Closely connected with the question of imperfect charts, is the state of the lights, buoys, and beacons around the coast--those fixed and floating sentinels set around the island to guide and direct the weather-beaten mariner. A few years ago we should have had to bewail our shortcomings in the number of these aids to navigation, and have had to point to them as prominent causes of shipwreck. The report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Lighthouses, in 1845, shows the want that then existed, not only on the coasts of Scotland and Ireland, but even at the entrance of the River Thames. Much, however, has recently been done. It appears, from the address of the Prince Consort, at the annual Trinity House dinner, that 77 lighthouses, 32 floating light-vessels, and 420 buoys and beacons, under charge of the corporation, are now distributed around the coasts of England alone. Great praise is due to the elder brethren of the Trinity House for their care in lighting the Prince's Channel, and especially for their admirable works now in course of construction under Mr. James Walker, C.E.; among which we may instance the new lighthouses at the Needles, at Whitby, and at St. Ives, the light-tower on the Bishop Rock, off Scilly, and on the Smalls off Pembroke. In Scotland, also, several new lights have been established; and some of the buoys have been coloured on a systematic plan--red buoys being placed on the starboard hand, and black buoys on the port hand, on entering a harbour from seaward, according to the mode adopted in France, Belgium, and Holland. This system, however, presents difficulties where there are several channels, as at the mouth of the Thames; but there are many places in which it might be applied with advantage. At present, we believe, the river Tees is buoyed on exactly the reverse plan; and in some of the large ports of the kingdom a local scheme is adopted, which completely closes the navigation to all but the local pilots, for whose special advantage this secret system appears to be maintained. The adversaries of a simple and uniform method of buoying the coast do, indeed, urge that it would put the key of our harbours into the hands of our enemies; but this argument is so puerile that it is hardly worth notice. If we cannot maintain the integrity of our waters by force, we certainly shall never maintain it by cunning.