should be. It would be an improvement for the men to take their mess-kettles to the galley to be filled with boiling water, upon which the tea should be thrown. This is the Australian mode of tea-making. Sometimes the men are able to save a portion of their dinner for supper, and with certain improvements in the quality or kinds of the meat, this might be oftener done, but seamen are frequently met with who never touch their salt beef at all, but dine on biscuit and their allowance of grog. In some vessels an allowance of chocolate is issued to the middle and morning watches, with very beneficial effects. The change required in a tropical climate is sufficiently made by the addition of fruit, which the men purchase for themselves from the boats that come alongside with fruit and vegetables for sale. Tables IV., V., VI., and VII. are those of foreign navies. The French and Dutch Navies appear to rely principally on peas, and bring their scale up to the proper standard as regards amount. Sameness of diet, a great evil, appears to be the chief objection to their systems. The United States Navy relies on pickles and preserved vegetables as antiscorbutics, and boasts that it does not require lime-juice; indeed, "lime-juicer" is an uncomplimentary epithet applied by American to British merchant-seamen. TABLE IV.-WEEKLY RATIONS of the UNITED STATES NAVY, 1871 (in Ounces). Total 45 25 58 25 45 25 47.25 45 25 45 25 47 25 328 75 34:10 | 226:48 The allowance of biscuit is not sufficient; but as the men purchase soft bread for themselves when in harbour (which they are well able to do, an A.B.'s pay being £4, 10s. per month), and allow the biscuit to accumulate till they go to sea again, the allowance is practically unlimited, and is much nearer twenty ounces than fourteen. On some stations, two ounces of preserved potatoes are issued in place of the four ounces of preserved tomatoes. These preserved potatoes are little used, as the men of the United States Navy appear to be unacquainted with the fact, that long-continued cooking removes all the disagreeable earthy flavour, and that frying in the fat of the preserved beef makes them really delicious. TABLE V.-WEEKLY RATIONS of the FRENCH NAVY at SEA, 1871 (in Ounces). TABLE VI.-WEEKLY RATIONS of the DUTCH | tor, which has been fitted up with satisfactory NAVY in EUROPE, 1871 (in Ounces). results in her Majesty's ships Vigilant, Thetis, and Osborne. The invention is extremely ingenious. Two tanks (see fig. 50), A and B, are placed opposite each other on each side of the vessel, four in all. Each pair is connected by a transverse pipe-one pipe, E, containing water, the other, F, mercury; therefore the two opposite tanks, A A, may be called the water-tanks, B B the mercury-tanks. A A have each a long pipe, C, leading into the hold, or wherever ventilation is required. The tanks B B have also a tube furnished with valves opening inwards, G G, and leading down to the neighbourhood of the keelson. The pipes D D communicate with the open air, and have valves opening outwards. It is perfectly automatic; the least roll of the vessel causes a vacuum in either the front or starboard tanks, and the water from the bilge rushes up one of the G pipes, the air up one of the C pipes into the respective tanks, the next roll forcing this water and air out of the pipes D. Many vessels have spaces open on the shelfpieces, the consequence being that a direct communication with the bilge-air is ensured, which of course is fundamentally wrong. Others trust entirely to hatchways, ports, scuttles, and windsails, most of which cannot be used at all in rough weather. It will probably be found that Thiers' automatic ventilator is the best to fit up a new Ventilation of Ships.-The ship is a habitation of a special character. In ordinary dwellings, a continual interchange of air takes place, not only through fissures and cracks in doors, windows, chimneys, or through special openings made for the purpose of ventilation, but also from the ground beneath, and through the walls themselves, which are by no means impervious to air. In a vessel, however, the ground-air is replaced by what I would call the bilge-air. The wooden or iron walls, as the case may be, are not at all permeable, and special means have to be used both for bringing fresh air into the ship and getting rid of it when impure, especially in rough weather, or when, as in action, the hatchways and ports are closed. On the other hand, advantage may be taken of the fact that a vessel at sea is in constant motion, and therefore there vessel with, but there are also several simple are continual currents of air around the sides, means of ventilation which may be adapted to about the deck, &c. This continual motion any class of ship. Tubes may be led from the of the vessel is utilised in Thiers' ship ventila-spar deck to the lower deck with cowled Fig. 49. on the other, may exist. By the rules of the Government Emigration Service, however, four men are required to every 100 tons up to 500, three men to every additional 100 tons up to 1000, and two men for every 100 tons above this amount; so that, for example, a vessel of 1500 should carry forty-five hands, all told. Some few owners adopt this scale in tolerable entirety; but our readers will see, from the following tabulated statement of vessels that have arrived in the Thames during 1865 and 1866, to what extent this arrangement is carried out : Name of Ship. French Empire Rezis. No. of Hands 29 27 Tonnage. 1329 1324 392 1207 1244 456 1292 764 Marlborough 899 Saint Andrew s Castle 639 566 heads trimmed to wind. In the Indian trans- | crowding on the one hand, or undermanning ports there are deck air-channels communicating with main ventilators, both up-cast and down-cast, on Dr. Edmond's principle (see fig. 49). The aspirating force of these ventilators is sometimes increased by steam jets introduced into the up-casts. In some ships the hollow iron masts are utilised either as up-casts or down-casts-e.g., her Majesty's ship Monarch, and the steamers of the Peninsular and Oriental Company-the latter, however, aided by windsails, trellised bulkheads, and side ports. In the ventilation of ironclads of the Monitor class it is necessary to provide for a supply of air when all hatches are closed and light excluded. Both the Glatton and Devastation are ventilated by Tans driven by steam-power; indeed, under such circumstances, mechanical agencies are indispensable, and of these the fan system appears practically to have been of most service. There is hardly a craft afloat, from a canalboat to the finest clipper ship, that could not take advantage of the heat of the stove of either the galley or cabin in steamships. Again, the value and applicability of this method is evident; properly-arranged shafts connected with a jacket surrounding a boiler would draw air from all parts of a vessel. It is impossible to recommend any one system of ventilation, since each case must be judged of by its merits, but it is certain that any ventilation that does not get rid of the bilge-air is worthless in a sanitary point of view. (For further information the reader is referred to an excellent article, 'Sanitary Science Afloat," in "Naval Science" for April 1872.) Merchant Service.-The vessels comprising the merchant service may be most conveniently divided into three chief classes 1. Ocean-going ships; 2. Coasters; 3. Barges and River Craft. The very unsatisfactory condition of this service has been forcibly exposed from time to time by Dr. Harry Leach, the Medical Officer of Health for the Port of London, in various able papers-e.g., "Report on the Hygienic Condition of the Mercantile Marine, London, 1867," and "Report on Hygienic Condition of the Mercantile Marine in the Port of London, 1871," with others. With Dr. Leach's permission we make considerable use of the papers referred to. When, too, we know that thirty years ago, the regular complement for every 100 tons was five men and one apprentice it is evident that, on this head, a decadence has taken place, though some allowance must be made on account of recent improvements (such as patent reefing topsails), which naturally and reasonably tend to curtail the number of hands required. The able and ordinary seamen are berthed in a deck-house built between the fore and main masts, or, more usually, in what is technically called a top-gallant forecastle, and in some cases in a lower forecastle. The first plan is, how. ever, gaining ground as to large ocean going ships; and Mr Green's Highflyer is a good example of many new vessels built on the deck-house principle. It is ordered by the Merchant Shipping Act that nine superficial feet shall be allotted to every one of the crew, if sleeping in hammocks; or twelve superficial feet under any other arrangement; that every such place shall be free from stores or goods, and shall be properly caulked and ventilated-a failure as to the rule to result in a penalty. These regulations are, however, practically a dead letter; for as no inspection of seamen's quarters takes place previous to sailing, as no law exists as to the number of seamen carried, and as, moreover, all space allotted to the crew is deducted from the tonnage of the ship when registered, the terms of the Act are frequently evaded in a very great degree. We may fairly, too, take exception to the terms of an Act which indicates nine superficial feet as sufficient for the healthy The following list, however, contains the measurement of seamen's quarters in several of the finest vessels now in the East India Docks : 1. Ocean-going Ships. These vessels vary lodgment of a sailor. in size from 250 to 2500 tons, and the number of their crews (all told) from ten to sixty men; and just as there is no law on land to proportion the number of persons living in a cottage to the size of the cottage, so in these vessels there is no definite law to proportion the number of men to the size of the ship, therefore, practically speaking, a large amount of over Examples are here given of the three different modes of housing ships' crews. No deductions are made in this table for the space occupied by chain-cable and bowsprit, and the measurements are in all cases taken at the widest parts. In all the forecastles, where the bunks are mostly arranged round the bows of the ship, the space abaft (or the widest end) is completely open from the break of the forecastle to the deck below when in port; and at the other, or forward end, of this very airy apartment, two large hawse-holes are constantly open for the passage of the cables. These latter, of course, run completely through the quarters of the crew; and by consequence, unless the weather be fine and the water smooth, these quarters are constantly wet. Here the men eat, drink, and sleep, in the immediate vicinity of the galley, and often in very close proximity to any live stock that may be carried for the use of officers or passengers during the voyage. It may, therefore, without nautical knowledge, be inferred that any comparative amount of decency or cleanliness (not to speak of comfort) is utterly impossible when the cables are bent. When at sea, the hawse-pipes are closed; the open space is sometimes partially, sometimes wholly, filled up in a rough-and-ready style, egress and ingress being afforded to the sailors by means of a hatch opening on to the forecastle, which, from its normal dimensions, may be called a man-hole. Thus much for healthy accommodation and ventilation of quarters. It should be remarked that, as to iron ships, the consequences of these latter deficiencies are, in warm latitudes, necessarily much exaggerated. We come next to rations. The scale of provisions accorded to the crews of sea-going ships is not prescribed by Act of Parliament, and so this important matter is also left entirely to the discretion of owner and captain. As facts should always precede opinions, we append in this place some scales of provisions taken from agreements of certain ships engaged in the foreign trade. Sunday... Monday.. Tuesday. Wednesday.. Thursday.. Friday. Saturday.. Bread. Beef, Pork. Flour. Peas. Rice. Tea. lb. lb. lb. pt. lb. རྫངས :ལ: Coffee. These scales represent fairly enough those used by most ships of the present day; and, notwithstanding the vast amount of improvement in variety of portable prandial material during the last twenty years, we may safely assert that, beyond the introduction once a week of a certain small amount of preserved mixture called soup and bouili, no change has taken place in the mode of provisioning vessels for the last half-century. (It cannot be denied, however, that in good-class ships the quality of diet has greatly improved.) When a vessel is in port, the Act commands that fresh provisions of good quality shall be served out to the crew day by day; and there is no doubt that, on smart lines, the men, when at harbour service, fare well. But it is well known that masters of ships frequently put into St. Helena, or stand "off and on" while a boat goes on shore, without providing fresh rations or even fresh vegetables for their men, though watercresses grow in profusion about the island. It is, too, within our cognisance, that vessels arriving at Gravesend from abroad, and remaining there at least twenty-four hours, have taken in no fresh provisions whatever until they have come up the river and hauled into dock, though the homeward passage may have extended over 120 days. During the ship-to-ship visitation so admirably conducted by the Seaman's Hospital Society in the Thames last year, under the auspices of Dr. Rooke, Mr. W. Johnson Smith, chief of the visiting staff, found the crew of a vessel (which had just arrived from the West Indies) busily engaged in cooking a mass of animal matter, which nasal demonstration quickly discovered to be in a semi-putrid state. He was told by the seamen that the master and mate had gone ashore (probably to dinner), and that this was the last remnant of their sea-fare, off which, nolentes volentes, they were then about to dine. It is not, however, to these points alone, which, it may be hoped, are somewhat exceptional, that we would draw special attention; but chiefly to the miserable want of variety in the above scales of diet, however good and however abundant such diet may be. By way of contrast, we may refer to the following scale of provisions adopted in the French mercantile marine, a perusal of which will show how very materially and usefully it differs from those above quoted: Synopsis of Diet Scale adopted in the French Breakfast.-Coffee, bread or biscuit, brandy or rum. Dinner.-Preserved beef or salt pork, vegetables or desiccated vegetable mixture, and wine. Supper.-Haricot beans dressed in two ways, potatoes baked in the cinders, and wine. Seasonings, dc-Sourcrout or pickles, preserved sorrel, olive oil, mustard, vinegar, and lemon juice, at the rate of one ounce per man daily, with one ounce of sugar, and one pint and three-quarters of water. The most noticeable articles in this scale of diet are the variety of vegetables given, and the ration of wine or brandy. Very few sailors are now supplied with any grog at all at sea; but to this, among other additions and changes, we shall presently refer. Arrangements for the supply of good water are lamentably neglected, in spite of the simplicity of a |