The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-04-11 00:00:00

NEW CODE OF SIGNALS.

The Board of Trade could not have performed a
mor e useful and acceptable service to the mercan-
nations, than when it undertook an investigation
of the means of improving the mode of signalising
between ships at sea.
The defects had long been patent and palpable,'
for all the signal codes in use appear to have been
designated and perpetuated upon the vicious
principle of numerals, which, confined to ten digits
only, made it necessary to provide either duplicate
flags or substitutes, to represent those already
used in a signal, and also confined the range of
which four flags are capable, even with the aid of
these substitutes, to 9,999 separate signals,—a
number totally insufficient to effect what is
necessary

Hence means were obliged to be a lopted to
repeat this number of 9,999 in several divisions by
the exhibition of class or index flags, to denote the
divisions referred to, hoisted over or under the
signal, or at some other masthead; the conse-
quence of which was that what with the care neces-
sary for placing the substitutes in their proper
positions of distinguishing the index flag, and the
rules and complications involved, signalizing was
but seldom resorted to, and many desirable °ppm..
trinities of communicating at sea declined on
account of the difficulty of adjusting and decipher-
ing these combinations.
It is remarkable that the late Captain Marryatt,
a highly intelligent officer, who published a code
of signals about thirty years ago, should have
adhered to the numeral system, not only on account
of those complications of which he must have been
aware, but because the late Sir Home Popham had
at the close of the war (in 1816) amended this
defect in his Telegraphic Vocabulary, used in the
Royal Navy, by the introduction of flags distin-
guished by alphabetical letters, so as to enable him,
by the increased number of permutations made
available by a larger number of digits than the ten
numerals afforded, to increase the scope of his
vocabulary.

The advantage of this course is palpable ; for
we find that whereas in the numeral plan seventeen
or eighteen symbols are required to express the
ten digits, with the necessary adjuncts of telegraph,
numeral, geographical, and other sectional flags,
contingent on that system, and involving a display
of five or more symbols to express one signal,
by giving to eighteen flags independent significa-
tions, such as letters of the alphabet, their per-
mutations will prod uoe no less than 78,042 separate
signals, and that without a necessity for exhibiting
more than four in any one signal.
The substitution of letters for numeral figures,
in designating the eighteen flags used in the code
authorised by the board of trade, is not the only
improvement. Being divided into two parts, the
messages in the first intimated by three, and those
in the second by four flags, a means of inter-
national communication is made available.

The first part is composed of the messages,
words, geographical names, latitude, longitude,
compass signals, Sze, which forms the substance of
all signal books, expressed without reference to
alphabetical arrangement. These are classed into
subjects, and every signal is intimated by the same
letters placed against it. In all languages the
signal will have the same meaning, and it can be
made known either by the same or corresponding
flags adopted by previous arrangement.
The second part comprises a more extensive
vocabulary, and the words being placed in alpha-
betical succession, it is applicable to national
use only. or to nations such as England and
America, using the same language. This forms
also an index to the first part, for all the signals
therein are enumerated in the second part, with
the two or three letters which denote them, and
can therefore be readily referred to.
There are other advantages, such as the intima-
tion of the nature of a signal by the shape of the
uppermost flag ; but the most important feature is
the means which the vast scope of this code
affords of giving to every individual vessel a dis-
tinctive signal, by the exhibition of which its
identity can be made known and
concisely con
veyed by letter or by electric telegraph, in order
to be . correctly reported in the shipping lists.
The preparation and maintenance of a list
of 40,000 or 50,000 merchant vessels, reiiders
necessary a separate book which containsthisand
other matter interesting to nautical persons, and is
publisl-pd annually under the title of The Mercantile
Nary List. There are
o also monthly
supplied
pl)li
e supplements
with
to proclaim the names f vessels
distinctive signals in the interval between the

r yearly publication of the book, in which they
becorne eventually incorporated. An alphabetical
index, available for reference to any particular
vessel, the distinctive signal of which it is wished
to ascertain, adds greatly to the utility of the
scheme.

These books with thecsupplements will be placed
in ships of war, Coast Guard Stations, and all
Government departments. They will also be sup-
plied by shipping masters in every port to captains
of vessels when making arrangements for a
voyage; and owners of ships should Provide the
four particular flags which signify a vessels name,
and make it imperative that they shall be hoisted
whenever opportunity offers.