IT is intended in this and each future number of the Life-boat Journal to give our readers a short account of two or more of the stations of the ROYAL NATIONAL LIFE-BOAT INSTITUTION.

These sketches—for they will be of that nature—will be geographical, historical, and nautical, or technical, and they will be drawn up with the following objects in view: First, to afford donors of Life- boats and others interested in Life-boat work living in distant parts of the country, an opportunity of learning something about any Life-boat station in which they may feel any particular interest, but which, being out of the track of ordinary travellers, are not noticed in ordinary Guide-books.

Secondly, to enable coxswains and crews of Life-boats, by turning to the pages of the Life-boat Journal, to form a judgment of the kind of difficulties that have been overcome by other Life-boat crews, and to learn what sort of places they are in which those other Life-boats perform the acts of daring which they from time to time read or hear about.

And, thirdly, with the hope to supply th.6 public with information which will enable them to understand the motives •which have influenced the Institution in selecting particular sites for Life-boat stations, and the dangers those boats are expected to encounter, and thus increasing, it is hoped, their interest in and sympathy with this great and national work.

It is assumed that the geographical and nautical portions will be the parts most valued by the crews of the boats and pro- fessional men; and while to a large class of our readers such particulars will convey little meaning, a general account of the scenery and the country, and a few words of reminder concerning historical asso- ciations of interest, may prove not un- interesting.

The spaces allotted to' different sta- tions must necessarily vary greatly, and many important sea-ports and fashionable watering-places will receive but small spaces, as being either not an important field of Life-boat work, or that their histories can be found in every Guide- book; while some unknown and out-of- j the-way stations, from precisely opposite j conditions, will occupy comparatively large ones.

The series commences with two Welsh stations—Penarth and Porthcawl. The next number will contain a notice of one I English, one Scotch, and one Irish station.

I.—PENARTH.

The George Gay Life-boat.

PENARTH is a small, beautifully situated village on ! the headland of the same name, which forms the [ southern boundary of the entrance of the" little : river Ely. Two to three miles north of Penarth Head is the town of Cardiff, while at half that distance from Penarth is the entrance to the canal leading up to Cardiff, and also the celebrated Bute Pocks. The basin of a new large dock was also ! opened at Cardiff a couple of mouths ago, with a : draught of water sufficient to admit the largest ships built. The river Taff, on which the town of Cardiff is built, and into which the canal and the docks open, after winding through extensive flats, visible at low water, unites with the Ely close to Penarth Head. Hence the channel leads all ships i to and from Cardiff close to Penarth, which was for that reason selected as the site of a Life-boat j Station. At Penarth itself, however, are import- I ant docks, which are readily accessible at various I times of tide, and are largely used by steamers.

 To the east of Penarth, for three and a half I miles, extends a dangerous sandbank known as the " Cardiff Grounds." This bank is uncovered at low water, but covers at a quarter flood, when it becomes a troubled mass.of broken water.

Between the Cardiff Grounds and the line of coast, running due south, from Penarth Head to Lavernock Point, is the anchorage known as Cardiff Roads, and on a strand facing this road- stead is built the house in which the Life-boat George Gay finds shelter till the hour of need.

On the top of the steep pathway leading from i the Life-boat house is the Coastguard Station, j from which as many as five hundred vessels have : been counted at anchor in the Roads. Looking j north from the Coastguard Station are to be seen j —still on the ridge of the headland—the town of Penarth and the church; the latter a conspicuous i object, noted by the mariner as a landmark far '• over the Bristol Channel, and standing over 300 feet from the level of the sea.

The view from the highest parts of Penarth : headland in fine weather is superb. Looking south, we have in the immediate foreground the' fleet of merchantmen at anchor in the roads; a scene fall of life and motion, with the bustling I steam-tug ever fussing and fuming its way in and out among the larger vessels; with the stately sailing ships, spreading fold after fold of their , white canvas to the breeze,; or the swift ocean i steamer darting away seaward with its murky : trail of smoke, smirching the blue sky behind.

Beyond this, to the south, we have the high cliffs and imposing front of the island of Steep Holme, . and next, to the eastward and much nearer, the ; Flat Holme island, its lighthouse and white Go- . vernraent buildings gleaming and sparkling in the sunlight; to the east again, on the opposite shore of the Bristol Channel and facing the set- ting sun, the town of Weston-super-Mare shows out in bold relief against the dark blue of Anchor Head and Worle Hill; while beyond all, and stretching away to the farthest horizon, in suc- cessive waves of grey and cobalt, lie the hills of Somerset, Looking north, there is a splendid panorama of George Gay can do, and has done, good Life-boat work.

The next discouraging circumstance for the crew of the George Gay is that they have fre- quently been forestalled in their errand of mercy by a steam-tug, there being many of these vessels lying in the Roads with their steam up, especially in stormy weather. This is, of course, a most the valleys of the Ely and the Taff, and through j fortunate circumstance for the distressed seamen, the blue vapour above the town of Cardiff rise | but it naturally curtails extensively the Life- tower and factory and church of that thriving ( boat's possible sphere of usefulness. These maritime town. At night the appearance of the I steamers, which are specially on the look-out for Roads at some crowded periods is peculiar and 1 cases of salvage (i.e. when they may be hired ft impressive; for each vessel carrying a. light,gives j perform, or become entitled by law, to money for them the appearance of a great city. In calm performing services to vessels in distress), at once weather the water reflects and magnifies the lights a hundred times, but as the storm rises, the lights begin to waver about, then toss in apparently frantic motion; and the smallest effort of imagi- nation produces a city in the first convulsions of an earthquake, ere houses, lights and ell have been dashed to the ground and lost in darkness. Pre- sently, however, there may stream forth in the night the glare of burning tar-barrels, casting a lurid light on the masts and rigging of ships in its vicinity: then the illusion is dispelled, and -we become aware we are gazing at trouble and dis- aster of another kind—for the flame is a signal from some ship in distress, and there comes, in quick response, the Life-boat signal gun fired by the Coastguard watchman, and presently the tread of hurrying feet, and the muffled shout of men calling to their fellows through the night and There are few places, however, where thh Life- boat finds such difficulty in affording its aid as in Cardiff Roads; and hence, though disasters are not uncommon, and wrecks within sight of the boat-house have occurred within the last few years, the number of lives actually saved by the George Gay is not large in comparison with many other Life-boats stationed on less-frequented coasts.

The reasons are not far to seek. In the first place, aid to be useful must be prompt -, and there is a delay in starting, from the fact of the crew, or the majority of them, not residing on the spot. swoop down on the vessel showing such a signal as we have indicated. They often incur great peril in aiding vessels in distress. Sometimes they are richly rewarded, and know they will be so before they undertake the operation; but at others—and to their honour be it said—they are actuated solely by a desire to save life. Hot long ago, a plucky little tug farther down the Bristol Channel went out in storm and darkness to a vessel, from which she took 17 persons, having to sheet alongside an equal number of times to do so. Of course actual collision in such cases would be very destructive, and the steamer never stops, but, watching her opportunity, has to range up alongside close enough for some one of the dis- tressed persons who are lining the sides of the •wreck to jump from it to the top of the paddle- box. Such instances of successful attempts are, however, rare; and the reverse side to the picture, and Toy no means an uncommon one, is that the steam-tugs are wholly unable to get close enough to render such assistance; they have no boat that can stand the sea, and they linger round the wreck uselessly looking on while the Life-boat, which alone could render the necessary aid, is to leeward and struggling in vain against wind and tide to reach the scene of disaster. The obvious cure for such a state of things is, at Penartb. and similar stations, to place at moor- ings close to the Life-boat house, so soon as the storm threatens, a steam-tug, which should remain there with her fires alight till the gale is over.

salvage services, but the general principle would involve an outlay far beyond the means of this Institution, or, rather, let us say, would, in the eyes of the public who support it, put a higher price oa the life of » man than in the present stage of the world's history it has attained to.

The principal causes of shipwreck in Cardiff— or Penarth—Roads are, vessels parting from their cables. If the gale-is at S.E, they go on shore on the rocky coast between the Life- boat Station and Lavernock Point, in which case The next difficulty is the rapid tide running j the rocket apparatus-rather than the Life-boat between the Grounds and the shore, which some- ) comes into play. If the gale is at S.W. round timea reaches the rate of six miles per hour and ) to W.N.Aflf. they go on to the shoals called Car- eommonly runs at the rate of three to four miles. 1 diff Grounds, where, having bilged, perhaps, at Should the storm and the tide be setting in the i tow-water or quarter-flood, as the tide flows i,......... _.a ., , = j!_. *--'-; they are filled or driven clean over the shoal into deep water, where, of course, all on board perish, unless the Life-boat arrives in time to save them. A sketch of the occurrences at this Life-boat Station on a night of December, 1872, will give force to what we have said above.

About dusk, the brig Wallace was observed showing signals of distress towards the southern end of the Cardiff Grounds. By the time the Life-boat's crew had assembled it was long after i direction and the vessel in distress be to windward of the boathouse.'Of course it is quite impossible for the boat to reach her. Again, when the wreck is to leeward with a rapid tide and wind creeping past her, it is a nice operation just to bit toe position required in a dark night; while if the boat is set ever so little to leeward there is w possibility of regaining the lost ground. There we, however, certain intermediate or favourable states of the tide, in relation to the direction of „ the wind and the position of the wreck,-when the ( dark, but, steering in the direction where the This is a defect not uncommon at our Life-boat i This tug, of course, to be under the orders of the stations, and is one for which there is practically I ban. sec, and coxswain, and in communication no care, at all events by a charitable Institution 'with them. In crowded highways such as Car- with limited means, i'or the best spot having i diff Roads, a vessel subsidised for such a purpose been selected as a starting-point to meet known i would probably cover much of her expenses by dangers, it is manifestly a quicker way of getting *"i»" ~ «a«.i««n K,,* *v, ,r£»,n«ni ~;n/ ;nin nr™*!.-! to the danger that the men should come thither by land and find the boat on the spot, than that the boat should be kept where the men reside and bare to be transported by sea or land, in storm and darkness, to the starting-point. To pay men (qualified) to reside in such places when the natural course of their ordinary avocations does not lead them to do so, would frequently be quite impracticable, and always be enormously expensive.

the tide now, and the storm, precluded the possi- amount to Newcastle alone of any town in the they reached the shore the Wallace had been ) 3 yards broad! observed by ships near her (in ;imminent peril I Penarth and Cardiff are rich in the historical of the same fate) to roll clean over among the j associations of many ages; the British, the breakers and instantaneously disappear with all j " " . — on board.

Certainly a steam-tug attached to the Life-boat ! worth fighting for. A modern phase of their interests involved in the question of the best I services. And so in like stories, running less in port than a month previously, coals were I of so many ages of history, has become to the tidal harbour of Penarth and the Glamorgan Canal j -which bloodstained walls, and blazing homestead*, at Cardiff. There are also at Cardiff three graving- j and unchecked tyranny of the strong over ths docks and a " gridiron " for repairing ships. The j weak had utterly failed to endow her with through depth of water in the Penarth .Dock is 35 feet, and ! all those hundreds of years, in the Bute Docks 25 and 19 feet. The facilities j We cannot conclude our short notice without for loading ships with coal are exceptionally large ; relating an anecdote of the mother of the present a single straith (or tip) in the East Bute Dock owner of Cardiff Castle, the late MARCHIONESS or discharging on board ship coal at the rate of 200 1 BUTE, whose memory will always be cherished tons an hour. With all these facilities, however, | gratefully by the Lite-boat Institution. The story the demand is still for " more ships and more dock ! is as follows.bility of a successful attempt to fetch a position so far to windward as that from whence the first signal of distress was shown. The crew could, there- fore, do nothing but regret, and waits for a chance which never came again. Long before burning tar-barrels were last seen, she proceeded on her mission. After a considerable time occu- pied in forcing her against the storm, during which no signals had been seen, her crew observed the usual signal a long way off, and dead to lee- ward of her. They promptly bore up, boarded, and ultimately brought on shore from that wreck 5 persons. When the shore was reached it was long after midnight, and it was then clearly ascertained that the crew they had just rescued (that of the Eleanor, of Quebec) could not be from the ressel seen in distress early in the evening; The state of Station, on the principle we hare indicated, would, in all probability, have saved both these crews, and even, perhaps, a third; for on the same night a Nova Scotian barque foundered with all hands, after having fallen " athn'art- hawse " of another vessel, which cut her down to the water's edge.

The Penarth Life-boat, as we have said, is stationed on a sandy beach at the foot of a rang-e of cliffs, which terminate to the northward in ?enarth Head, at the distance of a. quarter of a mile from the boat-house, and which extend to the south as far as Lavernock Point. The dif- ferent strata of these perpendicular cliffs are marked with peculiar distinctness, and are well known to geological students. At high water the Life-boat is launched off the strand with little difficulty; but when the tide is out, from the flat and uneven nature of the bottom, and its soft and uncertain surface, running the carriage out far enough to enable the boat to float from it is at night in bad weather a work of danger arid diffi- culty to all concerned.

It will give the reader some idea of the immense means of contributing to the safety of the ship- ping frequenting Cardiff Roads, when we te/1 them that in the year 1873 alone there sailed from the port of Cardiff 3,466 steamers, and 8,671 sailing ships; whose joint register tonnage was officially placed at 2,700,000 tons. Notwithstand- ing all which, however, in October 1873, the well- known coal proprietors and shippers, Messrs.

TetLEsrEN, HOCST, and WIM.S, in their interesting Monthly Circular, had to announce that, in con- sequence of there1 being 35,000 tons of shipping awaiting shipment to an extent sufficient to cause a decline in their value in Cardiff.

In the month of August 1873 there arrived in the port of Cardiff nearly 1,000 vessels.

It will easily be imagined that all these ships re- quire extensive accommodation. There are,there- fore, four docks—the Koath Basin, West Bute, the East Bute, and Penarth Docks; besides these, the accommodation;" and accordingly the MABQDIS or BUTE is now constructing another dock of larger dimensions than either of those above mentioned, the basin of which was opened a couple of months ago.

world; and it exports iron, coke, and patent fuel in large quantities besides. An ingenious mathe- matician has calculated that the coal shipped is Cardiff in one year would suffice to build a M?aJl round the world, at the equator, 6 yards high, and Roman, the Saxon, and the Norman having alike considered the fortress of Caer-daff a possession The extrardinary activity and daily increasing importance of the Cardiff trade is the more re- markable because it has sprung into existence •within the last thirty years. Jn 1844, Cardiff as a mercantile port was unimportant and unknown.

In 1874, it is the great outlet for the minerals of all South Wales. Its export of coal is less in history may be said to commence with the capture of the fortress by Fitzhamond's knights, who made good their landing at Peuarth, and subsequently captured (he castle of Cardiff. By them it wag extensively enlarged and completed in 1110. In the Black Tower, which is still standing, died, in 1V30, the unfortunate Robert of Normandy, second son 'of William I., after being betrayed, blinded, and for twenty-six years imprisoned by that false brother (Beauelerc) whom he had in other days saved from perishing of thirst 'when besieged by his own and his brother William's (Sufus) forces in St. Michael's Mount. Then we have a long succession of battles and political combinations, which the large space we have already allotted to the Penarth station will not allow us to enter on now, till we come to the time of the Civil Wars, when we find Cardiff Castte holding out gallantly for the Royalist cause, and captured at last by Oliver Cromwell in person; not by his own forces so much, however, as by the treachery of one of the garrison, whom the said Oliver, so soon as he was in possession of the castle, caused to be hanged as a reward for his from age to age, we get glimpses of the history of the country in the stories of Cardiff, till in our own days the fortress is merged into the family resi- dence, with little of the ancient structure remain- ing besides the before-mentioned Black Tower.

The times are changed indeed ! and the memory of stories such as that of the Norman Conquerors three bad sons is a faint »nd far-away one. The perpetual strife and struggle of kings and nobles, with the inevitable accompaniment of the slaugh- ter and plunder of the people, the ceaseless burdea minds of most men a matter*very far removed indeed from the affairs of to-day, and universal rapine and wholesale destruction of human life baa given place to peace and plenty, and security, an ever-increasing portion of material wealth, an ever-busier city, and more crowded harbour. Car- diff thus grows daily more famous in. the light of the happiness and prosperity of her people—»light NOVEMBER 2,1874.] THE LIFE-BOAT.

187 The late Captain HAMIITON FITZGERALD, of) the Royal Navy, at a time when the funds of the Institution were at a very low ebb, bequeathed to it 10,00(M. in. 1856. Dying in Belgium, that Government claimed a duty of 25 per cent, on his legacy; in addition to which it was un- doubtedly subject to the usual duty of this country.

The MARCHIONESS OF BUTE, who was Captain FITZGERALD'S executrix, and who knew what had been, his intention when making his will, was determined that his bequest should be carried out in ,its integrity. She therefore, from her own resources, lodged the entire sum of 10,0001. in the London and Westminster Bank and placed it at the disposal of the Institution, sod then com' menced a course of litigation with the Belgian authorities on her own responsibility, and after a struggle which lasted two years gained a com- plete victory: the result to the Life-boat Insti- tution being the legacy intact, and interest on the 10,000i. during the two years it was lying by in the bank.

Under the careful superintendence of JOHAN HOLST, Esq., the Hon. Secretory, the Penarta Life-boat receives the substantial support of the merchants of Cardiff, and is kept in a very credit- able state of completeness and readiness for ser- vice under the able coxswainship of A. COPS, » seaman who is likely to*make the best use of the ' valuable qualities of the Life-boat committed to his charge, and add more laurels to those already gained bv the George Gut/, If.—POETHCAWL STATION.

The Chofyn Grove Life-boat.

THE Porthcawl Life-boat House is built on the seaward front of a small town on the Point of; Porthcawl. On the east side of the town is a 1 small tidaZ harbour and dock. The outer harbour j or basin—for it is very small—dries at low water. : There are exported from Porthcawl annually •bout 40,000 tons of pig iron, and 30,000 toss of i coal. The snips which embark them are not of } great-size, the harbour being unsuitable; but the blade is increasing, and doubtless some day larger breakwaters and basins will increase the accom- modation for shipping.

The harbour of Porthcawl, on aecovmt of its drying at low-water, is not available for launch- j ing the Life-boat in, »ud she has generally to be i conveyed round the harbour by laud, end taken I through sandhills to a strand eastward of the town, which is partially sheltered from the south- I west. She has also been carried by land to the I westward, to enable her to close with wrecks on the Skerwether Sands before launching. But the ground in this direction being cultivated close to toe water's edge, while the shore, though low and flat, is irregular, and fringed with peculiarly jagged and sharp rocks, the operation is slow, and even dangerous, and it necessitates the pulling down walls, filling up boles, and even building up the outer edges of the corners of roads by a flying brigade of pioneers who paas on before the horses.

The principal points of danger In the Porth- eawl Lite-boat's " beat" are as follows:— First. The Skerwether Sands, which are two to three miles west of Porthcawl Point, and which are partly dry when the tide is at quarter ebb.

Second. Inside the Skerwether a patch called the Hugo Bank, carrying over it three feet at low water, and which is two and a half miles from Skar Point, the nearest land.

Third. The Nash Sands, the western extremities of which, are two and a half miles from Porthcawl Point, and which extend in an E.S.E. direction for seven miles, till close up to Nash Point.

Fourth. A small cluster of rocks, half a mile from the entrance of the harbour, called the Tusker, and inside which is an anchorage for small craft, called the Pool; aad also closer into the harbour some isolated patches, with six feet on them at low water.

The country immediately round Porthcawl is somewhat desolate in appearance, owing to the sandhills which, in the last century, spread over so many large tracts of then fair pasturage in this and other places on the shores of the Bristol and English Channels. A few miles to the north-east, however, the country is well wooded, and the small town of Bridgend, on the river Ogmore, is as prettv a little quaint old place as one would readily find.

Among the sandhills called Newton Burrows, and between the parish church of Newton Nottage and the sea, from which it is distant a third of a mile, is a very remarkable well, which until recent times was a great puzzle to the country folks. The water, though cleat *nd pure, follows the rise and /all of the tide, though nearly in &n inverse degree.

That is, when the tide has been several hours ebbing, the basin at the surface of the well is at its fullest, and at the same number of hours' flood it is dry; an apparent contradiction of cause and effect mat might well be attributed to superna- tural agency, as it was the custom to do, more especially as there was no known communication between the salt flood of the Bristol Channel and this ever-welling spring of beautiful fresh water so far inland. In these days we have discovered that, at a certain point half-way up the well, there is a natural artery, -which carries off the bulk of the fresh water, and delivers it on the beach be- tween high and low water marks. So when the tide is out, the fresh water flows freely out and down the beach, and the basin at the upper part of the well never fills. But by-and-by the rising tide meets the fresh water coming out on the beach, and drives it back or cheeks its outpour- ing ; so the fresh water, which continues to spring all the time, having no longer a free outlet, rises in the well, but does so at so slow a rate that the effects of the damming-np are not apparent till the tide has already begun to ebb again.

There are other interesting sights in the neigh- bourhood, such as No-ttage Court, the residence of the late Rev. E. D. KNIGBT, for many years Hon- orary Secretary of the Porthcawl Branch of the Institution, which was once known as Ty Mcnvr, or the Red House, and was the residence of Queen Anne Boleyn. There still exist, also, Druidical circles, where, early in the present century, it was still the custom for the country people to leap through the fire—a relic of a Scandinavian hea- then rite which had survived so long.

.To the eastward of Porthcawl is a shallow bay seven miles long, terminating in Nash Point, which is marked by two lighthouses. In the centre of the bay is a rugged mass of cliff called Bunraven Head, which is a noticeable feature in the landscape, crowned by an imposing-looking building known as Dunraven Castle. Porthcawi itself ig on the point of land which forms the eastern extremity of Swansea Bay, the western extreme being the Mumbles. The whole of this line of coast is studded with outlying sandbanks and shoals; while closer in are many dangerous rocks, which, before the era of lighthouses and Life-boats, were terribly successful in their war with the mariner.

The list of wrecks on record as having occurred in the vicinity of Porthcawl carries us as far back as the year 1333, at which date one Walter 188 THE LIFE-BOAT.

[NOVEMBER 2,1874.

Lougher, the Recorder of Cardiff, rendered ac- count to the Crown concerning the sale of a cer- tain wreck near that place. In the grounds of a gentleman's house near by are still to be seen, in a flourishing condition, some orange-trees sent, it is said, by Philip of Spain to Queen Mary, but •which, being cast,away on Porthcawl Point in the Spanish ship which brought them over, Were planted in the soil of Glamorganshire instead of the royal gardens at Windsor, for which they had been destined. The orange-trees conld hardly have become acclimatised when Spanish wreck, and Spanish corpses were again strewn along the coast. Several of the ships of the Invincible Armada, after fighting their way against storm and foe round the entire coast of the British Islands, found their resting-place at last among these fatal sands.

In later times it was a common error for the Dutch East Indiamen to mistake the land about the southern side of the entrance to the Bristol Channel for the land about Ushant, whereupon they would bear away more northerly, with the expectation of sighting the Bill of Portland, or other English headland, and speedily he en- tangled ia the Welsh coast sandbanks, generally •within a few miles of Porthoawl, In the burial- ground of Newton-Nottage Church, which ia the parish church of Porthcawl, and of which the .Rev. W. JOKES, the Honorary Secretary of the Porthcawl Life-boat Branch, is rector, are many sad mementos of these times; among others is a stone over the bodies of three young lads, sons of one T. S. Beckert, who, on their way home to Holland from Surinam to be educated, were wrecked on the 3rd June, 1770, on. Porthcawl Point.

Again, in Cae Newydd, to the north of Porth- cawl, were laid the skeletons of several hundred British soldiers who perished in 1798; the trans- port, which was wrecked on the Skerwether Sands, being one of many others conveying troops to Ireland for the suppression of toe '"98 Kebel- lion." The -bodies of these poor fellows were originally buried under a huge sandhill, hut in the coarse of years the sandhill drifted away and exposed a pile of bleached skeletons.

Home fine things were done in open boats by the fathers and grandfathers of the present Life- boat's crew; notably on the llth December, 1806, when great courage was exhibited in saving 17 persons from different portions of the wreck of the Trelcomey East Indiamau; while, in the succeeding seven years, seven instances of gal- lant rescue from shipwreck are recorded of the men of Porthcawl. This is not, alas! the only side to the picture; for, either in these or times immediately prior, the custom of exhibiting false lights to lure ships to their destruction was still in vogue on the coast of Glamorganshire, and there survives to this day a most unholy fame concerning Dunraven Castle in this respect.

There comes a sudden gap in the record of annual wrecks soon after the year 1830. This happy break is attributed to the erection of light- houses and beacons, especially to the two light- houses on Nash Point, the immediate cause for the building of which was the loss of the mail-packet Frolic, on her way from Tenby to Bristol, in 1830.

This vessel, with a number of those on boaxd, perished on the Nash Sands.

A Life-boat Station was first formed at Porth- cawl in 1859. A vessel was lost, with all hands, in the month of May of that year, and the disaster had the effect of drawing the attention of the National Life-boat Institution to the locality.

Ground for a Life-boat house wag given by Lady WINDSOR, and the Institution sent a single- banked Life-boat to the new Station. This boat was 30 feet long, and pulled six oars. She was the gift to the Institution of the late Lady COTTON SHEPPARD, and was named the Good Deliverance, and on different occasions saved 26 lives, besides rendering valuable assistance on other occasions to ships in distress.

In January, 1872, this boat exhibited serious symptoms of decay, and the Institution therefore accepted the offer of Miss CHAFYN GKOVE to pro- vide, at her expense, a new and larger boat. On the 13th March, 1872, the new boat arrived at Porthcawl, and on the 21st wag launched, in the presence of the donor, Miss CHAITK Gnovz, after whom the boat wag named. The occasion was made one of considerable public rejoicing in the town and neighbourhood.

The Chafyit Grove Life-boat is 32 feet long, has f feet 9 inches beam, rows 10 oars, and weighs 40 cwt.

In these days, lighthouse and beacon, good surveys and steam, have greatly decreased the dangers to shipping, and consequently the number of wrecks. Nevertheless, some very creditable work has been done at Porthcawl by the Life- boat ; and so long as storms rage, and ships are guided by the fallible wisdom of man, the Chafyn Grove and her successors will have their mission to fulfil..