and it is a very common error to suppose that it is the point about which the ship rolls. So far from this being the case, that a ship really does not roll about any fixed axis whatever, it is only in scientific language that she can be said to roll about an axis at all, the axis being an instantaneous one, that is, one which is constantly changing. In the case of ships whose cargoes are badly stowed, so that as the ship rolls the cargo shifts, stability, or righting force, is largely diminished, and there is thus little or no tendency to return to the upright, the ship rolling, as it were, lifelessly about at the mercy of the waves. Water-logged ships afford another illustration of the same state of things, but in these cases the evil is aggravated, as the water moves so freely that a _momentum_ is acquired which holds the ship back even when the waves have a tendency to restore her to the upright. We are not in a position to estimate the proportion of losses at sea which are caused by bad stowage; it is, without doubt, considerable, and when we remember how comparatively small a difference in the disposition of the cargo will affect the behaviour of the ship at sea, we are inclined to think that as many losses may be put down to this cause as to overloading. We must not be understood now to refer to loose, imperfect stowage, though that is the cause of great evil, but to improper disposition of the weight. This can only be remedied by the more general diffusion and appreciation of scientific knowledge; ignorance and carelessness, not greed, are the chief causes of mischief in these cases. So far as the question of stability is concerned, steamers require less freeboard than sailing ships; strong ships less than weak ones, and it is even possible to have a prescribed freeboard, according to rule, and yet such conditions of stowage that the ship would be safer if immersed deeper.” One of the witnesses for the defence stated that the _Alert’s_ displacement, with everything on board except cargo, was 312 tons, and that her surplus buoyancy was 400 tons. Assuming this statement as correct, then by adding 44 tons—the weight of the cargo said to have been on board during the fatal voyage—I find the total displacement to have been 356 tons. This leaves the surplus buoyancy to be exactly 100 per cent. or half of the whole. If this were really the case, and in addition the ship trimmed heavily by the stern, need there be any wonder why, when the ship rolled her lee bulwarks under water, she was unable to rise to an upright position? APPLICATION FOR A NEW TRIAL. “The law is a sort of _hocus-pocus_ science that smiles in yer face while it picks yer pocket, and the glorious uncertainty of it is of mair use to the professors than the justice of it.” —_Macklin._ “Law was made for property alone.” —_Macaulay._