492 The Channel Tunnel. {Oétober, 
ments in apparatus for preventing sea-thickness, the first of 
which consists of a movable platform, to which chairs or 
couches may be attached. Connected with the platform is 
the piston rod of a steam cylinder, to which steam is 
admitted by a four-way cock, which may be opened and 
shut by a self-acting contrivance, so that when the ship 
sinks into the trough of the sea, steam is admitted beneath 
the piston, and the platform is caused to rise; on the con- 
trary, when the vessel rises over the crest of the wave, 
steam is admitted above the piston, and the platform 
descends, and thus a motion opposite to that of the vessel 
is obtained. Another arrangement consists of three cylin- 
ders, one placed forward and two at the after part, con- 
nected with each other by pipes. The second part of the 
invention consists of a platform or chair, which is supported 
by a bracket attached to an upright shaft, which shaft 
passes through a hollow standard. The upper part of the 
shaft carries a rack in which gears a pinion, fitted with a 
handle, and a rising and falling motion is given to the plat- 
form by moving the handle to and fro. Or the platform 
may be moved by a perpendicular shaft or lever attached to 
a pinion gearing with a toothed rack. In the third modifi- 
cation, the effet is attained by interposing elastic bodies 
between the person and the deck. 
In order to avoid sea-sickness, Mr. re Scarth, in 1869, 
designed a swinging cot, which he hung from four hooks— 
two ‘at each end——whilst, in order to counteract the tendency 
to extreme oscillation, he attached vulcanised india-rubber 
springs, or accumulators, below the cot, inthe exact centre, 
directly perpendicular from the hooks by which it was hung, 
and this principle he proposed to apply to individual berths. 
In 1833, Sir J. Herschel designed a somewhat similar con- 
trivance, which, he says, proved perfectly successful, one 
chief difference between his and Mr. Scarth’s plan being 
that instead of india-rubber bands Sir John employed cord 
or pack-thread. Subsequently, in 1869, Sir John Herschel 
proposed, for swinging cots, to transfer the whole coercing 
power, operative in deadening the effects of oscillation, at 
once to the point of suspension; and so doing away with 
the necessity of attachment of any kind to the walls or 
floor of the cabin, whether by friction bands or by elastic 
straps, and this he proposed to accomplish by hanging the 
cot from the roof by a light but rigid iron framework, hav- 
ing a stiff ball-and-socket attachment lined with compressed 
felt or other similar material, in order to offer sufficient 
frictional resistance to oscillation. 
