SERVICE, UNITED STATES LIFE-SAVING. 



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to Gravesend about one hundred and twenty 

 miles, and varying from two to twenty-five 

 miles in width, lias a beach which is the 

 commencement of an extraordinary formation. 

 This formation is a strip of barren sand, from 

 a quarter of a mile to five miles wide, almost 

 entirely unpeopled, separated by a rile of bays 

 from the mainland, which, commencing with 

 Long Island, extends along the Atlantic coast 

 to Cape Fear, North Carolina, a distance of 

 six hundred miles. It is broadly cleft three 

 times in its course southward, by the waters 

 of New York, Delaware, and Chesapeake Bays. 

 The bays which divide it longitudinally from 

 the mainland are narrow till they reach North 

 Carolina, where they spread out into Albe- 

 marle and Pamplico Sounds, sinking thence to 

 Cape Fear into swamps and lagoons. A slow 

 and perpetual mutation, varied at times by con- 

 vulsive alterations, is the law of this long chain 

 of beach. At varying distances it is traversed 

 by narrow inlets, pierced by the ocean, which 

 march steadily downward, year after year, 

 under the action of the north and east winds, 

 the sand closing up behind them, or are arrest- 

 ed or closed by the operation of some violent 

 storm, which may at the same time cleave the 

 beach across with a new inlet. This march 

 of inlets threatens the safety of the stations, 

 and frequently compels their removal. They 

 are menaced also by the ocean, between which 

 and the beach there is unceasing war. At 

 times the beach makes a steady annual ad- 

 vance upon the sea, and then for years is 

 driven back by the onset of the waters. Off 

 shore, along its whole extent, lurk perilous 

 shoals and platoons of submarine bars, for ever 

 changing position, over which in tempests the 

 squadrons of breakers mount and tumble with 

 tremendous uproar. Gradually curving in from 

 Montauk, this stretch of unstable beaches bends 

 out again four hundred miles below to form 

 the dreaded cape of Hatteras, from which point 

 the coast trends inward to the boundary of 

 Florida. Four great marts New York, Phil- 

 adelphia, Baltimore, and Norfolk bring the 

 ocean paths of commerce close upon this line 

 of beach, and here tempest hunts the ships. 

 The record of the Long Island and New Jersey 

 beaches is terrible. The traveler upon them 

 sees everywhere, protruding from the sands, 

 the skeletons of wrecks, and their old-time 

 story is only of innumerable drowned crews. 

 Here were the earliest and the greatest success- 

 es of the Life-saving Service, whose programme 

 devoted this entire line of beach to complete 

 life-saving stations. There are 41 of these in 

 the Fourth Life-saving District, embracing the 

 New Jersey coast; 11 in the Fifth Life-sav- 

 ing District, embracing the coast of Delaware, 

 Maryland, and Virginia as far as Cape Charles ; 

 and 25 in the Sixth Life-saving District, em- 

 bracing the coast of Virginia from Cape Henry, 

 and of North Carolina to Cape Fear. Below 

 Cape Fear, fewer ports, a blander latitude, and 

 the absence of most other vessels than coasters, 



have thus far made life-saving stations un- 

 necessary for about three hundred miles, when 

 the coast, receding for this distance, again 

 swells out seaward at Florida. The programme 

 of the service was here shaped to new condi- 

 tions. This coast, closely approached by ves- 

 sels plying between the Atlantic and the Gulf 

 of Mexico, is a coral formation, five hundred 

 miles in extent, arid and desolate to the last 

 degree, with steep shores and a depth of water 

 which enables vessels, when driven in by the 

 gales and tornadoes of the stormy season, to 

 come up almost high and dry, rendering com- 

 paratively easy the escape of their crews, whose 

 chief liability, under these circumstances, is to 

 perish from hunger and thirst. The stations 

 adopted for this coast, therefore, were of the 

 class called houses of refuge, severally inhab- 

 ited by a keeper and his family, and stocked 

 with provisions for the sustenance of persons 

 cast ashore. There are five of these stations, 

 located on the bulge of the coast where vessels 

 are liable to be driven ashore, and comprised 

 within the Seventh Life-saving District. Ori- 

 ginally no stations were proposed for the Gulf 

 coast, which is generally a low waste of sand 

 or morass, with shoaling waters and regular 

 soundings, more fatal to marine property than 

 to life when visited by the southern hurri- 

 canes ; but the recent increase of coinmerce at 

 Galveston, and the damage wrought to ship- 

 ping by the prevailing northers on the coast of 

 Texas, have led to the projection of six life-sav- 

 ing stations for that locality at points marked 

 by recurrent disaster, and embraced by the 

 Eighth Life-saving District. Five of these are 

 complete life-saving stations, and one belongs 

 to the class designated as life-boat stations a 

 class reserved for populous localities where vol- 

 unteer crews can be readily collected, and the 

 depth of water enables the English life-boat to 

 be used. The class of life-boat stations (estab- 

 lished, it may be said, somewhat experimental- 

 ly, and with the view of substituting for them 

 complete life-saving stations if, after trial, their 

 protection to life should be found inadequate) 

 belongs particularly to the Lakes and the Pa- 

 cific coast. The Lakes present marked char- 

 acteristics. They are a group of enormous in- 

 land seas, with 2,500 miles of American coast 

 line, generally regular shores, without many 

 islands, and closed by ice to navigation for 

 nearly six months in the year. They have few 

 natural harbors, and the entrances to most of 

 these are narrow, and increased by the con- 

 trivance of double piers jutting out consider- 

 able distances. Their principal danger to 

 navigation is involved in their lack of sea- 

 room, which leads vessels to endeavor in 

 storms to run for shelter into the harbors; 

 and the entrances to these being narrow, ves- 

 sels are apt to rniss them, and be swept upon 

 the beach. They are also subject to sudden 

 and violent gales, which pile up seas so tre- 

 mendous as to sweep anchored vessels fore and 

 aft, often forcing their crews into the rigging, 



