to be occupied by air-tight compartments; those compartments being so distributed as to give good buoyancy and stability, but leaving it optional to the shipowner to place them all at the sides and ends of the boat, or, in part, under the thwarts.

The first part of this rule we entirely agree with, that Life-boats should not be square-sterned. The last part we could wish to see altered, as we trust it some day will be. In the first place, looking to the complex and varied form of boats, it would be no easy matter to ascertain, off- hand, whether or not the air-compartments occupied one-third of their cubic capacity, and in practice on the part of Surveyors it would be mere guess-work.

Again, the rule that they must be so distributed as to give good buoyancy and stability is of too vague a character, and is made still more so by its being left to the shipowner to place them either alto- gether at the sides or in part under the thwarts.

Wherever placed within a boat, they would give buoyancy equivalent to the difference between their own weight and that of a corresponding bulk of water, but their relative position in the boat would make all the difference in the world as regards their lateral and longitudinal sta- bility. Thus, if the whole of the air-com- partments were placed in the central part of a boat, leaving the sides and ends un- occupied, any water within her would fall over from side to side with every lateral or rolling motion, and would rush to either end on the opposite end being thrown np by the sea, thus forming a shifting cargo of the most dangerous character, and such a boat would be quite as readily upset as if she were an ordinary open boat with no air-compartments -whatever.

In lieu of the above rule we suggest that the following might be adopted:— 1. That all Life-boats should be rowed double-banked, that is to say, with two men on each thwart, rowing with short oars, instead of with one man on each thwart, rowing a long oar, so as to leave the widest possible space available along the sides of the boat to be occupied by air- compartments, or side buoyancy, to the thwart level.

2. That, as being easily defined and ascertained in a moment by actual mea- surement,the side air-compartments should each be equal, in the central or widest part of the boat, to one-fourth of her | width, their inner sides being parallel to the line of the keel, so as to give an equal width of space to the rowers " fore and aft." The upper surfaces of these air-compartments, being at the level of the thwarts, would form convenient seats for passengers completely lotmd the boat.

3. That the bow and stern of the boat should be completely occupied by water- tight air-compartments to the thwart level, each of one-eighth of the length of the boat.

There is no other position in which the air-compartments of a Life-boat can be placed than round the sides and at the ends, where they will perform the double function of affording extra buoyancy and stability, whilst the larger they are the more will they reduce the water-space within the boat, and the more will it be confined in her centre, where it acts as ballast and ceases to be dangerous. If a shipowner should wish to still further in- crease the extra buoyancy of a Life-boat, and should be ready to incur the ad- ditional expense of placing air-compart- ments across the boat, under the thwarts, let him do so, but not as a substitute for side air-compartments, the full size of which should be insisted on.

The instruction under the third heading defines what shall be considered " requi- sites for use," in Life-boats and other ships' boats. These appear to be well selected and all that is indispensable. A compass is not named, but it may be pre- sumed that every sea-going ship would have a compass and binnacle aboard suf- ficiently portable to be carried in a boat.

There are two of the articles named on which we will remark, viz.: the plugs and the life-belts or jackets.

The Instructions state that each boat shall have two plugs, meaning, we pre- sume, the ordinary plugs, but with one plug-hole only, one plug being a spare one.

A Life-boat however, with the large amount of air buoyancy above recom- mended, should have two large plug-holes, say of 3 inches diameter, fitted with water- tight plugs, so that, if filled by a heavy sea, on these plugs being withdrawn, the water would rapidly run out until the water within the boat was at the same level as the sea outside her, when the plugs being replaced, the remainder could be baled out by the usual balers or buckets.

The other articles referred to in the Instructions under this head, are the life- belts, which it states should not be passed by the Surveyor unless capable of floating on the water for 24 hours with 23 Ibs. of iron suspended to it.

The average buoyancy of the cork life- belts supplied by the NATIONAL LIFE- BOAT INSTITUTION to its Life-boats' crews, is about 25 Ibs., their minimum buoyancy being equal to 23 Ibs., and their maxi- mum to 27 or 28 Ibs. They are made of two sizes, so as to approximate suffi- ciently to the sizes of different men.

For the use of the crews of ordinary merchant vessels cork life-belts having 20 Ibs. of buoyancy are, we consider, large enough, but for those supplied to the Life-boats' crews of emigrant vessels or other passenger vessels, belts with 25 Ibs.

would be better, as the men wearing them might have to support other persons who had none.

It would be very inconvenient, if not impossible, for the Surveyors of the Board of Trade to test the life-belts by immer- sion, with suspended weights, but they can be sufficiently tested by simply weigh- ing them with a spring balance, which the Surveyor could carry in his pocket.

This could be done quickly and with great facility, and no cork belt should be approved of which weighed less than 5 Ibs.

Belts of that weight, made of a good quality of cork, will support 25 Ibs. of iron, and if made of inferior and thinner cork, with the crust on, 20 Ibs.

The Instruction under the fourth head- ing requires that life-buoys, if made of solid cork, should support 32 Ibs. of iron, and if constructed of any other buoyant material 40 Ibs. of iron.

The larger of these two amounts is, we think, none too much for any life-buoy, as all should have buoyancy enough to support two persons readily. As life- buoys are always covered with painted canvas, so that even the material of which they are composed cannot be seen, and as they vary considerably in size, they can only be properly tested by im- mersion with iron weights attached to them. The common circular kind are the best for ordinary ships' use, and they should be large enough in circumference to be passed readily over a person's head and shoulders when in the water.

As stated above, if we think these " In- structions" might be advantageously al- tered in some respects, we yet welcome them as a considerable step in the right direction.