130 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 
abrasion. All will remember Mushet’s old self-tempering steel, but now 
we have alloys of nickel, chromium, vanadium, tungsten, and other metals, 
each with its own special use, either in construction of ships and their 
machinery or in the machine-shop for tool-steel, thus still further advancing 
the science and art of shipbuilding and marine engineering. 
The alloy which appeals most to the domestic circle is Firth’s stainless 
steel, which has largely abolished knife-boards and knife-cleaning machines. 
In engineering, this and other similar alloys are now coming into use, where 
their non-rusting qualities are of particular value; further, they are now 
under test with a view to their employment for important sea structures 
in connection with piers, docks, and harbours. 
Other powerful factors in the development of the merchant marine 
were the Board of Trade, the Classification Societies, and the technical 
institutions and societies. 
The Board of Trade is charged by statute with the duty of seeing that - 
ships are safe and sufficient for navigation. The individual surveyor is 
legally responsible, and it is he who must certify safety and sufficiency ; 
but, for co-ordination purposes, there is a Consultative Branch at White- 
hall which issues ‘ Suggestions and Instructions’ to the surveyors as to 
how they should carry out their duties. These ‘ buff books ’ have in practice 
largely the same effect as the rules and regulations of the Classification 
Societies. 
Practically every maritime nation has a Registry or Classification body 
or bodies of its own, but in this country that type of organisation has been 
earlier and more fully developed than in other countries. Lloyd’s Registry 
has a world-wide name and has had a profound influence on design not 
only in this country but all over the world. 
When iron superseded wood as the constructional material for ships, 
it required boldness of conception to pass from the very ponderable 
thickness of the wooden-skin planking to what must have appeared 
the paper thickness of the iron-skin plating, and from the practically 
solid wood framing to the spidery and wider-spaced iron framing. This 
was not the work of any one man; many naval architects were experi- 
menting and making gradual advances. The history of the change is 
difficult to follow, and I shall leave the task to Mr. Foster King; but 
I have always understood that the late Mr. Weymouth, at one time a — 
Surveyor to Lloyd’s and ultimately Secretary to the Registry, after 
collecting from the various builders information as to the scantlings in — 
use, conceived the system of numerals, and got out the first draft of the 
scantling rules, which system was in use for many years. 
It was inevitable that the only Registry should be criticised and dubbed — 
arbitrary and that shipowners and builders should think it desirable to— 
establish another, and this was done by the Liverpool Registry, known as_ 
the ‘Red Book.’ This led to competition in scantlings, no doubt in the 
endeavour to simplify and hence cheapen the structure, but the Registries 
were accused of ‘ sailing too near the wind ’ in weight of scantling. 
Plimsoll’s agitation ‘and the Act which made it obligatory for the ship- 
owner to place a mark on the sides of his ships showing the maximum 
draught to which he proposed to load them greatly affected mercantile 
owners, and schemes for fixing a load-line were evolved, for it should be 
noted that no scheme was included in the Act. The Board of Trade had 
