Mr. Bessemer is said to be likely to crown a
life crowded with original inventions by one of the mast beneficent of human achievements. He has invented, it is said, an apparatus for keep- ing the saloon of a steamer immovable, however strongly the steamer herself may pitch and roll. The general principle is to. suspend the saloon on an axis passing through the centre about which the ship oscillates, and which consequently, though not abso- lutely immovable, is liable to very little movement itself. But to this- Mr. Bessemer adds an application of one of his own previously in- vented hydraulic_powers, by which a lad with his eye fixed on a spirit- level attached to the saloon, to see whether its level is changing (v- ita, can by the mere tarn of a handle restore it tea perfectly hori- zontal line, before it has deviated from it by the smallest fraction of a degree. We are further told that Mr. E. J. Reed, the former Constructor of the Navy, is building two vessels 350 feet long with suspended saloons constructed on this principle, for' the Channel service. The notion is delightful; but there is a certain amount of alloy in the conception of that lad who, if mischievously inclined, can, almost by the turning of his handle, inflict on the saloon an artificial motion that will produce sea-sick- ness. It is humiliating enough to be sickened by the sea, but to. be liable to sea-sickness artificially produced by the minder of a. machine, would be truly ignominious. However, all civilisation, we suppose, means putting oneself at the mercy of fellow-creatures- -often not the most responsible.
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