SAILORS have always been famous for the keenness of their vision, and more especially for a power, beyond that of the average man of seeing clearly at night; but of those who serve the sea, none perhaps has this gift in larger measure than the coast fisherman, who forms so much the largest proportion of the crews of our Life-boats. The nature of his -work will account for this. Long hours of. toil -with net or line, through moonless nights, have developed the faculty; and the way he will take his boat into harbour on a dark night, or steer her through a narrow channel with only the black water between the white of the breakers on either hand to guide him, always strikes the landsman with astonishment and admiration. So that when he is required to launch a Life-boat at night he brings to the task a trained eye and a calm mind, and does not experience the confusion and sense of helplessness which nearly always beset the ordinary man when called upon to perform some familiar daylight duty in the dark.

This is probably due not only to a physical adaptation of the eye to its sur- roundings, but also to some acquired instinct which enables him to feel what he is doing even when he cannot see.

Nevertheless, if accidents and delays are to be saved, some sort of artificial light is an absolute necessity for an operation which requires so much care, and in some cases so much precision of detail, as launching a Life-boat. Very often the boats have to be drawn to the scene of the wreck on their carriages, either by horses or men, a considerable distance from where they are kept, and the way is sometimes intricate and winding, with only just sufficient room between walls or gate-posts for the carriage to pass. Sometimes it lies over a rough foreshore, where the greatest care must be taken to avoid hummocks of rock or large boulders, and sometimes over a sandy beach full of deep pools, or " lows," as they are called colloquially ; or with patches of soft mud where the wheels of the carriage may sink.

The larger types of boats, launched on what are known as " roller-skids," require even more careful manipulation than those which are small enough for a transporting carriage. A couple of inches too much to the right or left and the keel misses the roller and buries itself in sand or shingle. As these boats often weigh from 8 to 10 tons, the hoisting of one of them on to the skid again means much labour and consequent delay—delay which may be fatal to men's lives.

For these reasons the efficient lighting of the beach is a problem which has long engaged the anxious attention of the ROYAL NATIONAL LIFE-BOAT INSTITU- TION, and it is one which, as will be shown later, has now been efficiently solved.

In early days hand-lanterns, supple- mented by various kinds of flares or torches, were the only lights available, except in those rare cases when some friendly town lamp-post happened to be in a position where its light could be made use of. Ordinary lanterns, however, are of very little vise ; not only because a general illumination of the scene of operations is required, rather than isolated points of light; but because it is apparently impossible to devise a lantern which will give an all-round light and at the same time not go out in the heavy gales in which it is sooften necessary to launch a Life-boat, the so-named "hurricane" lamp being a striking instance of the lucus a non lucendo principle! Of the flares or torches, " duck lights," or more familiarly " ducks," as the fishermen call them, are the best. The origin of the name is lost in obscurity, but as they are used for docking ships at night it is probably a corruption of "dock light," a corrup- tion possibly helped on its way by the imagination of some bygone fisherman, who saw in it a remote resemblance to a mallard on the wing, the lamp con- sisting of an oval-shaped iron vessel with a long horizontal spout, which would correspond with the outstretched neck of the bird. The body of this vessel contains paraffin, and the spout a thick cotton wick, which, when alight, burns with a fierce yellow glare.

Several of them are generally used at the same time, and borne aloft by the hands of men specially told off for the purpose, they cast a picturesque effulgence on the scene. A more elaborate form of paraffin flare is the " comet" light, so called from its resemblance to the tail of that heavenly body. This light may often be seen where gangs of men are working at night on road or railway line. It depends on a mixture of air and petroleum-gas under pressure, and when in good order and properly worked it gives an excellent white light, but it requires very careful attention, which it does not always get.

But it is, undoubtedly, the advent of acetylene gas which has once for all solved the question of how to light the beach when launching a Life-boat.

This new compound of carbon and hydrogen was discovered as long as seventy years ago, and, as is so often the case with useful discoveries, was hit upon by accident while Edmund Davy, then Professor of Chemistry to the Royal Dublin Society, was con- ducting a chemical experiment. He announced his discovery at a meeting of the British Association in 1836, and concluded with these words: " From the brilliancy with which the new gas burns when in contact with the atmo- sphere, it is, in the opinion of the author, admirably adapted for the purpose of artificial light if it can be procured at a cheap rate." Those inte- rested in coincidences will hardly fail to notice that the discoverer should bear a name already so much honoured throughout the civilized world for the invention of a lamp which has brought safety to another class of worker, namely the coal miner.

But Professor Davy did not live to see the fulfilment of his prophecy, as for many years after this, the new gas was little more than a chemical curiosity.

In 1860 Bertholet, the great French chemist, published his researches on the subject,- and it was he who first called it acetylene; and after that time the new gas was investigated by various chemists of all countries; but it was not until 1892 that the discovery of calcium carbide made its general pro- duction at a low cost possible, and it was not until 1895 that the commercial career of acetylene may be looked upon as having been thoroughly established.

It is now, of course, familiar, almost painfully familiar, it may be said, to every user of country roads at night.

Exhaustive experiments on the part of the Institution with various kinds of acetylene lights have led to the adoption of a lamp which is now used at many Life-boat stations, and gives universal satisfaction. This is known as the "Imperial Flare Light," a brilliant white light which, used with a polished metal reflector, is estimated to give a thousand candle-power, while a second light of equal power can be used at the same time at the end of a length of tubing. It is very simple in construc- tion, does not generate heat, is practically free from danger of explosion, and will not blow out. It takes but a few minutes to light up, and is easily transported over sand on a small wooden sledge, which is specially made for the purpose.

As an example of the power of this light, a few extracts from the report of the original experiments may be quoted. .

The place, a lonely beach on the coast of East Anglia : the time, 9.30 p.m.

on a dark night in January : the wind, a whole gale from the N.N.E. "The weather squally and gloomy, with rain, . . . sand drifting with the wind in dense showers." The light, placed on the top of the sand hills and exposed to the full blast of the storm, is reported to have burnt steadily; the time could be read and the second hand of a watch distinguished at 130 yards, and print could be read at 200 yards. The men were able to work almost as easily as if it were daylight. It will, therefore, be generally admitted that the claim made in the earlier part of this article has been substantiated.

But an unexpected and quite in- valuable use of this light has recently been discovered, and the circumstances are so interesting to all who care to hear about Life-boat work that it is proposed to close by a brief description of them. The four-masted barque Pindos, of Hamburg, had been buffeted to and fro in the English Channel for many hours, and at last, driving help- lessly before a south-easterly gale, found her fate at 9 p.m. on the 10th February last, on a rocky ledge of the east coast of that rock-bound peninsula which ends in the Lizard Point. Very fortu- nately this occurred close to the small village of Coverack, whose hardy popu- lation of fishermen carry on the best traditions of their Cornish forbears.

The alarm being given, it was not long before they had their Life-boat afloat, and after a hard tussle through the boiling surf in the teeth of the gale, they reached the ill-fated vessel, and began the dangerous work of rescuing her crew of 28 men. When 4 of them, however, had, with great difficulty, been got into the boat, the Coxswain, John Corrin, as brave a seaman as ever held a tiller, felt that in the extreme darkness it would be hazardous to do any more; and he prepared to stand by and wait until daylight. It was at this moment that a welcome beam of light fell on the wreck, and showed it up with such brilliancy that the Life-boatmen were able to recommence their work of rescue, and the remaining 24 hands were taken off and brought ashore in safety. What had happened was this.

Willing hands ashore had, with the utmost difficulty, dragged the newly- provided acetylene light across the rocks to the furthest point of land possible, and here, 400 yards from the scene of the disaster, it had been set alight with the result already told.

For this service Coxswain Corrin received the much-coveted silver medal of the Institution, and while all will join in congratulations to him and his gallant crew on the well-merited honour, a meed of praise will not be withheld from those on shore to whom the happy thought occurred of lighting their labours..