The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-05-17 00:00:00

REVIEW OF THE THINGS SHOWN.

If we are placed in such a remarkable collection of ob-
jects as that congregated in the Irish Industrial Exhibition.
it is not to be wondered at if, without a catalogue of any
description, and in the bustle of the opening week and the
pressure of preparation, we are able to supply but a very
imperfect outline of the leading features in the Merrion-
square palace. The difficulties in accomplishing our task
efficiently consequent on the absence of an official cata-
logue, has not unfortunately been remedied to any extent
by the Dublin press, whose anticipatory notes about the
Exhibition and its contents, have been exceedingly brief.
We shall endeavour, in the course of our review, to notice
at greater length the goods from Lancashire, and those
objects which are of especial interest to Liverpool.
On ascending the South Gallery, the first object that
meets the view is the beautiful model steamer by Mr.
Clarke, jun., of the City of Dublin Steam-packet Company,
a lengthened notice of which has already been published in
the Liverpool Standard. By its side we observe a work-
ing model of the Fareham Life-boat. The increasing
necessity of providing seagoing steamers, passenger ves-
sels, and ships in general, with more adequate means of
escape from the awful catastrophes of fire and shipwreck,
is become so palpable and urgent, that we hail with delight
the appearance in the Exhibition of this Life-boat, in-
vented and patented by the Rev. E. L. Beethom, of Fare-
ham, Hampshire. The great difficulty has hitherto been
—How to stow enough of good and serviceable boats,
always ready in an instant, to carry all the passengers and
crew of the ocean steamer, or densely crowded emigrant
vessel or troop-ship, without hampering decks or quarters.
Now the Fareham Life-boat, possessing as it does all the
first-rate qualities of a sea-boot, in sailing and rowing in-
ferior to none, removes the above difficulty entirely; ready
for sea more quickly than any other, it combines buoyancy,
capacity, strength, and insubmergibility in the highest
perfection. We present the following outline of its con-
struction, earnestly recommending it to careful inspection,
particularly of shipowners and steampacket companies.
The frame is composed of keelson, stern, and stern-posts,
in one, and eight other longitudinal timbers, which are
all jointed together by a kind of chain-hinge at the ends.
These timbers are deep and thin, and have attached to
their edges two complete skins of a very strong water-
proofed double canvass, so that when open, these timbers
stand out in radiating planes, and extend the outer and
inner skins in the most perfect form of an elegant boat;
and when closed, the timbers drop down vertically into
the position of parallel planes, the skins folding in between
them. The expansion is effected thus : conceive the boat
frapped to against the ship's bulwarks outside, in a little
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thwarts or seats, bottom boards, oars, masts, and sails all
ready. In the moment of expansion, a large volume of
air is drawn in through two apertures into its eight sepa-
rate compartments, which are comprised between the
timbers and the skins ; a boat, 30 ft. by 10, (of which the
one in the Exhibition is a model,) takes in not less than
320 cubic feet of air in one sudden and violent inspiration.
For a small, and far less perfect, model, exhibited in the
Crystal Palace, in 1851, a prize medal was awarded to the
inventor; and since then, a large boat on this construc-
tion, which carries forty persons, has been put to the
severest tests, in all weathers, both in the open sea and
in coast-work, with the most perfect success. The price
of these boats will be small, as compared with others.
Particular attention should be paid also to the very simple
and most efficient contrivance for lowering boats, appli-
cable to all kinds, which is shown in a working state, upon
the section of a ship's side, to which the model is suspended.
One of the most prominent objects of the demonstration
on Leinster Lawn is to exhibit the present state of the
various departments of industry, and the comparative
degree of perfection that has been attained in different
countries. And one of the most prominent advantages
connected with it is its size. It may be said with truth