756 



SEPwVICE, UNITED STATES LIFE-SAYING. 



and 15 upon the coasts of Virginia and North 

 Carolina ; ten of these last taking intermediate 

 places between the existing stations, and abridg- 

 ing the weary distances which had hitherto 

 aggravated the labors and hardships of patrol 

 upon those beaches, and made speedy arrival 

 altreast of a wreck so often impossible, as in 

 the case of the Metropolis. The act will doubt- 

 less be supplemented by much legislation, dic- 

 tated by the requirements of a service con- 

 stantly growing in utility ; but, as it stands, it 

 has set the establishment upon its first really 

 fair footing, enlarged its horizon, and started 

 it upon a fresh career. 



The number of stations embraced by the es- 

 tablishment is 196. Twenty -three of these are 

 not yet completed. The stations consist, as 

 before stated, of three classes, severally denom- 

 inated complete life-saving stations, life-boat 

 stations, and houses of refuge. The act which 

 inaugurated the extension of the service to the 

 coasts of the entire country, Avhich are over 

 10,000 miles in extent, made their configuration 

 and distinctive vicissitudes of surf and storm 

 the subject of anxious and exhaustive consid- 

 eration on the part of the Commission of 1873, 

 with the view of determining the most effective 

 species of life-saving aid which could be ex- 

 tended in the several localities to shipwrecked 

 seafarers, under the always narrow appropria- 

 tions. Beginning with Maine, they had before 

 them a region which from north to south, and 

 in transverse directions, the mighty plow of 

 the glacier had furrowed in immemorial ages 

 with deep valleys, which slope down into the 

 sea; their intervening ridges, broken and ir- 

 regular, forming submarine rocks and ledges, 

 or appearing as narrow capes, monoliths, reefs, 

 and islands above the surface, causing capri- 

 cious currents and abrupt variations in sound- 

 ings, which, with the numerous sunken rocks 

 and peaks and half-submerged islets densely 

 paving the coast, like the teeth in a shark's 

 jaw, make navigation in this locality singularly 

 perilous, while at the same time the lees of 

 the innumerable capes, headlands, and islands 

 afford frequent harbors of refuge or sheltered 

 moorings for vessels which can run their con- 

 comitant gantlet of dangers. These dangers 

 are fearfully augmented by the tremendous 

 severity of winter storms in that latitude, 

 with their accompaniments of impenetrable 

 fog and blinding snow. The numerous lights, 

 buoys, and sound-signals of the Lighthouse 

 Board, and the charts of the Coast Survey, 

 have combined to guard the mariner on this 

 coast, and his hazard is further countervailed 

 by the judicious distribution at certain points, 

 mainly upon outlying islands, commanding 

 wide outlooks upon the ocean, of seven life- 

 saving stations: six of them upon the Maine 

 coast, and the seventh at Rye Beach, where 

 .New Hampshire projects a narrow coast upon 

 the sea. These seven stations are comprised 

 by the First Life-saving District. They be- 

 long to the class designated as complete life- 



saving stations a class judged proper for all 

 lonely coast localities, where population is 

 either sparse or absent, and aid upon occasions 

 of shipwreck can not be improvised, and where 

 also the means of shelter and subsistence for 

 the rescued are otherwise wanting. Such sta- 

 tions are distinguished from those of other 

 classes by the presence of regularly employed 

 crews of surfmen, and by being built and fur- 

 nished as their domiciles, and for the temporary 

 accommodation of shipwrecked persons. They 

 are also fully equipped with all the means arid 

 appliances for life-saving operations from the 

 shore. The same class of stations was deemed 

 necessary for the coast of Massachusetts, which 

 is contained in the Second Life-saving District. 

 This coast slopes seaward from New Hampshire 

 out to Cape Ann, thence scoops inward for 

 seventy miles, forming Massachusetts Bay, 

 which contains the thick-masted port of Bos- 

 ton, and, trending boldly toward the ocean, 

 makes the great, crooked peninsula of Cape 

 Cod, stretching forty miles outward, then 

 curving abruptly upward for about the same 

 distance, and rudely resembling in conforma- 

 tion an arm raised in challenge to the sea. 

 This cape is dreadful to mariners. Its outer 

 shore is a barren bank of storm-blown sand, 

 for ever shifting under elemental action, beaten 

 by the full force of the Atlantic surf, and skirt- 

 ed off shore by echelons of sunken sand-bars, 

 always advancing or receding, and the frequent 

 occasion of shipwreck along the entire penin- 

 sula. Below it are the large islands of Nantuck- 

 et and Martha's Vineyard, with Buzzard's Bay 

 and Nantucket and Vineyard Sounds around 

 them waters dangerous with submarine shoals 

 and ledges, while the islands they lave are 

 exposed on their seaward sides to the ocean 

 fury. The whole coast of this district is rough 

 to the mariner. Dangerous islands, rocks, and 

 ledges stud its extent to the northward, along 

 the rugged projection of Cape Ann, and are 

 dense in the inner part of Massachusetts Bay, 

 the entire extent of which lies bare to the 

 scourging easterly and northeasterly gales, and 

 has been the scene of shipwreck for many in- 

 ward-bound vessels. Complete life-saving sta- 

 tions were nowhere more needed than on the 

 coast of this State, which has fifteen, located 

 at points most liable to cause shipwreck. The 

 same class of stations were found necessary for 

 the coasts of Rhode Island, Block Island, and 

 Long Island, which constitute the Third Life- 

 saving District, and face the sailing tracks of 

 a multitude of vessels bound to or from the 

 great port of New York. From its eastern to 

 its western boundary, the mainland of the en- 

 tire Rhode Island coast, about forty miles in 

 breadth, fronts the Atlantic, and has stations 

 at three projecting points especially dangerous 

 to shipping. Block Island, lying midway be- 

 tween this coast and the eastern extremity of 

 Long Island, directly in the path of vessels, 

 has two, and Long Island has thirty-three. 

 This stretch of land, measuring from Montauk 





