RAFT FOR PRESERVING SHIPWEECKE5> PKESOWS, Jg5 



The grandson of the man who first invented t?ie bending Inrentsonof 

 of ship timber by means of hot sand, in the very €ases^ [*.*'"r*"S s&ip 

 which now are tilled with boiling water • who ruined himself minows to tbe 

 b/ expending j^lC,000 to enrich his country, was rewarded P^^^jecUir. 

 with a delusive patent, and left his children in want; may 

 be allowed to be disinterested in any proposal he makes for 

 the benefit of a navy, that, as individuals, has only been to 

 them productive of disappointment and irretrievable loss. 



About six years past, a solitary ifihabitant of a pronion- jstatraraS phe- 

 lory projecting into the Severn Sea, called "Weston Super """'^"^ **^^ 

 Mare, 1 amused myself much among tbe rocks there, and id^riothe aa- 

 spent many hours in studying the action and form of water ^hor. 

 when impelled in the figure of a wave ; it being my opinion 

 at that time, as it still is, that the forms water takes from 

 motion are so determined, that even in sculpture they may 

 be represented with correctness; and that nothing would 

 better teach us the art of representing motion by fixed 

 lines, than these images so often repeated with exactness. 

 On these occasions I frequently observed extensive masses 

 of the sea weed called tang on that coast, and which the 

 farmers burn for manure, floating into the hollow coves be- 

 low me, on the surface of the most tremendous waves ; and 

 forming, if I may so express myself, a green carpet, that, 

 und:ilating on the broken wave, was never submerged, al- 

 though continually varying its surface; and on which, as on 

 a resting place, birds frequently alighted, or sat to repose 

 themselves, as if it were a verdant down. 



On a coast so remarkably dangerous, where no boat could its practks! 

 land even in comparatively tranquil weather, these safe rafts application,. 

 were very interesting, and led naturally to the thoiight, 

 whether such a sort of raft might not be constructed of 

 other materials, fit, instead of birds, to carry men. The 

 result of which was, it appeared to me, that if each sailor 

 in a man of war had a cork mattress, and these mattresse* 

 were all linked together by cords, such a float, capable of 

 landing safely eren on breakers, would be produced. 



Pleased with the thought I went to Bristol, and consulted Coik siiaTings 



a cork cutter there as to the quanlity of cork necessary to JViean & gwd 



support a man; and soon found, that a very moderate martres-c-, and 



weight would do, and that cork shavinsis were then worth V'^'^^tnai for 

 o ' '- tne purpose. 



only 



