1874.) Loss of Life at Sea. 477 
as compared with that in ships generally, and to distribute 
the weight outwards and on to the sides. 
We may examine the effect of such recommendations with 
advantage. 
The condition of ships in a seaway is misunderstood, as 
is the effect of increasing the inertia of their sides ; the con- 
dition is not as supposed by Mr. Froude, that of a ship 
moving with and as a particle in the wave; when waves are 
large or are steep, and are travelling fast across a ship’s 
path, she has no time and may have very little tendency to 
accommodate her seat in the water to the surface or level 
of the wave, so that it becumes oblique to the ship’s water- 
line, as in Fig. 1, producing an inequality in the pressures, 
which are the cause of the rolling motions. All the con- 
ditions of the pressures on the inclined body in still water, 
shown in pages 73—4 of “Our Ironclads and Merchant 
Ships,” holds good equally as to the upright body with 
reference to an inclined surface of the wave. 
In comparing two ships, or the same under different con- 
ditions, we must assume the wave to be alike in all par- 
ticulars, then consider the variables and their consequences. 
The disturbing wave force then is the same, whatever 
may be the form or distribution of weight in the ship; yet 
the effect of that force will vary considerably as the above 
are changed. 
We will suppose Fig. r to represent the cross section of 
a ship, which, by weighting her sides, is prevented from in- 
clining with the wave, or from accommodating herself as 
much as she otherwise would to the surface of the wave, 
which is represented by the wave line curve. 
There is a complete change in the amount of the pressures 
from those that existed when the sea was level and the ship 
upright ; suppose the new pressures to be represented by the 
arrows at P Pp’, and #. 
The water has accumulated at P, raising the point and 
increasing the amount of lateral pressure on that side, while 
VOL. Iv. (N.S.) 2 P 
