Great Britain Machinery in Motion. 81 



silicate of soda instead of oxydised oil, is not liable to glaze under friction, Then, 

 again, refrigeration is a matter which has taxed the brains of many mechanicians. Provision 

 has been made during some years for the storage and manufacture of ice on board our 

 trawling vessels, but the cold air method is of more recent invention. The dry air 

 refrigerator shown by Messrs. Haslam, in which the air being first condensed in the top 

 cylinder to about 40 Ibs. to the square inch and then cooled by the action of water from 

 without, discharges a volume of air amounting to no less than 40,000 cubic feet per hour 

 at an average temperature of 40 below zero. So many, in fact, are the varieties of apparatus 

 that we can scarcely enumerate the objects for which they are designed. If the water 

 be too shallow at the bar of a harbour, Messrs. Priestman with their steam dredge are at 

 hand to come to our assistance, while Mr. Thomas presents us with a model of a harbour, so 

 constructed as to make the out-going tide completely overpower the incoming one, and with 

 the additional assistance of his submarine self-acting dredge sweep away the bar and prevent 

 it from re-forming. Thus we may hope to apply in a different sense the well-known words of 

 Mr. Kingsley and " bid good-bye to th bar and its moaning," and to all the loss and sorrow 

 which it has occasioned. If on our voyage we are caught in a fog, and in spite of our siren a 

 collision becomes imminent, Messrs. Lafargue suggest an hydraulic gear for steering by which 

 the largest ship can be instantaneously placed upon any course we may desire. If our vessel 

 is a wreck, and the long boat requires to be launched, the old familiar danger that its crowded 

 contents will be poured headlong into the angry waves is obviated by such gear as is shown by 

 Commander Mark Robinson, wherein the common hook is combined with a slipping apparatus 

 and the simple loosing of a rope instantaneously disconnects the couplings fore and aft at th 

 same time. If we are so fortunate as to require no such apparatus, but arrive unharmed in 

 port, machinery meets us once more, and Messrs. Clarke-Brummers hydraulic lift is put 

 into requisition for bringing the fish ashore. Or to take an instance which shows into what 

 minute details the use of machinery has entered most persons who have been at sea must be 

 aware of the action which the saline air is apt to exercise upon metallic articles, and it is no 

 bad measure of the height to which refinement has now been carried in these matters that a 

 point of this kind has received the special attention of Mr. Gorer, of the Gilding and Silvering 

 Company, 29 Edgware Road, London. 



On the other hand the electrical devices and the meagreness of the appliances adopted 

 for saving life betray the crude and unfinished character of the most elaborately-fitted fishing 

 vessel. Yet here, too, is a field which must by no means pass unnoticed. Here are the 

 ingenious appliances of electricity exhibited by Messrs. Whiting, which, not to speak of their 

 possible power of subduing whales and other large fish with no more difficulty than occurs 

 with horses, are capable, from the peculiar power they possess of contracting the diaphragm 

 and thereby causing the great desideratum of artificial respiration, of being applied with 

 admirable effect in resuscitating the half-drowned fishermen. Nor must we overlook the 

 simple machinery shown by Messrs. Shields for calming the troubled sea by means of oil ; 

 nor the luminous paint, which shines calmly amid the wildest drenchings of the tempest ; 

 or the asbestos, which preserves a wooden hull intact from the fiercest onslaught of fire and 

 petroleum ; or the Messrs. Bapty's invention for establishing communication between light- 

 ships and fishing fleets ; or Colonel Lambart's raft, which can be thrown overboard in any 

 fashion ; or Messrs. Berthon's compressible and easily stowed lifeboats ; or Messrs. Went- 

 worth's Kredemnon life-saving dresses, which scarcely encumber the wearer more than 

 ordinary dress, and yet can defy the utmost power of the waves ; or the helm signals, 

 which indicate at the mast-head every motion of the rudder ; or even the well-known basket 

 and rocket apparatus for the conveyance of shipwrecked mariners ashore, which the Board of 

 Trade exhibits daily. No matter connected with these interests can be of greater urgency, 

 not merely as a matter of sentiment but also of economy, than the preservation of the valuable 

 lives engaged in the service. Yet when the members of the Royal Commission held last year 

 suggested that cork jackets should be assumed by all persons on board the fishing fleet at a 

 signal given by the admiral or by the captain of the steam cutter, the proposal was finally 

 abandoned on account of the reluctance which the witnesses declared would be felt by the 

 fishermen in taking even so simple a precaution against obvious danger. If the present 

 Exhibition has no other effect than that of preserving a single life by removing this childish 

 though not unnatural fear of imputed cowardice, it will not have been held in vain. 



