at a distance from their posts, a number of them too old for service, most of them appointed rather for their politics than their competency; the crews at the alternate stations chosen for the same reason, fitness for duty being always a secondary consideration, and these crews, under the system of arbitrary alternacy, often falling to stations where they were least needed, making discontent rampant among the volunteers called into service by disaster at the stations intervening, and breeding quarrel and disaffection among the coast populations. Such was the condition of affairs at that time. The vigorous prosecution of reform was at once begun. In obedience to a resolution then adopted and ever since adhered to, though against manifold obstacles, that professional fitness should be the indispensable and the only requisite for the agents of the Life-saving Service, the removal of all incapable and inefficient keepers, and the appointment of the best obtainable experts in their places, were commenced. At the same time nearly all the stations were manned with crews of carefully selected surfmen, chosen without regard to their politics, and for such periods as the limited appropriations would admit; and the patrol of the beaches each night, and during thick weather by day, was inaugurated. This important feature, by which those imperiled upon stranded vessels are promptly discovered by the beach sentinels, and speedily made the objects of life-saving effort, distinguishes the United States service from all others in the world, and largely accounts for its unparalleled triumphs in rescuing shipwrecked seafarers. Simultaneously with these measures, definite instructions in regard to their duties were issued to the keepers and crews. The next step was to bring the stations within distances of from three to five miles of each other, in order that neighboring station crews might be massed together by signal or message, should extra help at a wreck be required. To this end, twelve new houses were built on the New Jersey coast and six on the Long Island, and the location of some existing stations changed. The old stations were also rebuilt or enlarged for the accommodations of their occupants and of rescued persons. Means being limited, all the stations of this period were made the plainest possible houses, 42 feet long and 18 feet wide, of four rooms and two stories. One room below contained the boats, wagon, surfcar, mortar, etc.; the other was furnished as the mess-room of the crew. In the upper story, one apartment was fitted with cot-beds and bedding, and the second was adapted for storing the lighter apparatus. These measures and arrangements, somewhat provisional in their character, and struck off to meet the 'present exigencies, carried the young service on the two coasts through the winter of 1871 -'72. The result of the new organization was striking. The record of the season on the two coasts shows that every person imperiled by

shipwreck was saved. Fatal disasters, hitherto incessant, appeared to have suddenly ceased, as a plank when sawed through drops to the ground.

The success of this season excited lively interest in the service. A station had been authorized by Congress in March, 1871, for the Rhode Island coast; and in June, 1872, one more for that coast and nine for Cape Cod, Massachusetts, were authorized, thus extending the system to the beaches of two other States. These stations were built and put in operation by the winter of 1872. Encouraged by the record of the past season, operations were vigorously continued for the one to come. The selection of the best available apparatus first engrossed attention. A commission to decide upon this point was procured, consisting of officers of the Treasury and Navy and experienced beachmen, which met in May, 1872, at Seabright, New Jersey, to examine and test various lifesaving appliances, and reported in favor of a modification of the New Jersey cedar surfboat, an éprouvette mortar, the India-rubber life-saving dress invented by Mr. C. S. Merriman, and the Coston night-signals, all of which were brought into use at the stations with satisfactory results. Before the arrival of the season for opening the stations, a comprehensive code of regulations for the government of the service was prepared. These regulations arranged the coasts of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, and New Jersey into three districts, assigning each district to the charge of a local superintendent, chosen from civil life, and placing the whole under the inspection of an officer of the Revenue Marine (Captain J. H. Merryman). Upon these officers they laid the duty of periodical examinations of the stations, and the drill and exercise of the keepers and crews in life-saving manoeuvres with the boats and apparatus. They also provided for the keeping of journals or log-books by each keeper, recording the state of the weather and the surf, and all occurrences at the several stations; transcripts from which were required to be forwarded each week to the office at Washington. Each keeper was furthermore required to transmit to headquarters a carefully prepared report of each disaster occurring within his precinct. The regulations minutely defined the duties of keepers and surfmen in regard to service at wrecks and the performance of patrol, and made provision for their instruction in resuscitating persons apparently drowned. The preservation and repair of the buildings, the regular outfit and supply of the stations, the periodical returns upon proper books and forms of the condition of the station appointments, the methods of keeping the district accounts, and the general fiscal management of the service, came within the scope of their provisions. They provided for boards of examiners to determine the professional qualifications of the keepers and crews, and to bar all but experts

from the service; and they established a code of signals, with flags for day service and rockets for night, to enable the patrolmen to communicate with the stations, and the stations to effect intercourse with each other. Under these regulations the efficiency of the service was greatly promoted, and the season of 1872 -'73 was triumphantly passed, only one life being lost by shipwreck within the domain of the establishment.

This continued success induced Congress in March, 1873, to extend the system to other coasts, and mainly by the efforts of the Hon. John Lynch, of Maine, then a Representative in Congress, and a leading member of the Committee on Commerce, to the charge of which matters relating to this service were committed, a bill was passed appropriating $100,000 for new life-saving stations, and calling for a report of points for others upon the sea and lake coasts, with detailed estimates of cost. This magnanimous legislation resulted in the creation of two new districts, one embracing the coasts of Maine and New Hampshire, the other the coasts of Virginia and North Carolina between Capes Henry and Hatteras, and placed five new stations on the Maine coast, one on the New Hampshire, five on the Massachusetts, one on the Rhode Island, three on the Virginia, and seven on the North Carolina. The stations were not, however, put into operation until the year following, owing to delay in selecting sites and procuring titles. To make the report called for by the law, a commission was formed in March, 1873, immediately after the passage of the bill, consisting of Mr. Kimball and Captains John Faunce and J. H. Merryman, of the Revenue Marine. Their report, made in view of the actual and prospective extension of the service on a national scale, was the prominent feature of the work of the year, and involved a comprehensive mental survey of the nature and characteristics of our vast and varied coasts on the ocean and the lakes, personal inspection and study of the principal localities, and numerous consultations with underwriters, shipowners, captains of vessels, veteran surfmen, and all varieties of sources of relevant information. It was transmitted by the Secretary of the Treasury to Congress, with his approval, in January, 1874. Guided by its recommendations, Congress passed the act of June 20, 1874, authorizing the classification of stations into three groups, designated respectively as complete life-saving stations, life-boat stations, and houses of refuge; establishing a number of stations of the several classes upon the Southern, Pacific, and Lake coasts; creating five new districts, each with its local superintendent at a salary of $1,000 per annum providing for the bestowal of medals of honor, in two classes, upon persons endangering their lives to save others; and empowering the collection and tabulation by the Life-saving Service of statistics of disaster to shipping, both in Government and maritime interests, and also with a VOL. XVIII.-48 A

view of determining, by reference to the periodicity of marine casualties, the points necessary for the protection afforded by life-saving stations, and other means for preventing and mitigating marine disasters-a matter of the gravest importance on this and other accounts, which had up to this time been strangely and unaccountably neglected by the Government. The operations of the service for the year 1873-74 had meanwhile been actively continued. The storm-signal system of the Signal Service had been connected with seven stations on the New Jersey coast, an appropriation of $30,000 having been made by Congress for the general connection of the system with the life-saving stations and lighthouses. The record of the season at its close showed 1,165 lives saved on the three coasts; only two were lost.

During the year 1874-75 twenty-two new stations established under the act of March, 1873, were put into operation. The number of lives saved this season was 855, and there were 16 persons lost. Fourteen of these were from the Italian bark Giovanni, wrecked on Cape Cod on March 4, 1875, too far from shore to be reached by the shot-line from any ordnance then invented, and in a surf in which no boat could live. This loss was the first serious disaster which the service had suffered since its organization, though fortunately it was one not chargeable to any fault of the establishment. By direction of the central office, efforts were at once commenced by Captain Merryman, assisted by officers of the Ordnance Corps, to increase the range of the wreck artillery.

In the following year, 1875-'76, the work of creating the stations authorized by the law of June 20, 1874, was actively pushed. Six stations on the Maryland and Virginia coast were completed and put into operation, involving the organization of an additional district designated No. 5. A gun, designed by R. P. Parrott, Esq., of the West Point Foundry, Cold Spring, N. Y., with a maximum range of 631 yards, but too heavy for transportation in ordinary life-saving use, was placed at Peaked Hill Bar, Cape Cod, the scene of the wreck of the Giovanni. A life-raft was added to the apparatus at several stations. A new selfrighting and self-bailing life-boat, devised by Captain J. M. Richardson, the Superintendent of the First Life-saving District, of much less weight and draught than the English, was stationed for trial at Whitehead Island, Me. The storm-signal system was still further extended to several of the Atlantic stations. This year several incompetent keepers and surfmen were discovered in the Sixth District stations by the Examining Board, put there by local politicians, and were promptly ejected, and the District Superintendent was dismissed. The number of persons saved from wrecks was 729. The persons lost were 22-7 of them washed overboard before stranding, 6 drowned by attempting to land in the ships' boats, and 9 by in

sanely jumping en masse into the surf-boat as it came alongside in the darkness, capsizing it instantly, and also drowning the life-saving crew. This disaster occurred on the coast of North Carolina, from the Italian bark Nuova Ottavia.

In the year 1876--'77 four new districts were organized-three embracing the lake-coast, and one on the coast of Florida. Thirty-five new stations of the number authorized by the act of June 20, 1874, were put into operation, including five houses of refuge on the Florida coast. A new gun for service at wrecks, considerably lighter than the gun formerly in use, and with a maximum range of 473 yards, was invented by R. P. Parrott, Esq., and brought into use at a number of the stations. The second serious attempt to subordinate the interests of the service to local politics was this year discovered by the Examining Board in the newly organized Fifth District, a number of political retainers, without character as surfmen, being found at the opening of the season installed in the stations as keepers and surfmen. They were promptly thrown out, and their places filled by professionals. The local superintendent, in consideration of his having been terrorized by the politicians into accepting these men, and in view of his own high personal and professional character, was kept in the service, with a stringent admonition against another lapse of this kind. The stations this year continued in effective running order. The number of lives saved was 1,500. One tragic disaster occurred in the loss of the British ship Circassian, from which 28 persons perished, the vessel being beyond the reach of the wreck ordnance, and the terrific sea rendering boat service impossible. The ship's company had all been rescued by the life-saving crew about three weeks before, at the time of its stranding, and those lost were mainly a corps of wreckers who had been employed to get the vessel off, and whose leader had refused to allow the life-saving crew to keep a line between the vessel and the shore. Besides these, 11 lives were lost on other coasts, seven of them by the swift disintegration, in an ordinary sea, of a rotten vessel upon striking, before the crew could either take to their own boat or receive help from the shore; three at the stranding of the French steamer L'Amérique by an attempt of the sailors to land; and one by a man being washed overboard before striking.

The next year, 1877-'78, is memorable in the history of the service for active efforts and important results. The life-saving establishment at its close embraced 148 stations. Of these, 18 were life-boat stations, 16 of them on the Lakes and 2 on the Pacific coast, together with 5 houses of refuge on the coast of Florida. The two Pacific stations were built during the year. In the latter part of 1878 two new lifesaving stations were built on the coast of Long Island, one at Coney Island, the other at Short Beach. Two of the old stations were rebuilt,

and 26 others repaired. On the New Jersey coast, two stations were also rebuilt and 36 repaired. Four of the Richardson self-righting and self-bailing life-boats were constructed, and placed respectively at Orleans, Mass., Fire Island, N. Y., Absecom Inlet, N. J., and Townsend's Inlet, N. J. A code of signals for communication between vessels in danger or distress and the life-saving stations was devised by the Signal Service, and signals for similar night communication were brought into contemplation. A line of telegraph built by the War Department for the Signal Service, between Cape Henry and Cape Hatteras, running in the neighborhood of several of the life-saving stations on the North Carolina coast, and communicating with headquarters at Washington, proved of great benefit to the establishment by affording instant intelligence of wreck operations. Preparations were made_by_the Chief Signal Officer, at the instance of Mr. Kimball, for establishing telephones at twelve of the stations on the same coast, for the purpose of accomplishing intercommunication with the keepers, which have since been put into effective operation. The extension of the service, and the many improvements which had been introduced, called for a thorough revision of the regulations, which was accordingly made by direction of the Hon. John Sherman, Secretary of the Treasury. The most remarkable achievement of the year was that of Lieutenant D. A. Lyle, of the Ordnance Corps, who was detailed, at the request of the Life-saving Service, to conduct experiments in increasing the range of wreck artillery, and who succeeded in devising two bronze guns, one weighing with its projectile only 202 pounds, which has carried a line 695 yards, and a smaller gun weighing with its projectile only 102 pounds, which has an extreme line-carrying range of 477 yards. This result would appear to make catastrophes like those of the Giovanni and Circassian impossible. The year was one of severe tempests, there being 171 disasters to vessels within the scope of life-saving operations—the highest annual number previously known to the service being 134. In the report of the service for 1876, the General Superintendent, commenting upon the remarkable success which the establishment had achieved in saving life, and claiming it as the legitimate fruit of organization, had remarked that, if ever the annual result should be less proud, it would be because the Government failed to meet the demands made by the natural development of the service. There had recently been such a failure, and this year the predicted result followed. An appropriation by Congress below the estimates submitted, prevented the stations on the North Carolina coast from being opened for service earlier than the 1st of December, and six days before this time arrived 98 lives were lost by the wreck of the U. S. steamer Huron, no assistance being at hand. A similar misfortune occurred on the 1st of January follow

and 15 upon the coasts of Virginia and North Carolina; ten of these last taking intermediate places between the existing stations, and abridging the weary distances which had hitherto aggravated the labors and hardships of patrol upon those beaches, and made speedy arrival abreast of a wreck so often impossible, as in the case of the Metropolis. The act will doubtless be supplemented by much legislation, dictated by the requirements of a service constantly growing in utility; but, as it stands, it has set the establishment upon its first really fair footing, enlarged its horizon, and started it upon a fresh career.

The number of stations embraced by the establishment is 196. Twenty-three of these are not yet completed. The stations consist, as before stated, of three classes, severally denominated complete life-saving stations, life-boat stations, and houses of refuge. The act which inaugurated the extension of the service to the coasts of the entire country, which are over 10,000 miles in extent, made their configuration and distinctive vicissitudes of surf and storm the subject of anxious and exhaustive consideration on the part of the Commission of 1873, with the view of determining the most effective species of life-saving aid which could be extended in the several localities to shipwrecked seafarers, under the always narrow appropriations. Beginning with Maine, they had before them a region which from north to south, and in transverse directions, the mighty plow of the glacier had furrowed in immemorial ages with deep valleys, which slope down into the sea; their intervening ridges, broken and irregular, forming submarine rocks and ledges, or appearing as narrow capes, monoliths, reefs, and islands above the surface, causing capricious currents and abrupt variations in soundings, which, with the numerous sunken rocks and peaks and half-submerged islets densely paving the coast, like the teeth in a shark's jaw, make navigation in this locality singularly perilous, while at the same time the lees of the innumerable capes, headlands, and islands afford frequent harbors of refuge or sheltered moorings for vessels which can run their concomitant gantlet of dangers. These dangers are fearfully augmented by the tremendous severity of winter storms in that latitude, with their accompaniments of impenetrable fog and blinding snow. The numerous lights, buoys, and sound-signals of the Lighthouse Board, and the charts of the Coast Survey, have combined to guard the mariner on this coast, and his hazard is further countervailed by the judicious distribution at certain points, mainly upon outlying islands, commanding wide outlooks upon the ocean, of seven lifesaving stations: six of them upon the Maine coast, and the seventh at Rye Beach, where New Hampshire projects a narrow coast upon the sea. These seven stations are comprised by the First Life-saving District. They belong to the class designated as complete life

saving stations-a class judged proper for all lonely coast localities, where population is either sparse or absent, and aid upon occasions of shipwreck can not be improvised, and where also the means of shelter and subsistence for the rescued are otherwise wanting. Such stations are distinguished from those of other classes by the presence of regularly employed crews of surfmen, and by being built and furnished as their domiciles, and for the temporary accommodation of shipwrecked persons. They are also fully equipped with all the means and appliances for life-saving operations from the shore. The same class of stations was deemed necessary for the coast of Massachusetts, which is contained in the Second Life-saving District. This coast slopes seaward from New Hampshire out to Cape Ann, thence scoops inward for seventy miles, forming Massachusetts Bay, which contains the thick-masted port of Boston, and, trending boldly toward the ocean, makes the great, crooked peninsula of Cape Cod, stretching forty miles outward, then curving abruptly upward for about the same distance, and rudely resembling in conformation an arm raised in challenge to the sea. This cape is dreadful to mariners. Its outer shore is a barren bank of storm-blown sand, for ever shifting under elemental action, beaten by the full force of the Atlantic surf, and skirted off shore by echelons of sunken sand-bars, always advancing or receding, and the frequent occasion of shipwreck along the entire peninsula. Below it are the large islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, with Buzzard's Bay and Nantucket and Vineyard Sounds around them-waters dangerous with submarine shoals and ledges, while the islands they lave are exposed on their seaward sides to the ocean fury. The whole coast of this district is rough to the mariner. Dangerous islands, rocks, and ledges stud its extent to the northward, along the rugged projection of Cape Ann, and are dense in the inner part of Massachusetts Bay, the entire extent of which lies bare to the scourging easterly and northeasterly gales, and has been the scene of shipwreck for many inward-bound vessels. Complete life-saving stations were nowhere more needed than on the coast of this State, which has fifteen, located at points most liable to cause shipwreck. The same class of stations were found necessary for the coasts of Rhode Island, Block Island, and Long Island, which constitute the Third Lifesaving District, and face the sailing tracks of a multitude of vessels bound to or from the great port of New York. From its eastern to its western boundary, the mainland of the entire Rhode Island coast, about forty miles in breadth, fronts the Atlantic, and has stations at three projecting points especially dangerous to shipping. Block Island, lying midway between this coast and the eastern extremity of Long Island, directly in the path of vessels, has two, and Long Island has thirty-three. This stretch of land, measuring from Montauk