Admiral Pim said that ships were improperly built--some were ten times longer than their beam. There was nothing in the world so ticklish as a ship; touch her in the waist, and down she goes. He believed sailing ships ought not to exceed four times their beam, and steamers certainly not more than six times. He pointed out that a fruitful cause of accidents was the stopping of steaming all at once in the case of impending collision, by which the rudder lost control of the vessel. If constructors looked more to the form of the ships, and got them to steer better, collisions would be avoided. The Lord Advocate said it had always occurred to him that one great secret of collisions at sea was the present system of lights, which made it impossible for the vessel at once to inform another vessel what it was about. The method of signaling was very crude, and he ventured to say that it was quite out of date when vessels met each other at a rate of speed of 24 to 25 knots. He had, as an amateur, tried a method which he would attempt to explain. His idea was to fit up a lantern on deck, showing an electric light. The instrument would be controlled by the rudder, and the commanding officer of the vessel would be able so to turn it when the helm was put up or down that the light would flash at some distance in front of either bow of the vessel, and thus be a signal to a vessel coming in an opposite direction. When the helm was amidships, the light was shown straight ahead, and could not be moved until the helm was shifted. The direction in which the vessel was going could not by any possibility be mistaken, and it was plain that if the lights from two ships crossed each other, then there was danger. If the lights were clear of each other, then the ships would pass safely. Sir James Douglass asked if his Lordship had made any experiments. The Lord Advocate said he had not. The Board of Trade had such a number of inventions on this subject on hand that he supposed they were already disgusted. Besides, he was only an amateur, and left the carrying out of the suggestion to others. Sir James Douglass said this idea of a lantern did very well for a short distance, but for a long distance it utterly failed. It was very difficult to realize a movement from a distance of over a mile out to sea, and signals were required to be visible for from two to three miles. The Lord Advocate said his idea depended not upon the object light, but upon the sweep of the light on the water.