igU RAFT FOR PRESERVING SHIPWRECKED PERSONS. 



only 8<f. per bushel, and chiefly sold for firing, or to make 

 guards for privateers to fill the nettings. 



It therefore struck me, that, as mattresses are necessary 

 in the navy for the hammocks, and nothing dryer than cork 

 or easier to shave into a thin elastic body, it might answer 

 the above end, to fill these mattresses with this substance, 

 in a proportion equal to the support of a single man: and 

 then a mass of them thrown overboard linked together by 

 ties at each corner, where cords might be always attached, 

 would form an extensive raft, capable of sustaining, out of 

 the water, as many men as there were of these mattresses 

 united; and thus conveying them on the tops of the waves, 

 and depositing them safely on shore, or even on the surface 

 of rocks, when the sea retired with the tide. 

 Ihisplansug- To contemplate SMch a thought in imagination is truly 



gesied to the delightful ; but to believe, as 1 do, that the thing: is practi^ 

 A-dmiralty. , , - , i ... 



cable with ease, and not communicate it to others, is im- 

 possible. I have therefore done all in my power to extend 

 the idea from my own bosom to the mind of the public at 

 large, having first addressed my wishes and plan to that 

 quarter, where the power of putting it extensively into exe- 

 cution alone exists. 



As your Journal must ultimately reach all countries, I 

 therefore wish to deposit these reflections in it, in the hope, 

 that they may thus be extended to some practicable benefit, 

 if not to ourselves, to our neighbours, or some distant 

 "Defects of all clime, where the coasts are equally dangerous : for all other 

 other rafts. rafts, that I have either seen or contemplated, have this 

 great defect, that they come on shore with too much force, 

 and that the blows they receive either disjoint them, or throw 

 off the people; that their wrecks are more dangerous than 

 the rocks they strand on ; and that every time they pitch 

 those on them are covered, and some never may be able to 

 retain their hold or rise again. - 



I am, &c. 

 Bristol, nth Aug, 1810, G. CUMBERLAND. 



yiii. 



