The following remarks I quote from the “British Nautical Magazine,” a journal which certainly cannot be accused of pandering to the views of seamen: “In considering the safety of ships, we should not look to their efficiency in fine, or even moderately rough weather, but they should have a fair margin to meet any contingency. Indeed, the whole subject is one which has a right to be judged alone by a very high standard, as its issues are not ordinary commercial ones, but _human lives_. The question of the freeboard of ships is at once one of the most important, and one of the most complex subjects connected with naval architecture. It is only just to those who have to encounter the dangers of the sea that the vessel in which they sail shall not be loaded beyond the limit of safety, and, on the other hand, the gain of the owner upon his investment may depend upon that limit being reached. There have been, so far, only three principal proposals for fixing the load-line. _First_, a certain proportion of the depth of hold, three inches to the foot being about the average, _i. e._, the ship should have a freeboard at least about one-fourth of her depth of hold. _Second_, one-eighth of the beam is the minimum freeboard for ships whose length is not more than five times their breadth, and 1/32 of the beam should further be added to the freeboard for each additional breadth—beyond the five times—in the length of the ship, _Third_, the actual buoyancy of every ship should be calculated, and a percentage of the whole (say 30 per cent.) kept above the load-line, as reserve, or surplus buoyancy. In calculating the buoyancy of a ship, the measurements should be from the underneath side of the cargo deck—add to this the capacity of watertight erections above the deck—and thus the whole cubic content is ascertained. Allowing thirty-five cubic feet to the ton (since a ton of sea-water occupies about thirty-five cubic feet of space) the total capacity of the ship is arrived at, and 30 per cent. of the whole amount should be kept above water as spare buoyancy in an ordinary ship loaded with a general cargo. Were a cargo of less specific gravity than water carried, little or no spare buoyancy would be required, but a _maximum_ would be needed in the case of a heavy cargo where there is necessarily much empty space capable of being rapidly filled by water in the event of a leak. Freeboard has a good deal to do with the stability of a ship, and there is, probably, no department of science of which so many false notions are current, and none in which the terms employed have been so often misunderstood and misapplied. The terms _stability_ and _steadiness_ are popularly looked upon as synonymous, although they really have, in connection with this subject, widely different meanings, so diverse, indeed, that the presence of one in excess implies a want of the other. The word _metacentre_, too, has proved a stumbling-block to many people,