of all the steamers were searched, I believe the result would be a list in which the ships that had not been aground would form the exceptions, and, in the majority of cases, the blunder is so gross, that the most far-fetched excuses of errors of compass and unknown currents, although in well-known channels, are obliged to be invented. The real explanation is a simple one. Ships are navigated with far too reckless a confidence in the mere personal instinct and skill of those in command, and in their ability to get out of a scrape in time. Methodical systems and mechanical means of ensuring accuracy are far too much neglected, or rather have not kept pace at all with the great improvements in speed and the power of locomotion which science has introduced, whether in the construction of steam vessels or even of sailing ships, and which the advance of the day now calls for. There are no means at present used of taking soundings worth having while a ship is going fast through the water, or in time to be of any use if the soundings shoal rapidly; the trouble is so great and the operation so slow that it is not resorted to sufficiently often. The steering by compass is so rough and so coarse, that no real accuracy is attained. Good observations to determine position are taken at too long intervals of distance run, and consequently are subject to be interrupted for too long a period by what is called and supposed to be continual bad weather; although it would rarely happen, if persons were continually on the watch, who had nothing else to do or to think of, that twenty-four hours would pass without some glimpses of a star or of the sun. Thus with a speed of ten or fifteen knots, and cloudy weather, and, above all, with that unfortunate confidence of seamen to which I have referred, there is never any certainty just at the time when it is really required. No doubt, skilful seamen do generally arrive at an astonishing approximation in their estimates, and the results on the average are most successful, and remarkable proofs of the skill brought into action. But the instrumental means of attaining accuracy are lamentably in rear of the improvements that have been made in the means of locomotion, and have not at all kept pace with the vast increase of capital embarked in each individual case.