Here it deserves notice, that water may be preserved sweet, during the longest voyage, by the following simple process. Having filled the cask with water in which quick-lime is quenched, let it stand till the inside of the cask has acquired a thin coat of lime; then rinse out the cask, and re-fill it with fresh water for the voyage, adding a few handfuls of recent charcoal dust, a portion of which may be also kept for use in a bottle tight-corked. It not only preserves water sweet, but even restores putrid or corrupt water, which only requires afterwards to be filtered. This, and all other extraneous substances contained in water, not by solution, but diffussion only, may be most expeditiously separated by Mr. Peacock’s Patent Machine, which has been found, by experiment, to filter 720 gallons of water in twenty-four hours, divesting it of all such accidental impurities. This invention promises much utility to persons by land, as well as by sea, and may be seen at the Surveyor’s Office, Guildhall, London.
8. To prevent in future voyages the terrible calamity of famine at sea, portable soup and farinaceous vegetables ought to constitute part of the ship’s provisions. To assuage the sensation of hunger, and enable the body to bear long fasting, oleaginous substances are well adapted, as beef and mutton suet, rich cheese, fresh butter, sweet almonds, also mucilaginous substances, as salop, tapioca, and particularly gum arabic, which, according to M. Hasselquist, supported more than one thousand persons in the desarts of Arabia, who, being left destitute of other provisions, subsisted upon it solely during the space of two months.
9. The treatment of shipwrecked mariners when nearly exhausted by cold and hunger, demands no small circumspection. At first they loath the sight of meat; but on a sudden the appetite grows voracious, and prompts them to devour more food than the digestive organs can assimilate. Their native warmth also, being greatly impaired, should be very gradually restored by a tepid bath; and the food should consist of new milk, barley-water, or weak broth, in very small quantity, which, in this state of more than infantile debility, will be found sufficiently powerful; avoiding, at the same time, the common error of pouring down wine, spirits, or other stimulating cordials, which, instead of supporting life, too often exhaust the feeble remnant of vitality[[3]].
[3]. See Dr. Percival’s affecting narrative of the sufferings of a collier, who was confined seven days in a coal-pit without sustenance. Memoirs of the Philosophical Society of Manchester, vol. II. p. 467.
Causes of Storms and Shipwrecks—whether influenced by local circumstances.—
The most obvious cause of shipwreck, according to the language of seamen, is a heavy gale of wind with a lee shore.
Though the tides are produced by the joint influence of the sun and moon, the stormy waves depend wholly on winds of the higher order. Air possesses not only a chemical but mechanical attraction for water, superior to that which obtains between the component parts of the latter. When air, therefore, rapidly sweeps along the surface of water, it forcibly seizes the upper stratum, and raises it aloft in a surprizing manner, until the water, by its superior gravity, suddenly recovers its level. This powerful action and reaction between the contending elements constitutes a sea storm, which, according to its violence, raises the billows from twelve to twenty feet, sometimes to a much greater altitude, as in tornadoes and hurricanes, when the sea (as the sailors express it) runs mountains high.
Now, hurricanes may proceed from local rarefaction, or whatever suddenly disturbs the equilibrium of the atmosphere, but principally from an accumulation of the electrical fluid, which has a powerful tendency towards pointed or angular bodies to restore the balance. Hence, perhaps, it is, that lofty promontories, high cliffs, and rocky projecting shores, are so often infested with violent storms, while the main sea remains calm and unruffled. In such situations, the effects of the warring elements are often dreadful, and the disasters produced amongst the neighbouring vessels truly deplorable.
Of a tempest at sea, Thompson gives the following sublime and picturesque description:
“Then comes the Father of the Tempest forth