1874. | Loss of Life at Sea. 475 
of the loss of the Captain, and in the great danger to which 
other ships were exposed, as the writings of the advocates 
of these erroneous views have practically admitted. 
Then he says, “‘ The effect of stability is the lever by 
which a wave forces a ship into motion. Ifa ship were 
destitute of this stability no wave that the ocean produces 
would serve to put her in motion, whether the stability be 
due to deeply-stored ballast or to the broad plane of flotation.” 
Yet the effort of stability is originated by, and is not the 
originator of, motion; it is the effort put forth in resisting 
motion, and increases in amount with each increase of the 
extent of the motion up to a certain point. 
Stability may be obtained either by deeply-stored ballast, 
or by a broad plane of flotation, or in part by both; but they 
are unlike, and in some degree opposite in their operation 
and effects; yet here also Mr. Froude treats them as though 
they were strictly alike in their operation and in their 
effects. 
No doubt the plane of flotation in proportion as it is wide 
when the sea is motionless, therefore not a motor, gives a 
very high degree of stability ; but when the water is moved 
into waves, that same broad plane becomes proportionally 
an instrument but not a motor, by which the waves give 
much greater motion to the ship, they being the power that 
puts the ship in motion—making her unsteady yet not un- 
stable, as is argued by Mr. Froude, for in that case she would 
capsize, as his model also would if unstable, and would not 
preserve its masts perpendicular to the surface of the water, 
this new hypothesis notwithstanding. 
Unquestionably if a ship be without stability, as Mr. 
Froude suggests, she will be unstable and not steady, but 
will do the opposite to that stated by that gentleman, viz., 
“not be rolled by any sea whatever,” for she will certainly 
roll over, as was near being demonstrated in the case of the 
Vanguard and her sister ships; no doubt she will not roll in 
the sense of rolling from side to side, for being once rolled, 
and not possessing stability to bring her back to the per- 
pendicular even when the rolling force ceases to act, she 
will roll over. 
Still less is there any tendency in ballast or a low centre 
of gravity ‘‘ to put a ship in motion ;” its action is to pre- 
serve the motionless condition of the ship, and it possesses 
no leverage till by motion it has been pushed out of the 
perpendicular by some force which is neither that of stability 
nor of ballast, ballast itself never being even like the broad 
plane of flotation, an instrument in originating greater 
