1874.] Loss of Life at Sea. 4727 
insisting that the safety of a ship cannot be secured without 
care and vigilance be given from her first design to her un- 
loading at the port of destination, they fail to mete out to 
the architects and builders, who uniformly claim the lion’s 
share of success, any share of responsibility or blame for the 
failure of designs: and yet most of the great catastrophes 
lie at their doors, and many of the smalier are due to their 
misleading, or to their, and that of other peoples’, assuming 
that in dealing with purely nautical subjects they can 
dispense with nautical experience and knowledge, and can 
decide all nautical questions without the assistance of seamen. 
We rejoice that the Commissioners are no parties to the 
discrediting of nautical knowledge in naval questions. 
As Mr. Froude’s theories concerning the best mode of 
preventing the rolling of ships in a seaway have been ex- 
tensively applied in our navy, it has become a matter of 
great importance to demonstrate their erroneous character, 
and to point out the great danger of continuing to apply 
them. 
Let us now examine the principles on which Mr. Froude 
proceeds. 
He alleges that “‘the effort of stability is the lever by 
which a wave forces a ship into motion; if a ship were . 
destitute of this stability,” he says, “‘no wave that the ocean 
produces would serve to put her in motion.” 
He offers the following explanation and illustration in. 
proof of the correctness of the above view:— 
‘*T regret you did not notice the conclusive experimental 
proof I exhibited of the fundamental proposition, that the 
surface of a fluid when dynamically inclined is virtually 
level to a body which floats on it, and as it really lies at 
the root of the whole theory of the behaviour of a ship 
amongst waves, I am anxious that not only my re-statement 
of it, but reference to the experimental proof of it, should 
appear also.” 
Mr. Froude then gives the following as the experimental 
proof of his fundamental proposition. 
‘** If a shallow dish of water be suspended by three equal 
strings brought to one point, so that it is level when it hangs 
at rest, then if the meeting of the strings be taken in the 
fingers, the dish may be swung about in any direction what- 
ever without spilling the water; indeed, it is impossible to 
spill the water so long as the suspending lines are kept 
tight by the operation; and if a stable floating body be 
placed in the water it will carry its mast at right angles to 
