IN presenting to Parliament the Wreck Register and Chart for the year 1873—4, the BOARD OF TRADE observe that it has been found advisable to make up its tables from the 1st July to the 30th June, instead of from the 1st January to the 31st December, as was formerly the case. This change will probably in future enable the Department to present to Parliament in each year the Register at an earlier period, and to bring together in one publication all wrecks, collisions, and casualties that happen during one winter.

It should here be mentioned that the wrecks and casualties treated of in the various tables do not mean total losses only, but include accidents and damage of all kinds to ships at sea, of which only a very small proportion are attended with loss of life. Thus of the 1,803 wrecks, casualties, and collisions on the coasts of the United Kingdom in the year 1873-4, 408 involved total loss, and only 130 were attended with loss of life.

The Wreck Register is ranged into two divisions—at Home and Abroad. We shall limit our remarks to the Home Register, which embraces the cases which happen in waters within 10 miles from the shores of the United Kingdom; in waters within, any bays or estuaries ; in waters around any outlying sandbanks which are dry at low water; in the seas between Great Britain and Ireland; and between the Orkney and Shetland and Western Islands and the mainland of Scotland.

For the better understanding of the limits adopted in this classification, the officers around the coasts of the British Isles whose duty it is to report wrecks, are furnished with copies of the Wreck Chart of the United Kingdom, upon which the limits are indicated by a black line drawn from headland to headland.

The Home Register is divided into three parts, viz.:— (I.) Wrecks, casualties, and collisions of British and Foreign vessels which oc- curred on and near the coasts of the United Kingdom. (II.) Particulars of lives lost on and near these shores. (III.) Particulars of lives saved and of means adopted for saving them.

PART I. Wrecks, Casualties, and Col.