' Seamen of the Downs." By George Bethel Bayley. (Blackwood.

12s. Qd. net.) In this excellent book Mr. Bayley has continued the heroic story of the Lifeboatmen whose duty lies about the I dreaded Goodwin Sands, which was told by the late Rev. T. Stanley Treanor in " The Heroes of the Goodwin Sands," published just a quarter of a century ago. " Seamen of the Downs " is a worthy successor to that book, both in the story to be told and in the way in which Mr. Bayley tells it. It begins with an admirable historical sketch of the Downs, from the day when Julius Csesar landed on the coast of Kent up to the days of the Dover Patrol in the Great War. There follows a chapter on the boatmen of the Downs, and the Life-boat Service, and then Mr. Bayley comes to the main subject of the book, the famous rescues carried out by the Lifeboats round the Goodwins during the past twenty years. With these rescues, readers of The Lifeboat and the Institutions' Annual Report are already familiar, but they will find the stories very graphically retold.

Mr. Bayley has had the help of the late Coxswain William Adams, of Deal, who died in 1926. He had served as Coxswain for thirteen years when he retired in 1920, had won the Institution's Silver Medal three times, and had been four times specially thanked by foreign governments. His name appears with Mr. Bayley's on the title page, and the last chapter of the book is a record of talks with him. Coxswain Adams pays to the Charles Dibdin the finest tribute that any Coxswain could pay to his Life-boat: " She has never once failed us." He did not want to see her replaced by a Motor Life-boat, and Mr.

Bayley's comments on this are perhaps a little misleading. He suggests that it should not be beyond the wit of designers to produce a Motor Life-boat in which the screw would be well protected in a tunnel, and which would have the existing qualities of the Sailing Lifeboat.

Not only is this within the wit of designers, but it is what has been done with all the Institution's Motor Lifeboats.

The screw is in a tunnel which protects it from damage, even when the boat is working in shallow water, and until the adoption of twin engines and twin screws, all Motor Life-boats had exactly the same sails as Pulling and Sailing Life-boats of the same type.

One of the first principles laid down for Motor Life-boats was that the sailing qualities of the boat should not be impaired. The reasons why a motor boat has not been stationed at North Deal are the reasons which Coxswain Adams gives for not wanting one. The Deal Life-boat has to be launched off the open beach, and a motor boat of the size needed for the work at North Deal would be too heavy to be launched in that way.

We have made this criticism of Mr.

Bayley because, though we heartily recommend his book to all who are interested in the Life-boat Service, we do not want him to lead them into misunderstanding the Motor Life-boats.

It should be added that Mr. Bayley is generously devoting the profits of his book towards endowing a bed in the Victoria (War Memorial) Hospital at Deal, this bed to be for the use of the Life-boatmen of Kent and men of Kent who served in the Dover Patrol. Major the Hon. J. J. Astor, M.P. for Dover, has contributed a foreword, and there are appreciations by Lord Beading as Captain of Deal Castle, Admiral Sir Roger Keyes, Bt., who commanded the Dover Patrol in 1918, the late Mr. Havelock Wilson, President of the National Union of Seamen, and the late Mr. A.

Ovenden Collard, Hon. Secretary of the Association of Men of Kent and Kentish Men, an Association of which Mr. Bayley himself is a Past-Chairman..