While a vessel’s qualities with respect to stability may be determined with great precision by the naval architect, his investigations are only directly applicable to the ship while empty or when in certain assumed conditions of loading which may or may not often occur in actual service. He cannot for obvious reasons estimate, far less control, the amounts and positions of centre of gravity of the various items of weight that may make up the loading.[19] This aspect of the subject has received attention at the hands of naval architects for a considerable time, but the forcible way in which it has been brought under view by recent experience has resulted in special efforts being made to practically meet the necessities of the case. In 1877 Mr William John read a paper before the Institution of Naval Architects, in which he dealt with the effect of stowage on the stability of vessels, and since that time such authorities as Martell, White, and Denny have given valuable papers or made suggestive comments bearing on this important matter. Much has also been done by several builders in the way of devising diagrams useful for regulating stowage and manipulating ballast with regard to initial stability. At the last meeting of the Institution, Professor Elgar read a paper on “The Use of Stability Calculations in Regulating the Loading of Steamers,” distinguished by its eminently practical character, and forming an important contribution to the solution of this problem. The author disapproved of curves of stability being supplied with vessels, as had been advised and was then becoming the practice. General notes, giving in a simple form easily applied in daily practice, particulars respecting the character of a ship’s stability in different conditions, are what the author recommended and had found through actual experience to meet the case most effectually. In the discussion which followed it was intimated by Mr William Denny that his firm had already resolved to furnish every new steamer produced by them with a volume containing general and special notes and diagrams dealing not only with stability but with several other important technical properties (see footnote, page 59). After consultation with Professor Elgar, however, he had abandoned his intention of supplying stability curves.