represents its least power), exact knowledge of the
ships' courses and of the manner in which they
would meet or pass each other, if left to their
own way, could be had while they were still
three miles apart.

But ships do not commonly meet in straight
lines, neither do both usually happen to be
travelling at extreme rates. Their paths cross
at various angles, wind and weather often retard
one of the vessels, sometimes both. The Lady
Bird and Champion, both fast steamers, under
full steam and sail, were about twenty minutes
in sight of each other's lights before the collision,
although they were approaching one another
nearly in a straight line.

But to every hundred collisions that occur in
the night-time in clear weather, we must add
forty-five that occur during the day, when the
men on both ships can actually see their coming
danger. The air, perhaps, helps to deceive, but
most eyes on board a ship are misled in estimate
of the exact course of another vessel that
approaches with a slanting course. Strange vessels
are so common, distant passing is so common, and,
as compared with everyday experience, collisions
are so rare, that when they do come, they are
apt to come suddenly, and be quite unexpected.
The man at the wheel is often the first to give
alarm. Now, habitual use of the dial, costing
but a couple of detached minutes for each object,
would at once show the relation of each ship's
course, to anything visible upon the face of the
waters, not to ships only, but to rocks, shoals,
lighthouses, and points of land.

The manner of using the dial and its
mathematical principle should be described rather in
a Nautical Magazine than in a popular journal.
It is a circular brass instrument, marked with
compass bearings and mile circles, and furnished
with perforations on which the observer marks
the position of the two ships at the time of the
two observations. This is represented in the
case of the observed ship by a couple of pegs, in
the case of the observing ship by the centre of
the plate for the first position, and a peg for the
second. When the pegs are placed, a couple of
rulers laid along the lines thus indicated, represent
the two ships' courses. The dial is as
applicable in a crowded channel for observing
simultaneously many ships' courses, as for out at
sea in marking only one. Distance and speed have
in every case to be estimated, and enter only as
probable amounts into the calculation; but as
to these points, within bounds of sanity, very
great errors do not affect the truth of the result.
They do not falsify the courses in the least,
though where the ships would meet if left to
themselves is where their paths cross, they may
lead to a wrong, but never dangerously wrong,
impression of the time of meeting or the point
of crossing.

In the case of lighthouses, or fixed objects,
Perry's Dial enables mariners to estimate not
only their bearings, but also their distances,
within a tenth of a mile. In four years,
between two and three thousand ships and
steamers have been reported at Lloyd's as lost
on rocks, shoals, and coasts, through errors in
navigation alone. Thus the Orion sighted Port
Patrick Lights for more than an hour before she
was wrecked on the adjacent coast, through
miscalculation of distance; and when the Tyne
was for two hours in sight of the Portland
Lights, the captain at no time knew his true
distance from them, and was stranded at last
under St. Alban's Head.

There is a lack of the testimony of practical
sailors to the simplicity and certainty of the
instrument of which we have endeavoured to
explain the value; but the instrument is new:
its nature and use were first made public in "A
brief Treatise on Collisions at Sea and
Shipwrecks," published last year, by Captain Perry,
at Melbourne, and knowledge of the invention
only now arrives in England. Its trial is to come
here, where we trust it will have full consideration,
and find favour according to its merits.

THE MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR.

PORTMANTEAU IN HAND.

Is there any person who has ever jumped into
a cab, with his portmanteau in his hand and his
face set towards the Straits of Dover, who does
not prick up his ears at the prospect of any
proposal which shall in some sort mitigate the
miseries of the Douane? But if this light and
comparatively unencumbered personage takes an
interest in this subject, what will be that of
those husbands and fathers who read this page?
For they, and they alone, can fully understand
the real difficulties of travelling. 'Tis not alone
the carpet-bag, good reader, nor customary load
of railway wrapper; no, nor the light portmanteau
in the hold that can give the traveller a
real and powerful interest in the subject of this
present document. The proprietors of such
light gear know nothing of the horrors of the
Douane  but let that pass, they will marry one
day and take a continental tour, and then, and
not till then, they will know all about it.

To understand fully the necessity there is for
some great change in the administration of the
Custom-house system, it is absolutely necessary
that a gentleman should be travelling with a
lady, well provided with luggage, while it is
desirable that he should have, besides, two or three
children, with their playthings, and a
maidservant who does not approve of the Continent.
The weather should be intensely and witheringly
cold, the party should arrive at their destination
late in the evening, they should have picked up
so many objects in the course of their travels
that their boxes are all crammed till only by the
most artful packing can the lids be made to
close, and they should have borrowed of a
friend abroad, an immense imperial which used
to fit on to the back of a travelling carriage,
and which, being constructed on a slanting
principle to go under the rumble, is unable to stand
alone, and is always falling heavily backwards
on official toes, whose owners avenge themselves
by having it opened.

He, to whom these impedimenta appertain,
knows the full wretchedness of that shivering