The Atlantic coast, being the most dangerous to shipping, is guarded by more than 175 stations; the Great Lakes require fifty or more to care for the survivors of the vessels that are yearly wrecked on their harbourless shores.  For the Gulf of Mexico eight are considered sufficient, and the long Pacific coast also requires but eight.

The Life-Saving Service, formerly under the Treasury Department, now an important part of the Department of Commerce and Labour, was organised by Sumner I. Kimball, who was put at its head in 1871, and the great success and glory it has won is largely due to his energy and efficient enthusiasm.

The Life-Saving Service publishes a report of work accomplished through the year.  It is a dry recital of facts and figures, but if the reader has a little imagination he can see the record of great deeds of heroism and self-sacrifice written between the lines.

As vessels labour through the wintry seas along our coasts, and the on-shore winds roar through the rigging, while the fog, mist or snow hangs like a curtain all around, it is surely a comfort to those at sea to know that all along the dangerous coast men specially trained, and equipped with the most efficient apparatus known, are always ready to stretch out a helping hand.

MOVING PICTURES

Some Strange Subjects and How They Were Taken

The grandstand of the Sheepshead Bay race-track, one spring afternoon, was packed solidly with people, and the broad, terra-cotta-coloured track was fenced in with a human wall near the judges’ stand.  The famous Suburban was to be run, and people flocked from every direction to see one of the greatest horse-races of the year.  While the band played gaily, and the shrill cries of programme venders punctuated the hum of the voices of the multitude, and while the stable boys walked their aristocratic charges, shrouded in blankets, exercising them sedately—­in the midst of all this movement, hubbub, and excitement a man a little to one side, apparently unconscious of all the uproar, was busy with a big box set up on a portable framework six or seven feet above the ground.  The man was a new kind of photographer, and his big box was a camera with which he purposed to take a series of pictures of the race.  Above the box, which was about two and a half feet square, was an electric motor from which ran a belt connecting with the inner mechanism; from the front of the box protruded the lens, its glassy eye so turned as to get a full sweep of the track; nearby on the ground were piled the storage batteries which were used to supply the current for the motor.

As the time for the race drew near the excitement increased, figures darted here, there and everywhere, the bobbing, brightly coloured hats of the women in the great slanting field of the grandstand suggesting bunches of flowers agitated by the breeze.  Then the horses paraded in a thoroughbred fashion, as if they appreciated their lengthy pedigrees and understood their importance.