Fig. 9. Crotch, Hawser, and Sand-Anchor. 



THE UNITED STATES LIFE-SAVING SEE VICE. 189 



made of two pieces of wood, three by two inches thick and ten feet 

 long, crossed near the top, so as to form a sort of X, and bolted to- 

 gether, is erected, and the 

 shore end of the hawser is 

 drawn over the intersection. 

 A sand-anchor, composed of 

 two pieces of hard wood, six 

 feet long, eight inches wide, 

 and two inches thick, crossed 

 at their centers, bolted to- 

 gether, and furnished at the 

 center with a stout iron ring, 

 is laid obliquely in a trench 

 dug behind the crotch. An 

 iron hook, from which runs 

 a strap of rope, having at its 

 other end an iron ring called 

 a bull's-eye, is now fastened 

 into the ring of the sand- 

 anchor. This strap connects 

 by the bull's-eye with a double pulley-block at the end of the hawser 

 behind the crotch, by which the hawser is drawn and kept taut. The 

 trench is solidly filled in, and the imbedded sand-anchor, held by the 

 lateral strain against the side of the trench, sustains the slender bridge 

 of rope constituted by the hawser. 



If there are a large number of persons to be saved, the life-car is 

 used. This is a covered boat of galvanized sheet-iron, eleven feet 

 four inches long, four feet eight inches wide, and three feet deep, 

 weighing 225 pounds, which 

 will hold six or seven per- 

 sons. It is covered with a 

 hatch, and has a few per- 

 forations made in the top 

 from the inside, which ad- 

 mit air, while their raised 

 edges exclude water. It is 

 suspended on the hawser 

 by bails and rings, to which 

 are also attached the haul- 

 ing-lines, all these ropes being arranged to it before the hawser 

 is fastened behind tbe crotch. It is evident that, by pulling on one 

 part of the hauling-line, the life-saving crew can send out the sus- 

 pended life-car to the vessel above the surface of the sea, and, when 

 it has received its load, draw it back to the shore by pulling on the 

 other part. Its use has been uniformly successful, 201 persons hav- 

 ing been saved by it from the immigrant ship Ayrshire at its first 



Fig. 10. Life-Car, with Hawser and Hahling-Lines. 



