The yachts of those days were round-headed things, of about three beams in length, in most cases innocent of metal ballast, and kept on their feet by gravel or by iron ore. What little racing there might have been was confined to scratch matches between the owners, and time allowance for tonnage was not thought of, though doubtless the tonnage rule as then used for the merchant shipping of the country was recognised as a useful measure for the purchase and sale of these vessels. Racing became commoner; soon more than two yachts came together to try conclusions, and it was presently discovered by some astute yachtsman that a good big ship, other things being the same, was faster than a good little ship, and therefore, where their purses admitted of it, owners built yachts as large as could be handled. 'Arrow,' 84 tons; 'Lulworth,' 82 tons; 'Alarm,' 193 tons; and 'Louisa,' 180 tons, were the crack cutters on the Solent about forty-five years ago, and, as may be well understood, little boats had a very poor chance with these giants, except perhaps in light and fluky weather. Mr. Holland-Ackers called attention to this fact, and proposed a table of time allowances between large and smaller yachts based on the length of the course and the difference of size between the vessels. The measure of this size was the tonnage, as ascertained by the then tonnage law of the land, which had been in force since 1794, or rather a slight modification of this rule, adapted to the peculiar form of yachts. In this, 'the old 94 rule,' as it was called, only length of keel and breadth were taken into account, the depth being assumed as half the breadth. Breadth was thus penalised twice over in the formula, and perhaps the most extraordinary fact in connection with this rule is, that it was in force for years before it seems to have occurred to our yacht-builders that a success was to be made by increasing those dimensions which were untaxed, or only moderately taxed, and reducing the beam which was taxed twice over. This is all the more remarkable, as builders of the mercantile marine seem to have caught this point much earlier, and were building vessels with enormously increased depth and reduced beam, though it is true the slowness of these ships did not invite imitation, as the American clipper ships, built under a fairer tonnage law, were rapidly sailing them off the seas. Happily, in 1854 the law was changed for the present method of measurement by internal cubic capacity, and the genius of our shipbuilders, thus left unfettered, was equal to the task of regaining our supremacy on the ocean.