Crossing one another's Track. 285 
expectations of scientific men, as well as the nautical com- 
munity generally, as to cause the announcement of it to be 
looked upon as a mere chimera. No wonder if the dis- 
covery remains In abeyance for seven years without a single 
individual to come forward to say whether it be a reality or 
not. Still, the discovery is not any the less true, nor any 
the less important because it has been so long disregarded, 
and now we proceed to explain it. 
In looking into the official statistical records in England, 
the writer was astonished to find that the number of coll- 
sions on the coasts of Great Britain, always increases in 
proportion to the means taken to prevent them; that they 
are always far more numerous when the weather is clear and 
the legally prescribed precautionary system of lights most 
fully developed. He observed that the same remarkable fact 
applied to the cases of collision on the coasts of Australia. 
This unwelcome truth presented itself to the Board of Trade 
in the most convincing manner, but they naturally did not 
like to dwell upon it; for, in the first place, it seemed to 
reflect upon the system they were strictly enforcing, and in 
the next place, no other resource whatever was within their 
reach. In the “ Wreck Return,” published by the Board in 
the Nautical Magazine of Nov. 1857. the true state of things 
was shown in the two following items, extracted from the 
table of casualties : 
Collisions. In the day time. In the night time. 
In thick and foggy weather 5 neg 19 
In clear weather ee 36 ore 81 
This comparative statement is very significant, for it 
proves that those cases which no human foresight could pro- 
vide against are by far the fewest, and that the most nume- 
rous are those which occur when the weather admits of the 
fullest development of our supposed safeguards, the signal 
lights. The writer therefore concluded that the common 
procedure followed by seamen with respect to collisions, 
operated deceptively, and that a latent error of a very 
insidious and dangerous character pervaded it ; he conse- 
quently searched for that error and found it. He found that 
it was of so delusive a character that the ships of all nations 
had for ages actually reversed the true indications of safety 
and danger, and that no writer on navigation, whose works are 
extant, had ever detected and exposed the error ; he further 
perceived that through the universal adoption of the error, 
