On the north of Galita, near land, I perceived a fishing-boat with five men on board. But though I fired three guns and hoisted the pilot signal, though not wanting one, they only hoisted the Sicilian flag, and remained stationary. It was my intention, and I had given orders to that effect, to send a boat to reason with these men, but the sea increasing, and the wind blowing in heavy gusts, I feared for its safety. From all this it is to be concluded that there was not an Englishman on Galita, and the small islands surrounding it, for there is no doubt, that if any of the sufferers had been on Galita they would have endea – voured to join us in that boat; as it would have been the work of 20 minutes in the direction of the wind. After having made the most conscientious search, I left Galita on the 26th, at three o'clock in the evening, for Goletta, where I arrived this day, the 27th, in the evening.

"(Signed)

Commandant PENHOAT, du Lavoisier."

UNITED YACHT CLUB, LONDON.

In the Nautical Magazine for the year 1846, p. 266, we announced the formation of the United Yacht Club, a society intended as the head quarters of the Eleven Royal Yacht Clubs, then existing, and now in 1848 increased to fourteen. The United Yacht Club has recently moved from 87 to 85 St. James's Street, owing to some difficulty about the accommodations in the first house. The Committee have, from the success of the Club, been at last enabled to reduce the subscription from eight guineas a year, to two guineas. The New Club house is next door to the Conservative Club, and the following are the rules at present in force :

I. The United Yacht Club shall, on and after the first of June, 1846, be limited to Seven Hundred Members; and the same shall be under the management and direction of the Committee, to be appointed as hereinafter provided. To be eligible for the United Yacht Club, a Candidate must become, or have been, or be either a Member of some Royal Yacht Club, or be an officer of or above the rank of Lieutenant in the Royal Navy.

II. The Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, and the Ambassadors and Representatives, Consuls inclusive, of all maritime powers at the court of St. James's, who have granted privileges to English Yacht Clubs, shall, during their stay in England be ex-officio Honorary Members of the U.Y.C. and be exempt from Entrance-fee and Annual Subscription. This privilege may be extended also to the Honorary Secretaries and Secretaries of all Royal Yacht Clubs, by ballot.

III. The election of the first 300 Members shall be made by the Committee, three to be a quorum, and one black ball to exclude; the remaining Members to be elected by general ballot, one black ball in every ten to exclude. No entrance money on admission to the Club shall for the present be charged. The Annual Subscription shall be £2. 2s. which is due on the 1st of January in each year, but is not to be paid after their first year by such Members as become Supernumerary. [See Rule XI.]

IV. The name, residence, profession, if any (at length) of each Candidate, together with the name of the Yacht Club to which he belongs, shall be inserted in the Candidates' book, to be kept for that purpose, at the time of his nomination, and each Candidate duly proposed and seconded, shall be submitted to ballot, in the numerical order in which he stands in the Candidates' book.

V. On the admission of each new Member, the Secretary shall notify the same to him (in duplicate if abroad), and request him to remit an order to his banker, or agent, for the amount of entrance money and subscription. Subscriptions can be remitted by Post-Office Order, payable to Messrs. Frederick and Charles Willis, 85, St. James's Street, London.

VI. As the payment of his subscription will entitle a Member to enjoy every

benefit the Club can impart, so is his acquiescence in the Rules of the Club thereby distinctly implied.

VII. No newly-elected Member shall be eligible to participate in any of the advantages or privileges of the Club, until he has paid the sum due from him on his admission.

VIII. No Member of the Club shall incur any risk or responsibility whatever beyond the amount of his Entrance Fee and Annual Subscription.

IX. The name of every Member failing to pay his Annual Subscription, due on the first of January, shall be placed over one of the mantlepieces of the Club-House on the first of March following, after notice has been sent to him, or to his banker or agent, by post, by the Secretary; and if the Subscription be not paid on or before the first of May, the defaulter shall cease to be a Member of the Club, and his name shall be erased from the books accordingly. He may, however, be re-admitted by, and on giving to, the Committee, a satisfactory reason for the delay, and on then paying his arrears. To avoid inconvenience, it is earnestly requested that the agents of Members shall be furnished with authority to pay their Annual Subscriptions due on the first of January.

X. Any Member who shall enter the Club-House after the first of January in any year, shall pay his Subscription for that year.

XI. Any Member who may be absent from the United Kingdom, during the whole period within which the Annual Subscription is payable, may, at his option, be considered a Supernumerary Member, and be exempt from the Subscription during the continuance of such absence. Upon his communicating, in writing, to the Secretary, his return to England, and upon paying his Subscription for the then current year, he shall be re-admitted to all the privileges of the Club. The name of every Member availing himself of this indulgence, must be entered in the "Book of Supernumerary Members," on the Secretary receiving notice of the opinion being made; and if his wish to rejoin the Club be not expressed to the Secretary within three months after his return to the United Kingdom, he is no longer to be considered a Member.

XII. The Committee (inclusive of the flag-officers of Yacht Clubs, who when Members of the U.Y.C. are ex-officio Members of its Committee), shall consist of not more than thirty Members selected by the original Members of the Club; and, in the event of any vacancies occurring in the Committee, the Committee itself shall have the power of filling them up.

XIII. No Member shall take away from the Club, or injure or destroy, upon any pretence whatsoever, any newspaper, pamphlet, book, chart, model, or other article, the property of the Club, under the penalty of expulsion.

XIV. Any Member can introduce his friends to the coffee-room of the Club, but not to the reading-room, and by giving a day's notice can, according to the priority of his application, be accommodated with a private room, in which such Member can entertain his friends. But the Committee, with a due regard to the general comfort of the Members, shall have power to limit, from time to time, the number of stangers admissible by each Member to the coffee

room.

XV. The Committee may call a General Meeting of the Club, on giving fourteen days' notice, specifying the object in the form of a Resolution, and confining the discussion to that object only. In such case the notice shall be posted up in a public room in the Club at least fourteen days previous to the day of Meeting. The Committee shall also call an extraordinary General Meeting on the written requisition of Twenty-five Members (not being of the Committee), under restrictions similar to the preceding.

XVI. There shall be a General Meeting of the Members of the club in May in each year, for the purpose of receiving a Report of the concerns of the Club, and for the consideration of any questions that may arise. That no alteration shall be made in the Rules except at the Annual Meeting.

XVII. When the Funds of the Club permit, Lectures on naval subjects will

be given, and prizes be offered for yacht racing, and donations made to maritime charities.

XVIII. The Committee of the Club shall take immediate cognizance of any infraction of the Rules and Regulations.

XIX. Any cause of complaint that may arise is to be written and signed by the Member so complaining on his bill, which complaint must be especially noticed by the Committee; and any inattention or improper conduct of a servant is to be stated by letter, under the signature of such Member, which being put in the Secretary's box, must be laid before the Committee at their next Meeting.

XX. All Members are to pay their bills, for every expense they incur in the Club, before they leave the house; the steward having positive orders not to open accounts with any individuals, and being under the necessity of accounting for all monies passing through his hands, to the Committee at their Weekly Meeting.

XXI. No Member is on any account to bring a dog into the Club-house; nor shall any smoking be permitted except in the room set apart for that purpose.

XXII. It shall be the duty of the Committee, in case any circumstances should occur likely to endanger the welfare and good order of the Club, to call a General Meeting, giving fourteen days' notice, and in the event of its being voted at that Meeting by two-thirds of the persons present, to be decided by Ballot, that the name of any Member or Members should be removed from the Club, their Subscriptions for the current year shall be returned, and he or they shall cease to belong to the Club.

XXIII. No game of chance shall, on any account be ever played, nor dice used, in the Club-house.

XXIV. The Club-house shall be opened, and ready for the reception of Members, at nine o'clock on each morning, and it shall be finally closed for the day at one o'clock A.M.

XXV. The Members of the Club are requested to communicate their addresses from time to time to the Secretary, and before leaving town for the coast to notify whither their letters are to be forwarded.

XXVI. These Rules and Regulations shall be printed, and a copy of them transmitted to every Member of the Club, by post, by the Secretary; and no Member shall be absolved from the effect of these Rules, on the allegation of not having received them.

10th January, 1848.

**One of the objects of the Club being to form a Naval Library and collection of Charts and Models, Members are invited to present a volume or work in aid of this object. These rules and lists of the fourteen Royal Yacht Clubs, and notices of their meetings and regattas, will be constantly found at the U.Y. Club.

THE ROYAL MERSEY YACHT CLUB.-The general monthly meeting of the members was held as usual at their Club-house, in Slater Street, Liverpool, on Tuesday, 7th of December. The Commodore, always at his post when at home, was in the chair. The Minutes of the previous meeting were read and confirmed. A ballot took place, when Mr. Cotton Symonds was duly elected. J. J. Ivey Esq., the owner of the beautiful Prima Donna, was nominated, and will be elected at the next meeting, A fine opportunity was offered to our worthy Commodore to propose, by acclamation, the admission of that daring and adventurous yachtsman, J. Brook, Esq., "the Rajah of Sarawak", and Her Majesty's Governor and Commander-in-chief of the

Island of Labuan and its dependencies, as an honourable member of the Royal Mersey Yacht Club. The election was unanimous; every individual appeared to be animated with but one feeling of admiration. The Honorary Secretary introduced to the notice of the meeting some of Houldsworth's vulcanized India rubber life buoys, which had been sent to hm, and observed that, from its suppleness and power of suspension in the water, he considered it by far the best general life buoy that had been introduced; in which opinion the body of members concurred, and no doubt, it will be generally used, but more especially on board yachts, when it becomes better known. Notice of motions, to be submitted at the next meeting, were handed in by Mr. Kay, for the alteration of an existing rule, and to enact additional laws for the better regulation of the Club.

THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION.

ON SOME RECENT AND REMARKABLE EXAMPLES OF THE PROTECTION AFFORDED BY METALLIC CONDUCTORS AGAINST HEAVY STROKES OF LIGHTNING; by Sir W. S. Harris.

The possibility of guarding buildings and other structures against the destructive effects of lightning, has been made a great question in practical science, from the time of Franklin, to the present day; and it is of considerable public importance, seeing the frequent damage which occurs to our beautiful churches and other edifices by strokes of lightning, to bring this question completely under the dominion of induction, observation, and experiment. The general principles which Sir W. S. Harris submitted as deducible from the enquiries to which he alluded are these,-If we imagine a ship or building to consist altogether of metallic substances, it would certainly be secure from any damage by lightning; and for this simple reason, that what we call lightning is the result of the electrical agency forcing a path through resisting matter such as the air, and extricating, with explosive and expansive force, both light and heat in its course. When, on the contrary, it falls upon comparatively non-resisting bodies, such as the metals, then this form of lightning vanishes, and the discharge assumes, if the metallic body be sufficiently capacious, the form of a comparatively quiescent current. Our object should be, therefore, in defending any building or ship from lightning, to bring the general mass so far as possible into that passive or comparatively non-resisting state it would have, supposing it a mass of metal. This is, in fact, the simple and single condition of such an application, without any reference whatever to assume forces of attraction or peculiar specific powers, manifested by certain bodies for the matter of lightning, and which really do not exist. This simple principle, by a careful mechanical arrangement, calculated to render it practical and applicable to all the duties which the general structure of a ship together with its masts has to perform, is now universally carried out in the navy, with the most perfect success; so that damage by lightning in the vessels so fitted has, for the last fifteen years, quite ceased. The masts are made completely conducting by capacious plates of copper, reaching from the highest points to the keel; and are tied into one general connexion with all the great metallic masses employed in the construction of the hull, and united by the large bolts of copper, passing through the keel and sides, with the copper expanded over the bottom, and with the sea. It is quite impossible that a discharge of lightning can fall on the vessel in any place, and not be at once transmitted safely by the conductors, not under the form of lightning, but under the form of a current without explosion.

ON PERIODIC METEORS; by the Rev. Prof. Powel.

The chief object of this communication was to place on record a table of all the remarkable appearances of luminous meteors which the author has been able to collect up to the present time, suplementary to the very complete list given in M. Quetelet's second catalogue (Nouv. Mém. de l'Acad. de Bruxelles, tom. xv.) which comes down to the year 1840. This list is, doubtless, imperfect; but the author submits it to the British Association in the hope that its deficiencies will be filled up by the contributions of other members. He wishes to annex a few remarks on one or two points connected with the theory of these appearance. The question so much disputed as the connection of luminous meteors with the fall of meteoric stones, appears to the author to be answered sufficiently by observing —Ist. That some cases of such connection are undoubtedly established. 2nd. That daylight is necessary to trace the actual fall of matter, when, consequently, a luminous meteor would be invisible, unless of unusual brilliancy; while the darkness which renders a meteor visible precludes the possibility of tracing the fall of stones. 3rd. Matter may fall in portions, or a state of division too small to trace; and there is evidence, or strong probability, of matter having a meteoric origin in various lighter forms besides that of metallic or apparently fused masses. As to the forms of masses known to have fallen, they are by no means generally angular or fragmentary, as sometimes asserted; in many instances being whole, and rounded in form — sometimes, also, broken into fragments by their fall. There is no evidence of a mass bursting to pieces by an explosion; the detonation heard may be purely electric. Of the size of meteoric masses no suffiicent evidence exists. The apparent diameters cannot be easily determined on account of the velocity of motion. And if they could, this would only give the size of the flame (if it be due to combustion) and not that of the solid mass, if there be one. If the height be too great to allow combustion, still less can the apparent size of the electric flash be any guide or proof of the existence of any solid body at all. Such small solid bodies may circulate in the solar system, but not probably in any great number, or of large size unless as truly planetary or satellitary bodies, but unformed diffuse masses of matter like that of comets or the zodiacal rings we know to be circulatingn in many parts of space; and it is by condensation out of this, that, as probably the existing planets, so, also, lesser asteriods and satellites may be continually forming, as likewise meteoric masses within the sphere of the earth's influence, agreeable with Mr. Strickland's hypothesis. The observations of Brande, Benzenburgh, and others, as is well known, have assigned great heights to many meteors, varying from 5 to 500 miles. But M. Quetelet has shown (2nd Mem. d. l'Acad. de Bruxelles, tom. xv.) that the mean height is from 16 to 20 leagues, or within the limits of the atmosphere. Hence the majority of them may become luminous from combustion. Electric light can be displayed in vacuo. Hence we may have various gradations of the same phenomenon from purely electric flashes or explosions at great altitudes, to more or less complete combustion at lower; by which the whole mass may be consumed and dissipated, or may be partially burnt, and the metalic ingredients more or less perfectly reduced or fixed, and in this condition portions or masses may fall to the earth. And the explosion is not the bursting of a mass, but an electric discharge; the particles or masses which fall are portions, not fragments, and the effect, instead of being one of breaking up, is one of consolidation.