- tected by a rigid practise in fire and life-*saving
drills. At the tap of the bell, the crew spring to their places by boat and raft; each officer, with a pistol hung by his side, takes his station; and the precision and quickness with which it is all accompanied inspire the beholder with very comfortable feelings.
The life-drill is practised in case some one should fall overboard. Certain members of the crew are assigned to this duty, ready at any moment to throw out life-lines, buoys that strike a light when they hit the water, or man the emergency life-boat that is kept in position to be lowered instantly.—Marshall P. Wilder, "Smiling 'Round the World."
(1811)
See Knowledge Applied.
Life-saving Attachment—See Economy
of Energy.
LIFE-SAVING BY WIRELESS
The former sound liner Kentucky is at
the bottom of the Atlantic at lat. 32.10, long.
76.30, which is more than a hundred miles
off the South Carolina coast, south of Cape
Hatteras. Her captain and crew of forty-six
men are on their way to Key West on
board the Mallory liner Alamo. It was the
fourth rescue by wireless since that method
of communication at sea has been in use.
Called by the international distress signal,
the Alamo reached the sinking vessel just as
the electricity died and but an hour before
she sank.
In the meantime her distress calls, heard throughout Atlantic coast waters and sent by W. G. Maginnis, wireless operator, had started speeding toward her the United States Government battleship Louisiana, on a speed trial in the vicinity, the cruiser Birmingham and the revenue cutters Yamacraw and Seminole.
When 150 miles off Sandy Hook, at the very outset of her long journey, she sprang a leak. By working hard at the pumps Captain Moore managed to get her into Newport News with sixteen inches of water in her hold. She was repaired and certified safe and sound by the United States inspector there and Lloyds. Luckily, this little wooden ship, packed tight with coal, had been installed with wireless before she left. The international distress call, S. O. S., set the sound waves jumping all over the coast and the Atlantic. The United States Government received the message at the same time that every sea-captain on the ocean got it. The Alamo, bound for Key West, got it at 11:30 and headed dead for the source at once. Later this came through the air:
"We are sinking. Our lat. is 32 deg. 10 min.; long., 76 deg. 30 min.
"Kentucky."
The Alamo was sixty-five miles off. She had made the run by 3:50 o'clock, when the Kentucky appeared in sight.
The boat was sinking rapidly and in half a gale the work of transferring the crew of the Kentucky by lifeboat was accomplished. As the last man was taken off only the superstructure was visible above the water.
(1812)
LIFE, SELF-PROPAGATING
The yeast-plant is so small that it can be
seen only under the microscope. Each yeast-plant
consists of a closed sack or cell, containing
a jelly-like liquid named "protoplasm."
Under the microscope the yeast-plant
is seen to change in form. Sometimes
little swellings grow out, like knobs on a
potato, and these will by and by separate
themselves from the parent and become other
yeast-plants. It is alive and growing.
"What we need," said McLeod, "is
not life, (from galvanism), but the life
of life"—Jesus himself. (Text.)
(1813)
LIFE, SOURCE OF MAN'S
The goddess of the Greek mythology
springs from the crest of the curling sea.
The spirit of poetic and legendary lore is
born of moonbeams playing upon fountains.
The glittering elf of the household story
leaps up on the shaft of the quivering flame.
The meteor is invoked, or the morning-star,
to give birth to new spirits; the sunset-sheen
on distant hills is imagined to become incorporate
in them; or the west wind, toying
over banks of flowers, to drop their delicate
life from its wings. But when God forms
the life, in each conscious soul, and fills this
with its strange and unsearchable powers, he
creates it by a ministry diverse from all
these, and as distantly removed as it is possible
to conceive from its own unique nature,
and its height of prerogative. He creates
it by the ministry of these fleshly forms,
which are authors, under Him, of a life that
transcends them; a life not limited as they
