THE problem of establishing communi- cation between the Life-boat and the Lifevessel in distress has for many years occupied the attention of the technical officers of the Institution. Up to the present the only device has been the Cane Line—a leaded cane thrown by hand—and it has long been realised that if some mechanical device could be found it would add very greatly to the power of the Service to render prompt help. Time and again it has happened that the Life-boat had been compelled to lie off a wreck for many hours, some- Corntimes for a whole night, in the teeth of a gale, waiting to seize the opportunity of a change in wind or sea or tide to establish communication. It is in such cases thatthe power to get a rope across at once means the saving of much exposure and suffering to the Lifeboat crews, as well as the shipwrecked men, and the rescue of lives which, in the long delay, may often be lost.

During the war experiments had necessarily to be suspended, but immediately afterwards they were begun again, and very thorough tests have been made during the past three years with different appliances. These tests have now resulted in the adoption of a Linethrowing Gun which should at last fill this important gap in the equipment of a Life-boat. The two appliances to which chief attention was given were the Coston Gun, an American invention —a shoulder gun firing a rod to which was attached the line carried in a separate container—and the Schermuly Portable Rocket Apparatus. I should like to acknowledge here the painstaking efforts which Mr. Schermulymade to design an apparatus suitable to the special requirements of a Lifevessel boat. He had been at .work on this problem for many years, and in the end succeeded in producing an apparatus which marked a great advance on anything hitherto done. His design, however, still did not entirely fulfil the Institution's requirements, and it has been left to the Birmingham Small Arms Company to produce the apparatus which has been adopted for the Service, For this the Institution is chiefly indebted to Mr. Tarrant and Corntimes mander St. John, R.N., both of the B.S.A. Company, who tackled the problem with much energy and resource, and, after a great deal of experimental work, have succeeded in solving it with a small shoulder gun. Exhaustive tests of this gun have now been carried ; out on the coast by the District Inspectors, and .have proved very successful.

The gun is very simple. The line is coiled up in a tin cylinder which fits over the barrel. One end of it is attached to a hollow steel projectile, and this projectile has a rod down the centre, the rod having the diameter of the bore of the gun. The gun is " loaded " by slipping the projectile over the muzzle so that the rod goes inside the barrel, while the rest of the projectile fits outside it, in the space between the barrel and the cylinder holding the line.

The projectile is fired with a small cordite cartridge, which has a very small recoil, and as the weight of the gun, complete with projectile and line, is only 14 Ibs., it can be easily handled.

There is no need for firing-sights, and the correct angle at which the gunshould be held is automatically obtained by a small plumb suspended from a leaf-sight fixed at an angle of 30 degrees.

The line used is three-sixteenths of an inch in diameter, and the tests have shown that it can be thrown a distance of sixty to eighty-five yards, according to the conditions of the weather. Whenthis is contrasted with the two or three yards which is as far as the leaded cane can be thrown against the wind, it will be realised how much the chances of effecting prompt communication with a wreck have been increased. All Motor Life-boats are to have the Gun as part of their ordinary equipment..