has been said about foreign shipowning? Germany, Italy, Norway, and America have their steamers and sailing ships, Italy and Norway having gone ahead very largely by the returns made of last year's building. Norway is suffering very heavily, and those who know how much she has invested in shipping must feel that English capital or advances are invested in it. Italy sails her vessels mostly on credit, by mortgaging the freights before earned, large financial establishments being in existence for that purpose, advancing on bottomry the freights to this or other countries, collecting the freights on arrival of the ships, through their correspondents, to whom they remit their bottomry bonds to meet their bills drawn on credits given by them on this side, and by means of which the advances are made in the first instance, therefore English capital really assists to promote competition in shipping. The increase of steamers and ships in Denmark is very remarkable.

The removal of the depression in British shipping cannot be effected by legislation, but a step has, we learn, already been made in some financial circles. It has been reported that in Glasgow the banks will not advance money to shipowners without security other than the ship. The unsound state of the shipping trade will, however, never be remedied until every banker who has advanced money on shipping, and every person who holds a mortgage, insists on registering or even on realising their securities. Borrowed money cannot in the long run materially aid the owner while his vessels are earning no money to pay the loans off: whilst those who have lent it have a depreciated security year after year. Some banks are running steamers on which they have advanced money. These steamers are sometimes sailed under the names of brokers as owners. The shareholders of those banks should look to this and realise, if and while they can, at a profit.

The first remedy we can suggest is inquiry and caution before investment. Further, an investor should have nothing to do with a ship unless he is sure that all bills of sale and mortgages are registered when given, so that the status and financial position of the owner can be easily ascertained, and losses to creditors and

co-owners provided against. Let co-owners in every ship or steamer meet and limit the cost of management to a fixed sum, to include brokerage, and let every "commission" be placed to the credit of the owners. The effect of this would be to secure management unprejudiced by conflicting or opposite interests. It should be remembered that the law is very stringent indeed on anyone acting for others in a joint venture, who receives profits outside the general fund for distribution. Many trials in courts of law will show this.

Brokers who have ships or steamers of their own should bear the honourable distinction of shipowners, and make it their sole business, as some now do.

Let builders return to their legitimate mode of payment, viz., by instalments at certain stages of the building, and the balance on delivery of the ship. Let bankers object to take long date bills for advances unless for legitimate purposes, and refuse renewal unless they are entered in the register book as mortgagees. With these fair and reasonable precautions, shipowning would become a fair and profitable investment, and take its stand as a separate and distinct business, as it does in many places, and would meet with the old success,

In the foregoing remarks we have not said anything likely to lead to mistrust of well-established lines and businesses. The public can safely invest in steamship companies and in steamers well managed but let investors in other vessels refrain from being misled by statements as to inordinate profits, and insist on knowing with whom they are associated as co-owners, so as not to run the risk of having to pay for them.

DISTINGUISHING LIGHTS FOR LIGHTHOUSES.

HE letter from Sir William Thomson, on the subject of "Distinguishing Lights for Lighthouses," and the leading article thereon, which appeared in the Times, of the 2nd ultimo, have re-opened a question which has several times been brought forward since Mr. Charles Babbage, the renowned mathematician, in 1851, first ventilated his theory, that every lighthouse should, by systematised occultations or eclipses of its light, be made to indicate periodically its own number from sunset to sunrise. This proposition apparently did not find favour with those interested in the lighthouse system at that time, and after lying dormant for over twenty years, the question was taken up by Sir William Thomson, who, in a paper contributed to Good Words in 1873, with the somewhat ambitious title "Lighthouses of the Future," strongly advocated the introduction of a system by which the dots and dashes of the Morse Telegraph Alphabet should be made available for enabling each lighthouse to indicate itself. Sir William Thomson's efforts on this occasion do not seem to have met with any more success than that accorded to the proposals of Mr. Charles Babbage, and although the subject has several times since been brought before the public, it appears to have awakened but little enthusiasm, nor has it at any time sufficiently interested seafaring men to induce them to take any definite action in the matter.

At length, however, Sir William Thomson has succeeded in obtaining a champion no less powerful than the editor of the Times, who has not only published a very long letter from the distinguished man of science, but has also devoted a leading article to the consideration of the subject. The question being thus prominently brought before the public, it becomes of some importance to enquire more fully into its merits, and to ascertain, if possible, what is the cause of the apathy and inaction which have followed every public reference to the subject since the time of Babbage.

From the letter in the Times we learn that what Sir William desires is a three-fold reform in our lighthouse system," viz.,

(1) "a great quickening of nearly all revolving lights; (2) the application of a group of dot-dash eclipses to every fixed light; and (3) the abolition of colour as a distinction of lighthouse lights except for showing dangers and channels and ports by red and white and green sectors."

As regards the first of Sir William Thomson's propositions, it is probable that nautical men will generally agree with the principle that the periods of darkness in revolving lights should be made as short as possible. The desirability of this has long been admitted by the lighthouse authorities themselves, and the long intervals of darkness which were in vogue fifteen years back have since then from time to time been considerably shortened, so that at the present moment there are, on the British coasts, only two revolving lights pure and simple whose entire period reaches two minutes, including the length of the duration of the light, the dark interval being about 1 minute and 45 seconds. This of course is a long time for a seaman to have to wait, and no doubt makes the picking up of the light more difficult than if the light recurred more frequently. It should however be remembered that the light while it lasts is of great intensity, that as soon as it is sighted it is unmistakeably distinctive, and that at Beachy Head and Lundy, where these two-minute lights are shown, the range of the lights is so great that the mariner can pick them up long before he approaches any danger, and when he has plenty of room to move about and plenty of time to make sure of his position. If however these lights were intended to mark narrow channels or dangerous reefs or shoals, it would be absolutely essential that the illuminated periods should recur more frequently. Sir William does not bring forward evidence from practical mariners of their disapproval of either Lundy or Beachy Head lights on the score of their lengthened intervals, although no doubt many would say that if it were possible for the dark intervals to be shortened it would be advantageous to do so, provided it did not interfere with the distinctive characters of the lights, and to this extent we are at one with Sir William Thomson, although we do not think there is so urgent a necessity for the change as he would make out. But it is with the numerous one minute revolving lights of the English Channel

that Sir William Thomson chiefly finds fault, and he thinks that it would be an unspeakable improvement if every one of them had its speed sextupled, and he would then apply the system of long and short flashes to enable each light to signal its own number or letter continually.

He proposes, secondly, that every fixed light should be distinguished by a rapid group of two or three dot-dash eclipses, the dot to be of about half-a-second in duration and the dash three times as long as the dot, with intervals of light of about half-a-second between the eclipses of the group and of five or six seconds between the groups.

Sir William thus practically merges his first proposition into the second. He would quicken the speed of all revolving lights, and introduce rapid occultations into all fixed lights in order that the dotdash system may be applied to both. It should be observed, that for the revolving lights he would make the flashes of light do the duty of making the long and short signals, while, for the fixed lights, he proposes that the occultations, or dark intervals, should be employed for the purpose.

The first thing that occurs to the nautical mind is that in the event of the adoption of Sir William Thomson's scheme, it would be necessary for all seamen to be acquainted with the Morse Alphabet, which consists of twenty-six combinations of not less than two and not more than four long and short signs.

We are of opinion that in the present condition of education it would be out of the question to expect any seaman to commit all these combinations to memory; it would be, for him, a most difficult accomplishment, and can only be achieved at all by persistent application and continued practice in the use of the symbols. But it may be said it would not be necessary that seamen should learn the alphabet by heart; it would be sufficient if they had at hand a card to refer to by which the signals might be read off. We do not, however, think this plan would be agreeable to the mariner.

Again, the change would necessitate an alteration in all the published Lists of Lights and in all charts of the coast. The mariner would want to know what was the letter appropriated to