182 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



THE UNITED STATES LIFE-SAYING SEKYICE. 



EXTRACT FROM AN ARTICLE IN APPLETONS' "ANNUAL CYCLOPAEDIA" FOR 1S78. 



T 



By W. D. O'CONNOR, 



ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT UNITED STATES LIFE-SAVING SERVICE. 



JHE scheme of this service places the long chain of complete life- 

 saving stations on the Atlantic beaches within an average distance 

 of five miles of each other, the object being to maintain the intercom- 

 munication of patrol, and effect the speedy assembling of several 

 crews in case of the occurrence of a wreck requiring multiplied efforts. 

 The complete life-saving stations are generally situated just behind 

 the beach, among the low sand-hills common to such localities. They 

 are typically two-story houses, mainly built of tongued and grooved 

 pine, with gable roofs, covered with cypress or cedar shingles, and 

 strong shutters to the windows, and are securely bolted to a founda- 

 tion of cedar or locust posts, sunk in trenches four feet deep. Their 

 architecture is of the pointed order, somewhat in the chalet style, with 

 heavy projecting eaves and a small open observatory or lookout desk, 

 on the peak of the roof, from which spires a flag-staff. The walls of 

 the houses are painted drab, with darker color for the door and win- 

 dow trimmings, and the roofs dark red. Over the door is a tablet with 

 the inscription "TJ. S. Life-saving Station." The appearance of 



the houses is tasty and pictu- 

 resque. Their dimensions are 

 from eighteen to twenty feet 

 wide by forty feet long ; the 

 later houses are twenty by 

 forty-five. Below they con- 

 tain two rooms. One of these 

 is the boat-room, about ten 

 feet high, occupying over two 

 thirds of the ground -floor 

 space, or measuring about six- 

 teen by thirty feet, and open- 

 ing by a broad double-leaf 

 door into the weather. In this 

 are stored the boats, life-car, 

 wreck-gun, and most of the apparatus. The other room, about eight 

 feet high, and measuring about twelve by sixteen feet, is the general 

 living-room of the crew. The second story contains three rooms, one 

 for the storage of the lighter apparatus, one for the sleeping-room of 

 the keeper, and one for that of the men ; both of these furnished with 

 cot-beds in sufficient number for the accommodation also of the oc- 

 casional guests sent to the stations by shipwreck. At stations where 



Fig. 1. Life-saving Station. 



