IN 1890 we had the pleasure of placing before our readers full detailed accounts of the first steam Life-boat ever built.

This vessel was a hydraulic steamboat built for the Institution by Messrs. E. and H. Green, of Blackwall Yard, and named the Duke of Northumberland, after our President.

Owing to the great measure of success attained by this boat, both on her trials and in actual Life-boat service, the Institution, a few months ago, placed an order with the same firm for a second Life-boat on the same principle.

The dimensions of the new boat are as follows : Length over all, 53 ft.; beam, 16 ft.; depth, 5 ft.; and the loaded dis- placement is 30 tons, giving a draught of 3 ft. 3 in., at which she will carry from 30 to 40 passengers, 4 tons of coal in the bunkers, and J ton of fresh water in the reserve tank.

To concisely sum up the details of the hull of this new vessel, we may say she is a reproduction of the Duke of Northumber- land, except that she has 1 ft. more beam, that the steam capstan is placed on the engine-house instead of on the forecastle, and that she has Mr. G. L. Watson's well-known Dora bow.

The machinery, however, is totally different, and the outcome of many and serious consultations between the Com- mittee of the Life-boat Institution, the builders, and Messrs. Penn, the construc- tors of the machinery. In the first place, it was thought prudent to minimize the chances of fouling the intake, and for this reason it was decided to have a double turbine supplied by two intakes.

It was also decided not to fit Mr. Thorny- croft's patent scoop, from its liability to foul with no corresponding advantages.

The two intakes in the new boat are flush with the skin of the vessel, and supply two vertical turbines, propelled by a compound engine of 200 indicated HP., working on a shaft exactly similar to that ordinarily fitted on board a paddle- steamer. It is thought by the builders that in a vertical pump the water sup- plied and discharged has a better and more direct lead, and the private trials have fully confirmed their opinion in this view.

To further utilize the very great advantages offered by the hydraulic system a lateral propulsion has been most successfully carried out. This power, although every effort was made to obtain it, was reluctantly abandoned in the design of the Duke of Northumber- land as impracticable; it is therefore with great pleasure that we inform our readers this difficulty has been at last overcome, and a most successful arrange- ment adopted.

The advantages of lateral propulsion must be self-evident to all, as one of the great difficulties in Life-boat service is to prevent the Life-boat being dashed to pieces against the side of the vessel she is endeavouring to assist.

Another novel feature of this new design is that it has the power of using the turbine for pumping out of the vessel any water that may enter by leak, or otherwise, and, in fact, utilizing this very water to assist in driving the boat along.

In the same way that the hydraulic system is apparently the best possible mode of propulsion for a Life-boat, the water-tube is, it would seem, the only possible type for the boiler; and, without going into the particulars, we may briefly say that this is chiefly owing to the quickness with which steam can be got up and its absolute immunity from all danger of bursting.

This particular boiler is a patent of the Messrs. Penn, and the results of its trials are anxiously awaited by the Admiralty, where this water-tube system is, we understand, fully recognized as the boiler of the future.

The new steam Life-boat is to be named the City of Glasgow, and is the gift to the Institution of the people of Glasgow, the greater part of the cost having been already raised in Glasgow in connection with the Life-boat Saturday movement in that city. The boat, which is to be placed at Harwich—at all events, for the present—will be formally named at Glasgow next May.