Many fatal accidents have happened to life-boats; and the details of some mentioned by the lecturer are peculiar and interesting. On the coast of Northumberland, in 1810, one of Greathead's boats, after saving several crews of fishing-cobles, was returning to the shore, when a heavy sea overwhelmed her, and by its sheer weight and force broke her in two, and the whole of the crew, thirty-four in number, perished. In 1820, Greathead's original life-boat, after saving the crew of the ship _Grafton_, at Shields, struck on a rock, and swamped; nevertheless, the brave old boat--although she had not the boasted power of self-righting--preserved her centre of gravity, and brought both crews to land. At Scarborough, in 1836, the life-boat, in going out to a vessel, turned completely end over end, 'shutting up one of the crew inside, where he remained in safety, getting fresh air through the tubes in the bottom, and was taken out when the boat drifted, bottom upwards, on the beach: ten lives were lost.' In 1841, the life-boat at Blyth, Northumberland, capsized, and ten men were drowned. At Robin Hood's Bay, Yorkshire, in 1843, the life-boat capsized, three men remaining under her bottom, while others got upon it. The accident was seen from the shore, and five men put off in a coble, fitted with air-cases like a life-boat; but she almost immediately turned end over end, and two men were drowned. The life-boat herself drifted ashore, and the three men under her bottom were saved. In all, twelve lives were lost. But the most lamentable disaster that ever befell a life-boat was at South Shields, on December 4, 1849, when twenty-four men, all pilots, went off to rescue the crew of the _Betsy_, stranded on Herd Sand. 'The boat had reached the wreck, and was lying alongside with her head to the eastward, with a rope fast to the quarter, but the bow-fast not secured. The shipwrecked men were about to descend into the life-boat, when a heavy knot of sea, recoiling from the bow of the vessel, caught the bow of the boat and turned her up on end, throwing the whole crew and the water into the stern-sheets. The bow-fast not holding, the boat drove in this position astern of the vessel, when the ebb-tide, running rapidly into her stern, the boat completely turned end over end, and went on shore bottom up. On this occasion, twenty out of twenty-four--or double the proper crew--were drowned under the boat. On seeing the accident, two other life-boats immediately dashed off from North and South Shields, saved four of the men, and rescued the crew of the _Betsy_.' It is added, that the life-boats have been in constant use at Shields since Greathead first launched his boat there in 1790, and excepting the above accident, no life has ever been lost in them, or from want of them. Between 1841 and 1849, they saved 466 lives. But good is frequently educed from evil, and it was this very disaster at Shields that induced the Duke of Northumberland to offer a