Services seem to have been started between almost every two or three ports of the United Kingdom. The little wooden vessels were long-lived, and had some unique experiences owing to the venturesome characters of their captains, owners, or charterers. Provided the vessel would float and get along it seemed to be the opinion of its owners that it could go anywhere and carry anything. Thus a vessel built for river traffic was thought suitable for deep-sea work also. It is not surprising to find that many of the steamers changed hands frequently. They were renamed at every change, and the resulting confusion makes it difficult to trace their history. It seems fairly certain, however, that accidents were frequent, and it became necessary to devise means of carrying boats which would accommodate at least a considerable number of the passengers if necessary. Regulations as to the compulsory carriage of life-buoys, life-belts, rafts, floating seats, and other contrivances for supporting people in the water did not come into force until many years after. The sole means of safety in the early days of steam navigation were the boats and such wreckage as happened to float if the vessel sank or went to pieces. But most of the steamers were so small, and on their voyages so crowded, that they could not carry nearly as many boats as were required. The boats were generally carried on the tops of the paddle-boxes. A suggestion which was carried into effect, especially in some of the larger ocean-going steamers, was that the paddle-boxes should be built square and be detachable from the guards, so that if a disaster should befall the vessel they could be used as boats. This contrivance had numerous disadvantages, not the least of them being the unwieldiness of the paddle-boxes, and the difficulty of managing them when afloat. Another suggestion was that each steamer should carry two large boats of equal dimensions which could be used as the tops of the paddle-boxes. The main advantage claimed for this idea was that it would not add materially to the weight of the vessel. Captain George Smith, in the ’thirties, contrived a peculiarly shaped lifeboat which would fit over the paddle-wheels and take the place of the paddle-boxes, and might when occasion required be turned right side uppermost and launched outside the paddle-wheel. He tried this experiment on the steamer _Carron_. “The upper section,” he wrote, “of her paddle-wheel is covered by a lifeboat 25 feet long, 9 feet beam, and having four air-tight cases which may be removed if required on particular occasions. This lifeboat is capable of containing between forty and fifty persons. When in her place over the paddle-wheel the midship thwarts are unshipped, which admits of the wheel revolving within 6 inches of her keelson; she lies bottom upwards on two iron davits, which enable her to be turned over and lowered by six men in two or three minutes.”