COVER PICTURE The cover for the first issue of THE LIFEBOAT for 1974—the RNLI's 150th yearis reproduced from an old coloured lantern slide believed to have formed part of 'the first advertising campaign for RNLI on magic lantern sign' mounted in 1904-5.

I IK- lantern slide was found in Somerset and was passed to the RNLI for preservation by the South West Office of the Institution at Bristol. Certainly just before World War I in 1914 2i" square lantern slides with appropriate readings were available to the public covering almost every subject. One set consisting of 60 slides was called 'Lifeboat and its Heroic Work'..