to the testimonials we have recorded of them, and which coming from so high an authority as that of Captain Lockyer, in command of one of Her Majesty's ships of ninety guns, is an assurance of their value to the largest, as well as to other ships, that must be gratifying to the inventor. We have also added to the letter of Captain Lockyer, two others from Mr. Northcote, Master of the Albion, who is well known to many of our readers. H.M.S. Albion, Plymouth Sound, 15th Jan. 1846. SIR,-I am in justice bound to state that, I have found your anchor supplied to this ship, has proved itself to be much superior to any other I have met with; it takes hold of the ground very quick, and with a shorter scope of cable than anchors generally. I have also found on heaving the anchor up, that both flukes had been buried in the mud, whereas the Admiralty anchor has not been so in the same ground; and in weighing your anchor, it breaks out of the ground easy when up and down. I have had several good trials of holding in gales of wind with your anchor, and it has never once started, though the greatest quantity of cable out on these occasions, has been seventy-two fathoms. Further, I shall have no objection to your making this note public. To Lieut. Rodger, R.N. I am, Sir, NICHS. LOCKYER. H.M.S. Albion, Plymouth Sound, 21st Jan. 1846. MY DEAR SIR,-I am obliged by your sending my note of the 7th for perusal; I see nothing in it that I can object to being made public, and therefore return it to you without any alteration. I hope you may get favourable reports of your anchor from the Superb. I feel satisfied that no anchor will bite so quick, hold so well, and break out of the ground so easy as yours. Believe me, Yours, faithfully, To Lieut. Rodger, R.N. S. G. J. NORTHCOTE. H.M.S. Albion, Plymouth Sound, 7th Jan. 1846. MY DEAR SIR,-I have much pleasure in complying with your request respecting the behaviour of your anchor, which we have now had twelve months trial of; and I must say I never met with an anchor that was so easily worked, and held on so well with a short scope of cable. We have rode out all the hard gales during the last month by it, with only seventy fathoms of cable, and I am sure it has not started an inch. In our yearly report to the Admiralty, we have stated "that it answers better than any other." This we are fully satisfied of, and I earnestly wish you may succeed in getting orders to make for the larger ships. Believe me, my dear Sir, Yours truly, To Lieut. Rodger, R.N. S. G. J. NORTHCOTE, ROYAL NAVAL BENEVOLENT SOCIETY. THE following statement shows the amount of relief voted in sums from £5 to £25, at the Thatched House, St. James's Street, on Monday the 19th January, last: Concordia Dynamene Ellen Harrison Hero Crossman Quebec passed waterlogged abandoned Griffiths Halifax Brown Honduras London 46°N. 49°W. Nov. 15, Caselthorn (Nov. 23. cd Flat I. Sept. 23. cs C. Ardrosan Nov. Oct. 28. Teignmouth Perryman Teignmouth run foul of off Dudgeon Oct. 30. cs run foul of & sunk by abandoned Cess R. Sept. 13. cs Sizewell B. Nov. 7. cs Victoria Bar Dec. 2. cs Liverpool 15 Whitby Stockton London Ellen Eliza Ann C. Chat Force Newcastle Jackson Quebec London Ord 25 Lord Wenlock Lowland Lass Margery Hull Mary Mayflower 30 4-Run on shore in a sinking state, supposed to have struck on her anchor. 3-Abandoned on her beam ends, crew picked up by George & Elizabeth of Sunderland. 12-After being capsized in a hurricane and three of the crew and three passengers drowned. 16-Part of materials washed on shore between Formby and Southport December 4. 27-In contact with the brig William Welsh, of Kincardine, the former foundered. 60-Part of crew (2 Lascars) picked up on a raft in lat. 15o 8., long, 54° E., on 9th of October, 10 others having died. 73-Crew were taken off by the Shepherd, and landed at Sunderland. Swansea Gr. Manan St. Lawrence Nov. 4, cs Whitehead Sunk S. Dec. 6, 2d Off Bideford Dec. 30, cs Dec. 8, cs Dec. 11, cs Florida C. Nov. 21. ca Nov. 23, cs Brandy Pots Dec. 1, cs Off Bude CAUTION TO SEAMEN.-New Shoal on the N.E. Coast of Banca.-Ship struck. Gaspar Island, E.b.S. Tree Island S.E.b.E.E. Further particulars in our next. THE WIDOW of MUCKLE HARBOUR. "THE island of Rona is a small and rocky spot of land, lying between the isle of Skye and the main land of Applecross, and is well known to mariners for the rugged and dangerous nature of its coast. There is a famous place of refuge at its north-western extremity, called Muckle Harbour, of very difficult access, which, however, strange to say, is easier entered at night than during the day. "At the extremity of this hyperborean solitude is the residence of a poor old widow, whose lonely cottage is called the "lighthouse," from the fact that she uniformly keeps a lamp burning in her window all night. By keeping the light and the entrance of the harbour open, a strange vessel may enter with the greatest safety. "During the silent watches of the night, the widow may be seen, like Norna of the Fitful Head, trimming her little lamp with oil, fearful that some frail bark may perish through her neglect, and for this she receives no manner of remuneration-it is pure and unmingled philanthrophy. "The poor woman's kindness does not rest even here, for she is unhappy until the benumbed and shivering mariner comes ashore to share her little board, and recruit himself at her glowing and cheerful fire, and she can seldom be prevailed upon to accept any recompence. "She has saved more lives than Davy's belt, and thousands of pounds to the underwriters. The poor creature, in her younger days, witnessed her husband struggling with the waves, and swallowed up by the remorseless billows "In sight of home and friends that thronged to save.' "This circumstance seems to have prompted her present devoted and solitary life, in which her only enjoyment is that of doing good."-Inverness Courier. There is one great omission in this gratifying statement-the name of the worthy old dame is wanting. The incident shows the true nobility of the heart. FORCE OF WAVES. SIR,-At a time when the subject of constructing harbours of refuge, where needed, and of improving all the tidal harbours along our coast occupies so much of the public attention, it may interest the readers of the Nautical Magazine to see some account of experiments on the force of waves made by Mr. Thomas Stevenson, of the family of Messrs. Stevenson, (the well known,) Civil Engineers, of Edinburgh. It is abridged from a paper recently published in the "Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh." It should be borne in mind, that the author is speaking of the blows received from waves of translation, or after they have broken upon the shore, not of deep sea waves, which it is presumed have no onward motion or precussive force. I am, &c., JOHN WASHINGTON, Captain, R.N. To the Editor, &c. During Mr. Stevenson's experience in the construction of marine works, he has found, like other engineers, a great difficulty to arise from a want of any precise knowledge of the force of waves; so that it is impossible to cal culate accurately what strength may be required in buildings exposed to the action of the ocean. With a view of supplying this deficiency, Mr. Stevenson has invented an instrument which he calls a Marine Dynamometer. It is difficult to explain the construction of this instrument properly, without the aid of a section; but it may be simply described as an iron cylinder, which is firmly bolted to a rock exposed to the action of the ocean waves. Projecting from the cylinder are four rods, at the end of which is a circular plate of iron, which receives the force of the waves, and thereby presses the rods into the interior of the cylinder, where, by means of a powerful spring, the force exerted is counteracted and ascertained, sliding rings of leather on the rods acting as indices. "In the graduation of the instrument, the power of the spring is ascertained by carefully loading the disc with weights, so that when the quantity that the spring has yielded by the action of the sea is known, the pressure due to the area of the disc exposed is known also. The discs employed were from three to nine inches diameter, but generally six inches, and the powers of the springs varied from about ten to about fifty pounds for every inch of elongation. Their respective effects were afterwards reduced to a value per square foot. The instrument was generally placed so as to be immersed at about three-fourths tide, and in such situations as would afford a considerable depth of water. It is not desirable to have the instrument placed at a much lower level, as it has not unfrequently happened during a gale, that for days together no one could approach it to read off the result and re-adjust the indices to zero. It must, however, at the same time be remarked, that it is in most situations almost impossible to receive the force unimpaired, as the waves are more or less broken by hidden rocks or shoal ground before they reach the instrument." The first observations with this instrument were made at the Little Ross, mouth of the Dee, where Mr. Stevenson was stationed for some time, when the lighthouse there was in the course of erection. Twelve observations were made there in the summer of 1842, but the weather was unusually fine during that period. The greatest force was on the 24th June, when the instrument showed that a force equal to 840lbs. to a square foot had been exerted. On the 25th of April the force was as low as 15lbs. The other experiments were made at the Skerryvore and Bell Rock lighthouses. Of these Mr. S. says: "In the Atlantic Ocean, according to the observations made at the Skerryvore rocks, the average results for five of the summer months during the years 1843 and 1844, is 611lbs. per square foot. The average results for six of the winter months (1843 and 1844), is 2086lbs. per square foot, or thrice as great as in the summer months. "The greatest result yet obtained at Skerryvore was during the heavy westerly gale of 29th March, 1845, when a pressure of 6083lbs. per square foot was registered. The next highest is 5323lbs. "In the German Ocean, according to the observations made at the Bell Rock, the greatest result yet obtained is 3013lbs. per square foot. "It thus appears, that the greatest effect of the sea, which has been observed, is that of the Atlantic at Skerryvore, which is nearly equal to three tons per square foot. "These experiments amounting to 267 in number, and on the Atlantic alone extending over twenty-three months continuously, are not intended to prove anything farther than the simple fact that the sea has been known to exert a force equivalent to a pressure of three tons per square foot, however much more. Now, when we consider that the hydrostatic pressure due to a wave of twenty feet high, is no more than about half a ton on a square foot, we see how much of their force the waves owe to their velocity. There can be no doubt, however, that results higher than this will be obtained. Were a train of observations made at various points of the coast, the results would not only be highly useful in practice, as they would by reference to existing marine works show what sizes of stones and proportions of piers were able to resist seas of a given force; but they would form an interesting collection of information with regard to the relative forces of the waves in our contracted bays and estuaries, as compared with those observed in the ocean; and would thus supply the want which, as already stated, all engineers labour under, to a greater or less degree, in designing marine works." He also gives some interesting facts, proving the tremendous power exerted by waves during a storm. We extract the following :— "In the Frith of Forth, at the Granton Pier works, on the 19th Dec. 1836, after a gale from the north-east, one stone was moved measuring fifteen cubic feet, or about one ton in weight, and thrown on the beach, after having been built into the wall; and a stone containing eighteen cubic feet |