The breeches-buoy, to which reference has been made, is a circular life-preserver of cork, to which short canvas breeches are attached, and will hold two persons. But when a large number of people are to be rescued, the life-car, invented by Joseph Francis and connected with the hawser by a simple device to prevent it from drifting, is used. This is a water-tight, covered boat of galvanized sheet iron and will carry five or six adults at a time. At its first trial more than two hundred persons were rescued from the wreck of the Ayrshire on the New Jersey coast, when no other means could have availed. Silks, jewels and other valuables have often been saved by its use and from one vessel the car took ashore a large sum of gold bullion belonging to the United States, together with the mails. On the lake and Pacific coasts, where the shores are steep and the water deep, the self-righting and self-bailing lifeboat is in general use. This, the best lifeboat yet devised, is the result of more than a century of study and experiment, following the first model designed in 1780 by an English coachman, Lionel Lukin. It possesses great stability, is rarely upset, and when this happens instantly rights itself, while when full of water it empties itself in from fifteen to twenty seconds. The work of the life-savers seldom ends with the rescue. After all have been brought ashore from a wreck, the benumbed and helpless sufferers are quickly conveyed to the station-house, transferred for the moment into a hospital, where an abundance of dry clothing is instantly applied; the prostrated ones put to bed; lint, plasters and bandages supplied to the bruised and wounded, and stimulants from the medicine chest, never absent from any station, given to those who need them. At the same time the mess-cook prepares and serves out hot coffee alike to rescued and rescuers. When this has been partaken of, the keeper assigns a portion of the crew to look after the needs of the strangers and the others retire to rest until called to relieve the patrol.