ON the night of the 19th of October last, in a gale of wind, the small sixoared self-righting life-boat belonging to the National Life-boat Institution at Dungeness proceeded through a heavy sea, managed by eight Coast-guard men, to a wreck which was seen to be aground at about three-quarters of a mile from the life-boat station. The v/reck was reached soon after midnight, and after ascertaining that she had been deserted by her crew, the life-boat returned for the shore. For the first half-mile she was rowed safely before a heavy broken sea, but on crossing a deeper channel, between two shoals, she was caught up and struck by three heavy seas in succession which followed so quickly one on the other that the boat could not recover herself, and the coxswain losing all command with the rudder, she was carried away before the sea, broached to, and upset, throwing her crew out of her. She immediately, however, self-righted, cleared herself of all water, and her anchor having fallen out when she was keel up, she was brought up by it. The crew, in the meantime, having on good lifebelts, floated, regained, and got into the boat, cut the cable, and returned safely to the shore, not one of them even being hurt.

May we not safely conclude that this is the first instance that has ever occurred of a whole boat's crew passing unscathed through such an ordeal ? In justice to the brave fellows who formed the crew of the boat on this occasion, we must state, that they expressed their readiness to have gone out in the boat again immediately after their landing had their services been again required ; and that they, unasked for. certified to their entire confidence in her and their readiness to trust their lives in her whenever they should be called on to do so. They likewise bore testimony to the value of the life-belts, on the plan of Capt.

J. R. Ward, R.N., supplied by this Institution to its life-boat crews..