Strange to say, these dismal finger-posts to marine disasters are generally found grouped around the sites of lighthouses. If we analyze the chart for the year 1857, we perceive at a glance the relative dangers of the three seaboards of triangular England, and that a fatal pre-eminence is given to the East coast. Out of a total of 1,143 wrecks and casualties which took place in this year, no less than 600, or more than one-half, occurred between Dungeness and Pentland Frith. Along this perilous sea, beset with sands, shoals, and rocky headlands, no less than 150,000 vessels pass annually, the greater part ill-constructed, deeply-laden colliers, such as we see in the Pool, and wonder how they manage to survive a gale of wind. The South coast, extending from Dungeness to the Land's End, is comparatively safe, only 84 wrecks having taken place in 1847; whilst from the Land's End to Greenock, where the influence of the Atlantic gales is most sensibly felt, the numbers rise again to 286, and the Irish coast contributes a total of 173. If we take a more extended view of these disastrous occurrences by opening the wreck chart attached to the evidence of the select committee on harbours of refuge, given in 1857, containing the casualties of five years from 1852 to 1856, both inclusive, we shall be better able to analyze their causes. Within this period no less than 5,128 wrecks and collisions took place, being an average of 1,025 a year. According to the evidence of Captain Washington, R.N., the scientific and indefatigable hydrographer of the Admiralty, these casualties consisted of Vessels. Total losses by stranding or otherwise 1,940 " " collisions 244 Serious damage having to discharge 2,401 Collisions with serious damage 543 ----- 5,128 The total losses from all causes, therefore, amounted to 2,184 vessels, or to an average of nearly 437 in each year. The destruction of life consequent upon these casualties was 4,148 persons, or, upon the average of five years, nearly 830 in each year. In 1854 no fewer than 1,549 persons were drowned. How such a calamity should have been so long tolerated in a civilized country, without any proper attempt at a remedy, it is not easy to comprehend. Still more incomprehensible, in a trading country, is the apparent disregard of the pecuniary sacrifice. It appears in evidence that the loss by total wrecks is estimated at 1,000,000_l._ a year at least, and by other casualties at 500,000_l._, making together 1,500,000_l._ as the annual loss to the country from the accidents on our own coasts--a sum which in two years would be ample to build all the harbours of refuge that are needed around our shores.