In regard to the use of oil on rough seas, he said that Dr. Badeley in 1857, Mr. John Shields five years ago at Peterhead and last year at Folkestone, the Board of Trade in 1883, and a committee on life saving appliances of the United States had made experiments.  The conclusions of the committee were that in deep water oil had a calming effect upon a rough sea, but there was nothing in either source of information which yet answered the question whether or not there is in the force exerted by the wind a point beyond which oil cannot counteract its influence in causing the sea to break.  He thought it appeared that oil had some utility on tidal bars; on wrecks, to facilitate the operations of rescue; on lifeboats and on lifebuoys.  In regard to icebergs, he thought the possibility of obtaining an echo from an iceberg when in dangerous proximity to a ship should be tried.  He advocated the use of automatic sprinklers in the case of fire, the establishment of parabolic reflectors for concentration of sound, and the further prosecution of experiments by Professor Bell in establishing communication between vessels some distance apart by means of interrupted electrical currents.  The improvement of navigation, he said, meant an international code of police to improve police rules of navigation; an international code of universal telegraphy for navigation; an international office of meteorology and navigation to collect the studies; experiments on the weather, on the sea, on the casualties; and the discovery by experiment of new apparatus and appliances to diminish maritime disaster.

He had called the attention of two governments to this matter, and he hoped that before long there would be proposed an international congress—­such as the postal, telegraph, and sanitary congresses, and the international convention to fix the common meridian—­by one of the maritime powers, by which would be founded an international institution to diminish casualties at sea.  He recommended a universal system of buoys.  The great losses of life and property every year were worthy the devotion of L300,000 by an international institution, which would be much less than the monthly average loss in navigation.

Admiral Pim said that ships were improperly built—­some were ten times longer than their beam.  There was nothing in the world so ticklish as a ship; touch her in the waist, and down she goes.  He believed sailing ships ought not to exceed four times their beam, and steamers certainly not more than six times.  He pointed out that a fruitful cause of accidents was the stopping of steaming all at once in the case of impending collision, by which the rudder lost control of the vessel.  If constructors looked more to the form of the ships, and got them to steer better, collisions would be avoided.