to say, quite as many of the ocean-trading steamers being built are fitted with cellular bottoms as are without them. The adaptation of water ballast to sailing vessels, as well as to steamers, has received consideration at the hands of both Tyne and Clyde builders. Previous to 1877, several small sailing ships were built on the Tyne, in which provision was made for water ballast in tanks entering into the structure of the bottom, but erected over the ordinary plate floors. About 150 tons of water ballast were carried by these vessels, the filling and discharge of the tanks being effected by Downton’s pumps, worked by the crew. The trade in which they were engaged—_i.e._—carrying coal from the Tyne to Spanish ports, and back to this country with ore—was one in which the introduction of water ballast proved commercially and otherwise most advantageous. Two years subsequently Messrs A. M‘Millan & Son, Dumbarton, introduced water ballast into one of the largest class of sailing vessels then being built. Unlike previous sailing ships with provision for water ballast, however, the vessel was constructed on the structural cellular bottom principle, having bracket floors and continuous girders, as so generally approved in steamships. Capacity for water ballast, to the extent of over 300 tons was thus provided, the filling and discharge being effected by a special donkey engine, supplied with steam from a large donkey boiler. The boiler also furnished the motive power for cargo winches, off which, by crank gear, the manual labour pumps were also brought into requisition. Facilities for the expeditious management of ballast—the want of which, in sailing vessels, considerably hinders its adoption—were thus, in this case, efficiently provided. Several other sailing ships, built by Messrs A. M‘Millan & Son, and by other shipbuilding firms on the Clyde, have been fitted with this system, and the result of experience with these vessels in actual service, thoroughly encourages its more general adoption. * * * * *