The First Sixty Years, by C. R.

Thompson, states in the form of a well-illustrated and well-produced booklet the story of the development of the Schermuly pistol rocket apparatus.

It was in May 1897 that William Schermuly, after ten years' experimental work, succeeded in producing an efficient ship's line-throwing apparatus. The booklet gives many details of the subsequent use of this invention in war and peace, but its continual and successful application by the Life-boat Service has somewhat surprisingly been over-looked by the author..