662 
NATURE 
[AuGuUST 29, 1912 
at sea which has been attained dwring the last 
ten years is demonstrated, and the altogether ex- 
ceptional character of the circumstances which 
attended the loss of the Titanic is made clear. 
The main recommendations of the report may 
be summarised. Tirst, it is recognised that “the 
stability and seaworthy qualities of the vessel it- 
self” must be regarded as of primary importance. 
This includes the question of watertight sub- 
division, now under investigation by a special com- 
mittee. Second, as regards boats and life-saving 
appliances it is recommended that accommodation 
should be provided for the total number of persons 
which each foreign-going passenger steamship is 
licensed to carry. This has not been done hitherto 
in the largest passenger steamships, but the report 
shows that the rules hitherto in existence for such 
ships were sufficient to provide boats carried under 
davits for all persons in 343 out of 521 such ships 
which were examined, and that out of the 178 
ships for which these rules did not require sufficient 
boats under davits for all persons carried no fewer 
than forty-nine ships actually carried sufficient 
boats, their equipment going beyond legal require- 
ments. 
For passenger steamers in the home trade—ply- 
ing in estuaries and rivers, cross-channel and coast- 
ing services, etc.—the recommendation made is 
that the boats, life-rafts and buoyant apparatus 
taken together should aggregate accommodation 
for not less than 50 per cent. of the passengers and 
crew. ‘The conditions under which these vessels 
work obviously render it probable that, in most 
cases, external help would soon be available in 
case of accident, and the sub-committee says that 
there is “a consensus of opinion that in these 
smaller vessels any considerable increase in the 
number of boats is not practicable and would be 
a source of danger rather than an element of 
safety.” While the force of this argument is 
undoubted, it is proper to add that the considera- 
tions urged therein make it imperative that the 
officials of the Board of Trade in granting passen- 
ger certificates and fixing the maximum numbers 
to be carried should also have regard thereto. 
One must be impressed afresh in reading this 
report with the fact that even when the provision 
of boats and life-saving appliances is ample, there 
are comparatively few cases in which these can 
be fully utilised in case of serious accident. In 
the case of the Titanic the boat accommodation 
which existed was not fully utilised, although the 
boats were safely lowered and a calm prevailed. 
Modern ocean-going steamers carry their boats 
at great heights above water, and with any rolling 
motion of the vessel it is dangerous, if not im- 
possible, to lower the boats. In very moderate 
weather it may be done, but even then occupies 
much time. This matter has been referred to 
another departmental committee, the labours of 
which are just beginning. 
When the reports have been presented from the 
Committee on Boat Lowering Appliances and from 
the Bulkhead Committee, the President of the 
Board of Trade and his staff in the Marine Depart- 
10. 2235, VOL. 89| 
ment will have much further material for con- 
sideration, in addition to the great mass of facts. 
and opinions contained in the report now before 
us. One is disposed to ask: What will he do 
with it? Captain Hampson, a member of the 
Advisory Committee, in a lengthy reservation, 
which is severely dealt with by the chairman in 
a separate note, strongly urges the appointment 
of “a commission or committee composed of 
members independent in every way of the 
shipping interest, but at which various 
representatives of the different sections of shipping — 
should be invited to submit their views.” Such 
a course appears to be most undesirable; it would 
amount to an abandonment of the investigations 
by competent committees already set on foot. The 
materials on which future regulations ought to be 
based will be ample when existing committees 
have finished their labours, and the responsibility 
for these regulations must be accepted by the 
President of the Board of Trade. This general 
statement of the case_applies not only to the points 
mentioned above, but to other important matters, 
including manning of British ships, boat drills, 
wireless telegraphy, the use of searchlights, rules. 
for navigation, and others which cannot be men- 
tioned. 
In one direction the Advisory Committee appears 
to have undertaken a gratuitous task, as it has 
investigated the advance made in the speed of 
ocean-going steamships in order to demonstrate 
that the general increase has been small and that 
even now ships exceeding twenty knots are few 
in number. The really important question is not 
what maximum sea speed a ship can maintain, 
but what is an “undue speed” likely to lead to: 
accidents in special circumstances. The committee 
itself recognises this distinction and one of 
its most valuable recommendations is that pro- 
posing to extend the present regulations and to 
prescribe to those in charge of ships the necessity 
for proceeding at moderate speed “‘at night in the 
known vicinity of ice.” Anything less than this, 
after the loss of the Titanic, would be contrary to: 
public feeling and to common sense. 
FORESTS AND RAINFALL, 
SIR W. SCHLICH, URORGS:, Protessonmot 
Forestry at Oxford, writing in the new 
edition of the “Encyclopedia Britannica,” defines. 
a forest as ‘“‘an area which is for the most part 
set aside for the production of timber and other 
forest produce, or which is expected to exercise 
certain climatic effects, or to protect the locality 
against injurious influences.” One of the most 
important of the climatic effects ascribed by some 
to forests is the increased amount of precipitation, 
not only in the forest areas themselves, but also: 
in the country surrounding them, produced by the 
influence of the forests upon the moisture-laden 
air which passes over them. 
Owing to the relatively small area of our forests 
and the rarity of serious floods or prolonged 
