2 
POPULAB SCIENCE BEVIETV. 
of the engineer and of some of the early directors ; and it is 
also true that if the works succeed in their material intention — 
of which there is, perhaps, almost an even chance — the share- 
holders will enjoy the satisfaction of having conferred upon their 
country a benefit as enduring as their structures. Their 
patriotism will be its own reward. 
More reasonable projects are those which have in view the 
use of the existing harbours, either as they now are, or with 
such improvements as the local authorities could be induced to 
make without large contributions from the companies ; and 
which propose to substitute large, safe, and comfortable vessels, 
with special provisions for preventing or alleviating sea-sick- 
ness, for the present mail steamers — passenger steamers it 
would be absurd to call them. I make this remark advisedly. 
The boats are admirably suited to the mail service, and to the 
light goods traffic, especially in fruit and fish, which take up 
so much of their available deck space. But a fishing lugger, 
with its hold cleared for a sailing party, or a tug chartered for 
a cheap trip, usually carries its passengers with less discomfort 
than the best means which English enterprise has furnished for 
the most important sea-ferry in Europe. I know of nothing 
more disgusting than the main cabin of these channel steamers 
on a wet night, unless it be the ladies’ cabin ; and it is a 
marvel to me how a nation which prides itself on the care 
with which it protects women from all coarse contact, can 
submit to see gentlewomen exposed to crowding and filth in 
the midst of which decency is scarcely possible, and delicacy is 
out of the question. 
Apart from the discomforts of overcrowding, small boats 
have much more motion than large ones ; and it is a general 
result of experience that, under like conditions in other 
respects, the sea-sickness varies inversely as the size of the 
ship, being very severe in small vessels and scarcely felt in 
very large ships. The ailment itself appears to be of a rather 
complex character, both in its causes and its effects, and the 
exact relation of each separate cause and effect does not appear 
to have as yet been completely disentangled from the others. 
That its ultimate cause is solely and entirely the motion of the 
ship, there is no doubt at all ; but physiologists are by no 
means agreed as to the chain of operation, or the intermediate 
detail which separates the primary cause from its final result. 
Some attach more importance to the changes of mechanical 
pressure induced by the varying motion ; others to the optical 
effect reacting on the stomach through the brain. My own 
opinion is that with unseasoned travellers either of these causes 
is alone sufficient to produce the sickness, and that they are 
generally in simultaneous operation ; but that the mechanical 
