Captain Boyton, as we anticipated in our last issue, succeeded
in his attempt to cross the Channel yesterday week from Cape Grimes to Dover, but he also succeeded in proving that his life-preserving apparatus, however cheaply it may be manufactured, will not serve any purpose in reducing the protection which the happy insu- lation of this country affords us. He was all but twenty- four hours,—twenty-four hours less by twenty-two minutes,— on the passage, and he himself acknowledged afterwards that having succeeded once, nothing should induce him ki> attempt the weary task again. The truth is, that without a personal locomotive engine, the Boyton dress is of very moderate use for locomotive purposes. Captain Boyton has, we believe, invented a locomotive for himself which he can work, but which, unfortU- nately, he cannot both work and steer at once ; and moving, without restraining the tendency to change the direction, is of very little use in this world, except for purposes of exercise. Still, to keep afloat and feed yourself in the sea for twenty-four hours would alone be a great achievement, to say nothing of making also a voyage of over twenty-one miles, lengthened out to many more by the influence of wind and tide.
Previous page
