98 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



progress on the production of what may be called a water-tele- 

 phone, by which he proposes to enable ships within hearing dis- 

 tance to communicate without wires, but still by electricity, sent 

 and received through the water. He is said to have signaled 

 through a mile of the Caloosahatchie River, in Florida, during 

 his experiments made last winter. 



The object of this paper is to call attention to the practical 

 impossibility of the mariner determining, by his unassisted ears, 

 in a fog or in darkness, the position of another ship from the 

 noise she makes, and the necessity that he should use some of 

 the appliances named, or better ones as they appear, to assist his 

 ears, and thus to prevent the collisions which are now so frequent 

 and so disastrous. The Celtic and Britannic steamers would not 

 have run into each other had such appliances been used; nor 

 would the steamer the City of Brussels have been run down in 

 the English Channel by the steamer Kirby Hall had they been 

 thus supplied, to say nothing of the steamer Oregon recently 

 sunk off Fire Island, and other like cases within easy recollec- 

 tion. These vessels carried no such appliances. 



It is desirable that public opinion should be brought to bear 

 on this subject with such force that ships shall be required to 

 carry some appliance, so that an error of five points in fixing a 

 ship's position will no longer be possible, or, if possible, will be 

 held to be criminal negligence. 



It is also desirable that public opinion should be brought to 

 bear on this subject with so much force that ships will be re- 

 quired to carry and use proper appliances for ascertaining the 

 position and course of ships within ear-shot, as they are now 

 required to carry lights for a like purpose. 



And why should not the Federal Government take some steps 

 in this direction, that the dread all now feel of collision at sea, 

 in the fog or the darkness, may in some measure be eliminated? 



Since the foregoing was in the hands of the editors. Senator 

 Frye introduced into the Senate Bill No. 1851, " to provide for 

 an international conference for securing greater safety for life 

 and property at sea." The President, under this bill, is to invite 

 each maritime nation to send delegates to a maritime conference, 

 to meet at "Washington in October next, and to appoint five dele- 

 gates to represent the United States. 



One of the duties prescribed for this conference is " to adopt 

 a uniform system of marine signals or other means of plainly 

 indicating the direction in which vessels are moving in fog, mist, 

 falling snow, and thick weather, and at night." 



This bill was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations, 



