SIR JOHN GUMMING, K.C.I.E., C.S.I., a vice-president of the Institution, has written an account of all books, and articles in periodicals, on life-boat work which the Institution has in its library, or which he has been able to discover elsewhere, from 1806 to 1936. This account is in four chapters : " Design and Equipment," " Organization and Administration," "Wrecks and Res- cues," and " Wrecks and Rescues in Verse and Fiction." In the last chapter extracts are given from poems on the life-boat service: Wordsworth's and Swinburne's poems on Grace Darling, Wordsworth's poem On Sir William Hillary, the founder of the Institution, Eliza Cook's "The Boat- men of the Downs," Clement Scott's " Warriors of the Sea," which appeared in Punch, and other verses from Punch, The Illustrated London News and Chambers's Journal.

This account is entitled Literature of the Life-boat and is illustrated with forty- seven pictures of life-boats, wrecks and life-boat rescues, and men distinguished in the history of the Institution.

Among them are two Punch cartoons, by Linley Sambourne, and drawings of wrecks and rescues which appeared in such papers as The Illustrated London News, the Graphic, and the Penny Illustrated Paper.

Literature of the Life-boat is issued as a supplement to the Institution's journal, and all who receive the journal are entitled to a free copy of it. Copies have already been sent to all those who asked for them, as a result of the announcement in the June number of The Life-boat. If any other readers of this journal would like copies, they should write at once to the Secretary of the Institution, 42, Grosvenor Gardens, London, S.W.I.