1202 REPORT—1 885. 
The principle of ‘ fire alarms’ and ‘ automatic sprinklers’ is well known. In the 
fire alarms a sudden rise of temperature expands a spring, which moves a screw or 
another piece to complete an electrical circuit, and the bell or alarm is sounded, 
The principle of the automatic sprinkler is a pipe of water covered or sealed by a 
metal cap secured only by soldering some alloys melting at, say, 150 degrees 
Fahrenheit. When this temperature is reached, the cover is melted, and the water 
thrown with the volume required. These automatic sprinklers are coming into 
general use in the mills of the United States. As the cost of fixing the alarm and 
the sprinkler is small, the combination of both appliances is desirable. 
CoLuisIons. 
To ayoid collision with other vessels, the International Code prescribes the use 
of the steam-whistle at intervals of not more than two minutes. 
In fog the only practical signal to-day is sound; but the existing signals must 
be improved and an international code of signals showing at once the direction of 
the approaching vessel introduced. Many telegraphic codes can be suggested for 
that purpose. 
The speed of steamers in a fog must be fixed according to the strength of the 
alarm sounds and the power of controlling the movements of the vessel. If the 
alarm is heard at lone distances and is sounded frequently, and the control of 
the vessel is easy, it is possible to proceed at greater speed than if the alarm were 
less well heard, not sounded so frequently, and the management of the ship 
difficult. 
Automatically, and at the same time that the direction of the helm is changed 
to avoid the collision, the movement must be signalled very distinctly to the other 
vessels, and the exterior of the ships and the sea must be electrically illuminated. 
Several appliances can be employed for that purpose, to avert collisions, and to give 
full light, in the event of a disaster, for rescue. 
5. On the Deep Sea Channel into Swansea Harbour.| By Ropert Capper. 
Describes the cutting of the new deep sea channel into Swansea Harbour, with- 
out piers or other protective works, about one-fifth excavated four years ago with 
hired plant, commencing to dredge in from sea from the centre of Swansea Bay 
(which did not silt up), and the remainder in the immediate past twelve months, 
the whole 7,000 feet in length, 200 feet wide at top, 150 feet at bottom, and 14 feet 
in depth below the old bed of the bay, involving the digging, lifting, and carrying 
away two million tons of material to a distance of seven miles, gives some account 
of the geological formation met with, details of the cost, and how the time was 
spent whilst the work was in hand. 
This channel opens Swansea to the largest class of shipping afloat any tide of 
the year; indeed, turning the neap tides into a blessing, and making the port 
available as a point of departure for any ship every night of the year at one given 
hour. 
Points out that, at the beginning of the present century, there was scarcely any 
town of importance in the kingdom that was distant from navigation more than 
fifteen miles, most of the canals of that period having proved very profitable 
property. Yet the money spent in docks and harbours around our shores in the last 
one hundred years to receive the commerce of the whole world, is only double that 
invested in English canals; our seaports have not kept pace with our shipping, the 
500 creeks and harbours, half managed by public bodies, have been allowed to silt 
up with very few exceptions, opening a wide field for the engineer, as it costs half 
as much to bring deep water to our doors as to go out to deep water with piers 
and quays. 
Touches upon the deepening of the rivers St. Lawrence, Tyne, Clyde, and 
Scheldt as examples, the shipping trade of the latter having increased twenty- 
fivefold in recent years, 
1 Published in extenso in Engineering. 
